Alright, I went to the trouble of reading through the whole board, and it's 2.30 AM, so I might as well throw in my 2 cents worth.
I'm 18 years old, and I've been playing games since I can remember. MMO's not so long, but I still remember that horrible noise the internet made when you had to connect to it. Anyways, being a younger member of the MMO community, I feel I aggree with most of the things posted by the OP, even though I'm not sure what he means specifically, I get what he means in a broader sense.
My experience with WOW is very short lived, I downloaded the client and set up a private server, and just decided to play the game by myself. I mucked around with it for about a week and then quite disgusted by what kind of content was included, (I also played the trial, and felt that my experiences where not much different.) The whole game I think could be played with minimal contact to other players, similar to the lobby mentality mentioned earlier, and I definately didn't get much interaction or help on my trial account. It was just mission after mission after mission. Seriously, is this what MMO's have become? Raids I imagine are just an extension of this - worse even, if the drop rates are 2%.
Grinding is basically what it had become. I played Maple Story for a time, a those of you who are familiar with it will know that it requires a shitload of grinding. You basically grind, and every 10 levels you get a new set of gear. Thats it. That was pretty much the whole game. The only thing that kept me going was at the time (Yr 10 lol), a bunch of my friends were playing it too and I would do PQ's with them and muck around grinding together. Now I look back at it and I realise how sad we were. I mean seriously, spending cash at the cash shop for a x2 EXP multiplier so you would be Cemented into a position of (You HAVE to grind for 24 hours or you won't get your money's worth.). Evetually I quit at, get this, lvl 59 or 69 (Can't remember exactly) but I do remember I had 98% EXP to the next level, which was third job advancement, and had just spent 50mil on a helm. I just quit. Never logged back in too it. And now the haunting melodies of System of a Down and Dragonforce will forever remind me of that shitty game as that was what I had playing in the background 100% of the time.
Over the course of these years I've played many types of games, most types I'd venture to say, and I must say I do like a challenge. Waiting for an MMO that fulfills my dreams is probably never going to happen, and I imagine that everyone has their own idea of their dream MMO.
Sadly, I do belive that business is driving out creativity from game development. Which I think is the driving force behind all the complaning. When it all comes down to it.
Other experiences I've had are Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, which is actually quite ingenious in the way it sets out it's goals and advancment. The game does have it's problems, like all games do, but I found when I played it that it meant a lot more to be part of a crew, and it meant a lot more to be part of someone else's experience playing the game. The first game I ever made an online friend in, and it was the most unlikely friendship I had ever had. Away from that aspect, the main point of the game is how it works, it's many minigames are the meat on the bone, and it's pretty easy to experience the majority of content in the first few months of playing.
I still come back to it every now and then for a sail, and laugh as people are suprised to see a toon with deteriorated stats pulling Incredibles in the duty report.
From these I then went on a skip hop tour, visiting many free MMO's and found them all similar and quite lacking. I then stumbled upon EVE online and I was intrigued. After about a month of playing I discovered that it would take me a lot longer to understand even a fraction of what was heppening around me. The scope still overwhelms me, and the potential is there. It truly is a Sandbox experience. However, when I first joined I was to young, and to naive to appreciated and understand what EVE offered. After getting furstrated with the game, as I was not progressing anywhere, I quite after two months, and like is my tradition, I never give my stuff away, in case I come back to it. XD
Anyways, two years later, and I've come back to it. And I seem to understand a lot more about the direction the game is going in and the point of it all. I may not have the same experiences as someone who has been playing for years, but I know enough to appreciated it for what it is, and what it's not.
I think that's when it all starts to boil down, in the end it's just a game. The type of game we want to play is different for each person. I sitll have ideas in my head for games I'd like to see happen. Even though they probably won't, and even if they are shit ideas nobody in their right mind would play, I will still like them. The debate about sanbox vets to stop complaining I think is an irrelevant one, as it's not just these people that are complaining. I am complaining too lol. The MMO market has changed, it caters for the "average gamer" and the "average gamer" has changed dramatically over the years. I beleive "average game" is synonymous with the the term "casual gamer", and thats just not what we are. We are not in any way shape or form a casual gamar, content to sit on what's been given to us, or to complain about changes to a limited world. I always look at the bigger scope of things, I don't complain when some stupid skill gets a nerf, I just trust the developers know what their doing, and when the games stops being "Fun" form me, I'll quit, regardless of what happens after.
I'm always looking for a challenge or something different, strategy is a huge plus for me, player devised strategy is is even better, probably one of the reasons I was drawn to EVE, but away from MMO's there are so many good ideas and concepts even just in single player games that could be converted into MMO's that are vastly different to what's on the market currently. Innovation might be a word beaten to death by the major developing companies, but they have lost the ture meaning of the word. True innovation is rarely seen in games today.
Sometimes I think I should be studying games design or something, the way I analyse everything, each game has potential, they just need to think outside the box, which many arn't doing. The new FF looks the same to me. Nothing much has changed when compared to games already on the market. Even FFXIII was a huge disapointment and I find that I'm getting much less time and pleasure out of games now. It might be that I'm just growing up, but one thing is always growing, and it's my thirst for new games and ideas. For some reasons I'm always looking for new ideas and new games to try. Not long ago I bought 5 games for PS3 in one go. (It needed some love) and I had a great time on them, each has it's flaws and I like some better then others but that's just personal taste. When w'ere talking about MMO's I think everyone falls into a niche. I beleive I'm a hardcore gammer, though I might not be otherwise. Which leads me to beleive that there must be others out there that share my interests. And if this is the case, then there must still be others that share those interests, and as long as there are people that have those interests, there is a market to be tapped into, and a market for developers to create games to cater for those markets, it's really up to the developers to create the games.
I think I will never really rest untill I become a games designer or something because every single game I've played recently just feels so constricting. The term sandbox refers more to the mechanics of a game and how, as in a physical sandbox, the user is entertained by their ability to play creatively, boundless of artificial structural constraints, and with there being no right way of playing the game. By refering to this description of the term "Sanbox" I realize that no game is a true Sanbox, no matter how much it might seem like it. And that if a game was ture sandbox, then it wouldn't actually be any fun, because everything would be meaningless.
Anyways, thats my two cents, however, I think it might be more like $20.00. Kudo's to anyone who can be bothered reading it (I hope someone does) and I'm sorry I don't have a TL,DR. I don't think even I understandeverything I meant in it.
Grinding mobs for XP/skill or grinding quests... it's all really the same.
Grinding mobs in a party for skill/xp or grinding instanced dungeons in a party - all the same.
Grinding/camping raid bosses or grinding raid instances - all the same.
Even grinding "points" in PvP or grinding ratings or grinding reputations... all the same.
I agree that we do need something new.
Right now our future options are either supposedly "dynamic" public quests via Guild Wars 2 or true story via The Old Republic.
Any other options?
I guess you could say dynamic PvP via Darkfall or EvE or something, but those games also include a great deal of grinding for xp/skills or grinding for isk...
And the old farts will rally around Ghost and reminisce about the good ol' days while yelling at the stupid new kids to get off their lawns. Enjoy yourselves!
Not all the older gamers feel this way trust me. I cringe when I read most so called Vet posts.
Same here. Personally, I think MMOs are getting better.
That's why I seldom deal with mmorpg.com it really isn't the mods fault it just seems the old and bitter flock here. I tend to stick to blogs like We Fly Spitfires, companyofthewolf.org and Grouchy gamer. They all pretty much see the disgruntleld demographic as the joke of the genre. Which automatically makes them SOE shills in the lunatic fringes book.
Grinding mobs for XP/skill or grinding quests... it's all really the same.
Except that when grinding mobs, you explored where you and your friends wanted to, not where the linear quest hubs led you, and you were more inclined to TALK to the people you were grouped with, rather than just follow a dotted line, killing a boss mob, and disbanding once you didn't need eachother.
Grinding mobs in a party for skill/xp or grinding instanced dungeons in a party - all the same.
Again, not the same. Mostly for the reasons above. But uninstanced dungeons allowed you to put together groups much more easily, and you were able to interact with the people around you, socialize, talk to them, you know, that whole online part of the game.
Grinding/camping raid bosses or grinding raid instances - all the same.
Only ONE game out of all the old MMOs had camping raid bosses, and it was a terrible game mechanic that WoW didn't only make worse, but popularized. When there is nothing to do in a game but get loot, camping/grinding raids will occur. Most old MMOs were deep enough so that even without instances, raid bosses weren't camped, because they were done for fun once in a while.
Even grinding "points" in PvP or grinding ratings or grinding reputations... all the same.
WoW battlegrounds having people play FPS rounds against eachother for "kills" and "points" is not the same as having a persistant roundless battleground where there were actual real time objectives to defend and assault, and that had an outcome on the world outside of said battleground. And, while you were doing this, you were getting experience as well as realm points, while gaining benefits for your entire realm.
I agree that we do need something new.
Right now our future options are either supposedly "dynamic" public quests via Guild Wars 2 or true story via The Old Republic.
Any other options?
So the options are between a single player game with a linear instanced story, or an actual game world... I think I know what I'm picking.
I guess you could say dynamic PvP via Darkfall or EvE or something, but those games also include a great deal of grinding for xp/skills or grinding for isk...
Are MMORPG's suppose to be a grind?
Yes, apparently, because thats what makes one attached to their character, but don't forget that if the game is fun like Darkfall, the grind will be fun. Killing mobs in Darkfall is about 100 times more engaging than it is in other games.
Except that when grinding mobs, you explored where you and your friends wanted to, not where the linear quest hubs led you, and you were more inclined to TALK to the people you were grouped with, rather than just follow a dotted line, killing a boss mob, and disbanding once you didn't need each other.
...uninstanced dungeons allowed you to put together groups much more easily, and you were able to interact with the people around you, socialize, talk to them, you know, that whole online part of the game.
Only ONE game out of all the old MMOs had camping raid bosses, and it was a terrible game mechanic that WoW didn't only make worse, but popularized. When there is nothing to do in a game but get loot, camping/grinding raids will occur. Most old MMOs were deep enough so that even without instances, raid bosses weren't camped, because they were done for fun once in a while.
WoW battlegrounds having people play FPS rounds against eachother for "kills" and "points" is not the same as having a persistant roundless battleground where there were actual real time objectives to defend and assault, and that had an outcome on the world outside of said battleground. And, while you were doing this, you were getting experience as well as realm points, while gaining benefits for your entire realm.
I do agree with all of the above and these are things that I miss from "old school" MMORPGs.
But "grind" is still grind even with a fancy skin on it.
PvP should never be a grind I do think WoW completely failed there.
However at the same time, back then it was all about finding the fun not being shown cool things to do. Sometimes, there was no fun to be found just grinding... and it would have been nice to have been shown fun things to do, even fun things to do that didn't require my friends to be online.
Is there a balance that can be reached? A compromise that takes nothing away from either side? That's my ideal, and unfortunately no one has figured it out yet without massively skewing things one way or another.
Like it or not the changes to the MMO market have been customer driven. Modern MMO’s are targeted to more casual players because more casual players are who makes up the bulk of the paying customer base. The people who frequent this forum are not a good example of the typical MMO player. The high development costs of a modern MMO means that the features the OP misses in older MMO’s would be suicide to implement today in a high budget MMO. There are just not enough people who would play that game to justify the development costs. Sure a MMO where you procedurally generate star systems and most your modeling work is ships can be developed and supported using those kinds of systems but not a graphically intense high fantasy MMO.
A changing player demographic and exponentially increasing development costs killed the MMO’s you miss not laziness or some conspiracy by studios.
Ten years later and no game is deeper than ultima online. That to me is sad and disgraceful.
UO was so deep. It was not only focused on combat, which made it really interesting. You had so many options! And even in PvP you could be what you wanted. Crazy lumberjack guy with an axe? Check. Dex monkey with a dagger? Check. Lets add some poison to that? Sure! ... you could be anything, really.
And it was exactly that freedom that eventually lead to Tremmel... The vast majority of players grew tired of the endless gankfest, and to protect their business model the rule sets had to be changed. CCP has also had to protect its business model(look at the evolution of Concord, and the high sec ROE).
I played AC myself, on thisile down. It was a good game for its time, but I'd NOT want to go back to the corpse runs and the lost gear if you couldn't retrieve it. Not to mention the graphics are SERIOUSLY dated now.
It seems that way too many people look back at the glories of the past through *thick* rose colored glasses. All things considered, the games were entertaining, but some of the aspects just do not fit in to the current market. The player base has aged, as well as expanded. Its tastes and expectations have changed as well.
Given that MMO's take millions and millions(of other peoples money) to create, the vast majority will continue to target as wide a demographic as possible. I suspect this trend will continue until middleware and such reaches the point where a small group of people can handle projects of this complexity.
Except that when grinding mobs, you explored where you and your friends wanted to, not where the linear quest hubs led you, and you were more inclined to TALK to the people you were grouped with, rather than just follow a dotted line, killing a boss mob, and disbanding once you didn't need each other.
...uninstanced dungeons allowed you to put together groups much more easily, and you were able to interact with the people around you, socialize, talk to them, you know, that whole online part of the game.
Only ONE game out of all the old MMOs had camping raid bosses, and it was a terrible game mechanic that WoW didn't only make worse, but popularized. When there is nothing to do in a game but get loot, camping/grinding raids will occur. Most old MMOs were deep enough so that even without instances, raid bosses weren't camped, because they were done for fun once in a while.
WoW battlegrounds having people play FPS rounds against eachother for "kills" and "points" is not the same as having a persistant roundless battleground where there were actual real time objectives to defend and assault, and that had an outcome on the world outside of said battleground. And, while you were doing this, you were getting experience as well as realm points, while gaining benefits for your entire realm.
I do agree with all of the above and these are things that I miss from "old school" MMORPGs.
But "grind" is still grind even with a fancy skin on it.
PvP should never be a grind I do think WoW completely failed there.
However at the same time, back then it was all about finding the fun not being shown cool things to do. Sometimes, there was no fun to be found just grinding... and it would have been nice to have been shown fun things to do, even fun things to do that didn't require my friends to be online.
Is there a balance that can be reached? A compromise that takes nothing away from either side? That's my ideal, and unfortunately no one has figured it out yet without massively skewing things one way or another.
This is true. As much as I love oldschool MMOs, I still have terrible memories of being home sick, on at noon, no one else was around so ever so slowly I was just grinding mobs watching the exp bar tick by.
I think there really just needs to be a variety of "distractions". Down time activities. More things like fishing, finding treasure maps, maybe a more dynamic world, a robust crafting system (which you usually only find in sandbox games). But I don't want to turn this into "were oldschool MMOs sandbox?" style thing. Some were some weren't, both had good qualities.
Grinding mobs for XP/skill or grinding quests... it's all really the same.
Grinding mobs in a party for skill/xp or grinding instanced dungeons in a party - all the same.
Grinding/camping raid bosses or grinding raid instances - all the same.
Even grinding "points" in PvP or grinding ratings or grinding reputations... all the same.
I agree that we do need something new.
Right now our future options are either supposedly "dynamic" public quests via Guild Wars 2 or true story via The Old Republic.
Any other options?
I guess you could say dynamic PvP via Darkfall or EvE or something, but those games also include a great deal of grinding for xp/skills or grinding for isk...
Are MMORPG's suppose to be a grind?
Honestly man, everything you are either describing or complaining about is pretty much what a MMORPG is,, in terms of player progression.. You grind mobs to level, you grind mobs to make money, and you grind/ camp end game raid bosses to get gear..... The end....
Now, I do believe there's a ton of improvements that I'm surprised haven't been implemented well these last 5 years such as, player built fortresses, factions that result in war with other factions where NPC's actually play a big part of the realm vs realm war for territory, etc.. Also, I'd love to see a game made within the near future that basically allows the character to, "Age" where he or she starts out as an 18 year old kid, and over time he or she matures into an adult, leader, elder, then perma dies when all their lifelong goals are achieved.. Then their legendary gear could be handed down to their children, "or however the player wants to roleplay that part" where the new alt being made can wear some of the gear their previous character took a lifetime to acquire...
Basically, I'd like to see a mmo that truly evolves and changes over the coarse of time.. Where not only the game itself changes, but the actual player character evolves and changes over time..
Instead of every end game or named mob being spawned, respawned, rinse and repeat, new bosses should emerge once previous bosses are killed, giving the players a truly dynamic revolutionary fun experience...
But I guess those ideas are to much for Devs these days.. They are all about ez mode which requires little to no thought whatsoever..
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Grinding mobs for XP/skill or grinding quests... it's all really the same.
Grinding mobs in a party for skill/xp or grinding instanced dungeons in a party - all the same.
Grinding/camping raid bosses or grinding raid instances - all the same.
Even grinding "points" in PvP or grinding ratings or grinding reputations... all the same.
I agree that we do need something new.
Right now our future options are either supposedly "dynamic" public quests via Guild Wars 2 or true story via The Old Republic.
Any other options?
I guess you could say dynamic PvP via Darkfall or EvE or something, but those games also include a great deal of grinding for xp/skills or grinding for isk...
Now, I do believe there's a ton of improvements that I'm surprised haven't been implemented well these last 5 years such as, player built fortresses, factions that result in war with other factions where NPC's actually play a big part of the realm vs realm war for territory, etc..
Basically, I'd like to see a mmo that truly evolves and changes over the coarse of time.. Where not only the game itself changes, but the actual player character evolves and changes over time..
Instead of every end game or named mob being spawned, respawned, rinse and repeat, new bosses should emerge once previous bosses are killed, giving the players a truly dynamic revolutionary fun experience...
But I guess those ideas are to much for Devs these days.. They are all about ez mode which requires little to no thought whatsoever..
You've obviously never programmed anything and have no clue how games are made. Move on troll
Like it or not the changes to the MMO market have been customer driven. Modern MMO’s are targeted to more casual players because more casual players are who makes up the bulk of the paying customer base. The people who frequent this forum are not a good example of the typical MMO player. The high development costs of a modern MMO means that the features the OP misses in older MMO’s would be suicide to implement today in a high budget MMO. There are just not enough people who would play that game to justify the development costs. Sure a MMO where you procedurally generate star systems and most your modeling work is ships can be developed and supported using those kinds of systems but not a graphically intense high fantasy MMO.
A changing player demographic and exponentially increasing development costs killed the MMO’s you miss not laziness or some conspiracy by studios.
You are uttering the truths that The Nostalgia crowd tend to ignore. A good freind of mine who is a project manager for Simutronics spent the better part of 2008 and 2009 researching why Old school EQ and UO paradigms no longer work today, and his team basically came to the same conclusion. The majority of customers drive the market, and theer is just no demand to go back to what many gamers consider the stone age.
Il show my support to the OP for this thread. Although I would take it a step further by saying mmos has never been great, the concept alone is awsome but not a single dev team has put one good enough for you to remain stuck into it. I have only been in the genre for about 6-7 years (give or take) though so I really cant say.
For me theres always some major flaw making the game vastly inferior to the counter part in singleplayer/mp games. With the launch and success of WoW though the playing field feels like it has turned even more for the worst.
I hate the way a EQ/WoW game is built, I dislike its purposes and gameplay features. The purpose is to get to the max level so you can finally play/raid/bs. Once at max level gear is everything, thats the only thing you want, its the only thing you can get really. Its pointless, I dont give a crap wether my weapon is 4% better then my prev, nor the fact that its glowing (sure its cool the first 10min)
What about housing? What about having an impact on your surroundings? What of crafting, the way its done nowadays just scares me, its horrible beyond belief. I dont want to go home and start the night shift, I want to have fun or atleast be remotly entertained. Grinding is mental torture.. well unless your stoned or lobotomised anyway.
And then theres all of these super hypes, our new miracle cure [insert AoC/WAR/FE/CO/STO here]. Crap all of different reasons but still not worth the money they want you to pay.
I want a mmo that looks forward, revultionises the gameplay, get rid of the 123546 combat, give me a reason to fight rather then just getting from 1 to 99, make it entertaining damn it. Dont care much about looks, dont want it to look like crap but if its half desent then I dont care.. hell I just want to have fun ingame without feeling that Im working.. that and it would be nice to being able to affect the environment.
Im still waiting patiently though, trying one game from the next.. the list is getting long, one good one ought to show up sooner or later..
Like it or not the changes to the MMO market have been customer driven. Modern MMO’s are targeted to more casual players because more casual players are who makes up the bulk of the paying customer base. The people who frequent this forum are not a good example of the typical MMO player. The high development costs of a modern MMO means that the features the OP misses in older MMO’s would be suicide to implement today in a high budget MMO. There are just not enough people who would play that game to justify the development costs. Sure a MMO where you procedurally generate star systems and most your modeling work is ships can be developed and supported using those kinds of systems but not a graphically intense high fantasy MMO.
A changing player demographic and exponentially increasing development costs killed the MMO’s you miss not laziness or some conspiracy by studios.
You are uttering the truths that The Nostalgia crowd tend to ignore. A good freind of mine who is a project manager for Simutronics spent the better part of 2008 and 2009 researching why Old school EQ and UO paradigms no longer work today, and his team basically came to the same conclusion. The majority of customers drive the market, and theer is just no demand to go back to what many gamers consider the stone age.
What?!? logic and reasoning from not one but TWO posters on MMORPG.com?
jotull, udon, if I could report you both for defying the MMORPG.com conventions of "retardation and idiocy" then I would!
How DARE you make such logical and intellectually stimulating arguments on a web forum!
Like it or not the changes to the MMO market have been customer driven. Modern MMO’s are targeted to more casual players because more casual players are who makes up the bulk of the paying customer base. The people who frequent this forum are not a good example of the typical MMO player. The high development costs of a modern MMO means that the features the OP misses in older MMO’s would be suicide to implement today in a high budget MMO. There are just not enough people who would play that game to justify the development costs. Sure a MMO where you procedurally generate star systems and most your modeling work is ships can be developed and supported using those kinds of systems but not a graphically intense high fantasy MMO.
A changing player demographic and exponentially increasing development costs killed the MMO’s you miss not laziness or some conspiracy by studios.
You are uttering the truths that The Nostalgia crowd tend to ignore. A good freind of mine who is a project manager for Simutronics spent the better part of 2008 and 2009 researching why Old school EQ and UO paradigms no longer work today, and his team basically came to the same conclusion. The majority of customers drive the market, and theer is just no demand to go back to what many gamers consider the stone age.
What?!? logic and reasoning from not one but TWO posters on MMORPG.com?
jotull, udon, if I could report you both for defying the MMORPG.com conventions of "retardation and idiocy" then I would!
How DARE you make such logical and intellectually stimulating arguments on a web forum!
Yet something all of you are ignoring. The "oldschool" players are still there. That mentality still exists. There are MORE casual gamers, but their dedication is much more flighty. So far, the past 5 years has proved making a WoW clone takes an insane amount of money, and usually results in disasters (WAR, AoC, LotRO somewhat) Whereas oldschool MMOs were made with teams of 30 people, on a small budget. Games like Darkfall, which had very minimal spending and a small development team, are making a greater profit than games like WAR and AoC, because they knew their target audience, and sold to them.
If someone were to make a proper oldschool MMO on a budget that didn't dedicated 10 million dollars to marketing alone, than its entirely possible for someone to be SUCCESSFUL without hitting WoW numbers. The market is still there. Vanguard sold itself as pure oldschool, and there were 300 THOUSAND box sales on the first day. For an OLDSCHOOL MMO. EverQuest in its prime had 500 thousand subscribers. That's more than WAR and AOC put together. Too many companies want to go big or go home. So far they've all gone home.
Wonder if the gaming industry looked at Hollywood as came to the same conclusion that good doesn't sell. Shiny and stupid does. Of course there are rare exceptions but not many.
You don't have to look any further than the music industry to understand that the consumer is stupid and will buy anything someone else does. We just went through the worst decade in music history, yet no talent hacks are still selling millions of records. There's more money to be made when companies control every aspect of production, rather than invest in real talent that doesn't answer to shareholders.
Like it or not the changes to the MMO market have been customer driven. Modern MMO’s are targeted to more casual players because more casual players are who makes up the bulk of the paying customer base. The people who frequent this forum are not a good example of the typical MMO player. The high development costs of a modern MMO means that the features the OP misses in older MMO’s would be suicide to implement today in a high budget MMO. There are just not enough people who would play that game to justify the development costs. Sure a MMO where you procedurally generate star systems and most your modeling work is ships can be developed and supported using those kinds of systems but not a graphically intense high fantasy MMO.
A changing player demographic and exponentially increasing development costs killed the MMO’s you miss not laziness or some conspiracy by studios.
You are uttering the truths that The Nostalgia crowd tend to ignore. A good freind of mine who is a project manager for Simutronics spent the better part of 2008 and 2009 researching why Old school EQ and UO paradigms no longer work today, and his team basically came to the same conclusion. The majority of customers drive the market, and theer is just no demand to go back to what many gamers consider the stone age.
What?!? logic and reasoning from not one but TWO posters on MMORPG.com?
jotull, udon, if I could report you both for defying the MMORPG.com conventions of "retardation and idiocy" then I would!
How DARE you make such logical and intellectually stimulating arguments on a web forum!
Not sure how long before the industry learns however that WE DON'T WANT YOUR STINKIN CLONE
I certainly agree with the OP as well. But, here's the problem: Until people stop licking WoW's balls and praising Blizzard for how "innovative" (what a laugh!) WoW is, we're never gonna get back to what MMOs used to be; engaging combat, deep storylines, real (and unspokenly mandatory) roleplay and enforced character naming policy, and PvP that actually matters in the game world rather than just being a d!ckwaving contest. As stated earlier, Guild Wars 2 looks like they're gonna be making a HUGE change. But in the meantime, most MMOs are merely dumbed-down WoW clones. I think we, as a community of veteran gamers, need to command attention from the industry and DEMAND (not request) better product because, in a way, WoW and its aftermath are OUR fault for not calling it out for what it was immediately.
in a way, WoW and its aftermath are OUR fault for not calling it out for what it was immediately.
In a way, however, we also couldn't be faulted. WoW vanilla wasn't all that different from the MMORPGs that preceded it in 2003 and 2002. It's the changes that happened after launch, especially the expansions, that ruined the game, and thus, the genre (reference WoW as being source inspiration for x MMORPGs since).
Vanilla WoW before BGs (especially before x-server BGs), before all the grinds. Granted, Blizzard's flavor of game is always one revolving around bigger tool to dig bigger hole to get more materials to build bigger tool for bigger hole.... Additionally, the extensive questing system could probably have been called out back then. But all in all, classic WoW wasn't all that different.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
We could definitely use more diversity within the mmo genre. Themepark is okay for those that enjoy it, but there should be more diversity within the genre.
SWG was my favorite game despite it's flaws. It had a lot more depth than most games currently out today. I'd love to play a game like that again.
Comments
Alright, I went to the trouble of reading through the whole board, and it's 2.30 AM, so I might as well throw in my 2 cents worth.
I'm 18 years old, and I've been playing games since I can remember. MMO's not so long, but I still remember that horrible noise the internet made when you had to connect to it. Anyways, being a younger member of the MMO community, I feel I aggree with most of the things posted by the OP, even though I'm not sure what he means specifically, I get what he means in a broader sense.
My experience with WOW is very short lived, I downloaded the client and set up a private server, and just decided to play the game by myself. I mucked around with it for about a week and then quite disgusted by what kind of content was included, (I also played the trial, and felt that my experiences where not much different.) The whole game I think could be played with minimal contact to other players, similar to the lobby mentality mentioned earlier, and I definately didn't get much interaction or help on my trial account. It was just mission after mission after mission. Seriously, is this what MMO's have become? Raids I imagine are just an extension of this - worse even, if the drop rates are 2%.
Grinding is basically what it had become. I played Maple Story for a time, a those of you who are familiar with it will know that it requires a shitload of grinding. You basically grind, and every 10 levels you get a new set of gear. Thats it. That was pretty much the whole game. The only thing that kept me going was at the time (Yr 10 lol), a bunch of my friends were playing it too and I would do PQ's with them and muck around grinding together. Now I look back at it and I realise how sad we were. I mean seriously, spending cash at the cash shop for a x2 EXP multiplier so you would be Cemented into a position of (You HAVE to grind for 24 hours or you won't get your money's worth.). Evetually I quit at, get this, lvl 59 or 69 (Can't remember exactly) but I do remember I had 98% EXP to the next level, which was third job advancement, and had just spent 50mil on a helm. I just quit. Never logged back in too it. And now the haunting melodies of System of a Down and Dragonforce will forever remind me of that shitty game as that was what I had playing in the background 100% of the time.
Over the course of these years I've played many types of games, most types I'd venture to say, and I must say I do like a challenge. Waiting for an MMO that fulfills my dreams is probably never going to happen, and I imagine that everyone has their own idea of their dream MMO.
Sadly, I do belive that business is driving out creativity from game development. Which I think is the driving force behind all the complaning. When it all comes down to it.
Other experiences I've had are Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, which is actually quite ingenious in the way it sets out it's goals and advancment. The game does have it's problems, like all games do, but I found when I played it that it meant a lot more to be part of a crew, and it meant a lot more to be part of someone else's experience playing the game. The first game I ever made an online friend in, and it was the most unlikely friendship I had ever had. Away from that aspect, the main point of the game is how it works, it's many minigames are the meat on the bone, and it's pretty easy to experience the majority of content in the first few months of playing.
I still come back to it every now and then for a sail, and laugh as people are suprised to see a toon with deteriorated stats pulling Incredibles in the duty report.
From these I then went on a skip hop tour, visiting many free MMO's and found them all similar and quite lacking. I then stumbled upon EVE online and I was intrigued. After about a month of playing I discovered that it would take me a lot longer to understand even a fraction of what was heppening around me. The scope still overwhelms me, and the potential is there. It truly is a Sandbox experience. However, when I first joined I was to young, and to naive to appreciated and understand what EVE offered. After getting furstrated with the game, as I was not progressing anywhere, I quite after two months, and like is my tradition, I never give my stuff away, in case I come back to it. XD
Anyways, two years later, and I've come back to it. And I seem to understand a lot more about the direction the game is going in and the point of it all. I may not have the same experiences as someone who has been playing for years, but I know enough to appreciated it for what it is, and what it's not.
I think that's when it all starts to boil down, in the end it's just a game. The type of game we want to play is different for each person. I sitll have ideas in my head for games I'd like to see happen. Even though they probably won't, and even if they are shit ideas nobody in their right mind would play, I will still like them. The debate about sanbox vets to stop complaining I think is an irrelevant one, as it's not just these people that are complaining. I am complaining too lol. The MMO market has changed, it caters for the "average gamer" and the "average gamer" has changed dramatically over the years. I beleive "average game" is synonymous with the the term "casual gamer", and thats just not what we are. We are not in any way shape or form a casual gamar, content to sit on what's been given to us, or to complain about changes to a limited world. I always look at the bigger scope of things, I don't complain when some stupid skill gets a nerf, I just trust the developers know what their doing, and when the games stops being "Fun" form me, I'll quit, regardless of what happens after.
I'm always looking for a challenge or something different, strategy is a huge plus for me, player devised strategy is is even better, probably one of the reasons I was drawn to EVE, but away from MMO's there are so many good ideas and concepts even just in single player games that could be converted into MMO's that are vastly different to what's on the market currently. Innovation might be a word beaten to death by the major developing companies, but they have lost the ture meaning of the word. True innovation is rarely seen in games today.
Sometimes I think I should be studying games design or something, the way I analyse everything, each game has potential, they just need to think outside the box, which many arn't doing. The new FF looks the same to me. Nothing much has changed when compared to games already on the market. Even FFXIII was a huge disapointment and I find that I'm getting much less time and pleasure out of games now. It might be that I'm just growing up, but one thing is always growing, and it's my thirst for new games and ideas. For some reasons I'm always looking for new ideas and new games to try. Not long ago I bought 5 games for PS3 in one go. (It needed some love) and I had a great time on them, each has it's flaws and I like some better then others but that's just personal taste. When w'ere talking about MMO's I think everyone falls into a niche. I beleive I'm a hardcore gammer, though I might not be otherwise. Which leads me to beleive that there must be others out there that share my interests. And if this is the case, then there must still be others that share those interests, and as long as there are people that have those interests, there is a market to be tapped into, and a market for developers to create games to cater for those markets, it's really up to the developers to create the games.
I think I will never really rest untill I become a games designer or something because every single game I've played recently just feels so constricting. The term sandbox refers more to the mechanics of a game and how, as in a physical sandbox, the user is entertained by their ability to play creatively, boundless of artificial structural constraints, and with there being no right way of playing the game. By refering to this description of the term "Sanbox" I realize that no game is a true Sanbox, no matter how much it might seem like it. And that if a game was ture sandbox, then it wouldn't actually be any fun, because everything would be meaningless.
Anyways, thats my two cents, however, I think it might be more like $20.00. Kudo's to anyone who can be bothered reading it (I hope someone does) and I'm sorry I don't have a TL,DR. I don't think even I understandeverything I meant in it.
Don't feed the troll.
Grinding mobs for XP/skill or grinding quests... it's all really the same.
Grinding mobs in a party for skill/xp or grinding instanced dungeons in a party - all the same.
Grinding/camping raid bosses or grinding raid instances - all the same.
Even grinding "points" in PvP or grinding ratings or grinding reputations... all the same.
I agree that we do need something new.
Right now our future options are either supposedly "dynamic" public quests via Guild Wars 2 or true story via The Old Republic.
Any other options?
I guess you could say dynamic PvP via Darkfall or EvE or something, but those games also include a great deal of grinding for xp/skills or grinding for isk...
Are MMORPG's suppose to be a grind?
That's why I seldom deal with mmorpg.com it really isn't the mods fault it just seems the old and bitter flock here. I tend to stick to blogs like We Fly Spitfires, companyofthewolf.org and Grouchy gamer. They all pretty much see the disgruntleld demographic as the joke of the genre. Which automatically makes them SOE shills in the lunatic fringes book.
I do agree with all of the above and these are things that I miss from "old school" MMORPGs.
But "grind" is still grind even with a fancy skin on it.
PvP should never be a grind I do think WoW completely failed there.
However at the same time, back then it was all about finding the fun not being shown cool things to do. Sometimes, there was no fun to be found just grinding... and it would have been nice to have been shown fun things to do, even fun things to do that didn't require my friends to be online.
Is there a balance that can be reached? A compromise that takes nothing away from either side? That's my ideal, and unfortunately no one has figured it out yet without massively skewing things one way or another.
Like it or not the changes to the MMO market have been customer driven. Modern MMO’s are targeted to more casual players because more casual players are who makes up the bulk of the paying customer base. The people who frequent this forum are not a good example of the typical MMO player. The high development costs of a modern MMO means that the features the OP misses in older MMO’s would be suicide to implement today in a high budget MMO. There are just not enough people who would play that game to justify the development costs. Sure a MMO where you procedurally generate star systems and most your modeling work is ships can be developed and supported using those kinds of systems but not a graphically intense high fantasy MMO.
A changing player demographic and exponentially increasing development costs killed the MMO’s you miss not laziness or some conspiracy by studios.
And it was exactly that freedom that eventually lead to Tremmel... The vast majority of players grew tired of the endless gankfest, and to protect their business model the rule sets had to be changed. CCP has also had to protect its business model(look at the evolution of Concord, and the high sec ROE).
I played AC myself, on thisile down. It was a good game for its time, but I'd NOT want to go back to the corpse runs and the lost gear if you couldn't retrieve it. Not to mention the graphics are SERIOUSLY dated now.
It seems that way too many people look back at the glories of the past through *thick* rose colored glasses. All things considered, the games were entertaining, but some of the aspects just do not fit in to the current market. The player base has aged, as well as expanded. Its tastes and expectations have changed as well.
Given that MMO's take millions and millions(of other peoples money) to create, the vast majority will continue to target as wide a demographic as possible. I suspect this trend will continue until middleware and such reaches the point where a small group of people can handle projects of this complexity.
This is true. As much as I love oldschool MMOs, I still have terrible memories of being home sick, on at noon, no one else was around so ever so slowly I was just grinding mobs watching the exp bar tick by.
I think there really just needs to be a variety of "distractions". Down time activities. More things like fishing, finding treasure maps, maybe a more dynamic world, a robust crafting system (which you usually only find in sandbox games). But I don't want to turn this into "were oldschool MMOs sandbox?" style thing. Some were some weren't, both had good qualities.
Honestly man, everything you are either describing or complaining about is pretty much what a MMORPG is,, in terms of player progression.. You grind mobs to level, you grind mobs to make money, and you grind/ camp end game raid bosses to get gear..... The end....
Now, I do believe there's a ton of improvements that I'm surprised haven't been implemented well these last 5 years such as, player built fortresses, factions that result in war with other factions where NPC's actually play a big part of the realm vs realm war for territory, etc.. Also, I'd love to see a game made within the near future that basically allows the character to, "Age" where he or she starts out as an 18 year old kid, and over time he or she matures into an adult, leader, elder, then perma dies when all their lifelong goals are achieved.. Then their legendary gear could be handed down to their children, "or however the player wants to roleplay that part" where the new alt being made can wear some of the gear their previous character took a lifetime to acquire...
Basically, I'd like to see a mmo that truly evolves and changes over the coarse of time.. Where not only the game itself changes, but the actual player character evolves and changes over time..
Instead of every end game or named mob being spawned, respawned, rinse and repeat, new bosses should emerge once previous bosses are killed, giving the players a truly dynamic revolutionary fun experience...
But I guess those ideas are to much for Devs these days.. They are all about ez mode which requires little to no thought whatsoever..
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
When does skill become involved?
Do any of these games require true skill?
You've obviously never programmed anything and have no clue how games are made. Move on troll
Not player skills.
Character skills, like a "swordsmanship skill" or whatever.
You are uttering the truths that The Nostalgia crowd tend to ignore. A good freind of mine who is a project manager for Simutronics spent the better part of 2008 and 2009 researching why Old school EQ and UO paradigms no longer work today, and his team basically came to the same conclusion. The majority of customers drive the market, and theer is just no demand to go back to what many gamers consider the stone age.
Il show my support to the OP for this thread. Although I would take it a step further by saying mmos has never been great, the concept alone is awsome but not a single dev team has put one good enough for you to remain stuck into it. I have only been in the genre for about 6-7 years (give or take) though so I really cant say.
For me theres always some major flaw making the game vastly inferior to the counter part in singleplayer/mp games. With the launch and success of WoW though the playing field feels like it has turned even more for the worst.
I hate the way a EQ/WoW game is built, I dislike its purposes and gameplay features. The purpose is to get to the max level so you can finally play/raid/bs. Once at max level gear is everything, thats the only thing you want, its the only thing you can get really. Its pointless, I dont give a crap wether my weapon is 4% better then my prev, nor the fact that its glowing (sure its cool the first 10min)
What about housing? What about having an impact on your surroundings? What of crafting, the way its done nowadays just scares me, its horrible beyond belief. I dont want to go home and start the night shift, I want to have fun or atleast be remotly entertained. Grinding is mental torture.. well unless your stoned or lobotomised anyway.
And then theres all of these super hypes, our new miracle cure [insert AoC/WAR/FE/CO/STO here]. Crap all of different reasons but still not worth the money they want you to pay.
I want a mmo that looks forward, revultionises the gameplay, get rid of the 123546 combat, give me a reason to fight rather then just getting from 1 to 99, make it entertaining damn it. Dont care much about looks, dont want it to look like crap but if its half desent then I dont care.. hell I just want to have fun ingame without feeling that Im working.. that and it would be nice to being able to affect the environment.
Im still waiting patiently though, trying one game from the next.. the list is getting long, one good one ought to show up sooner or later..
What?!? logic and reasoning from not one but TWO posters on MMORPG.com?
jotull, udon, if I could report you both for defying the MMORPG.com conventions of "retardation and idiocy" then I would!
How DARE you make such logical and intellectually stimulating arguments on a web forum!
I agree mmorpg's are a joke. But who knows in 5 more years they might suck less =P
Yet something all of you are ignoring. The "oldschool" players are still there. That mentality still exists. There are MORE casual gamers, but their dedication is much more flighty. So far, the past 5 years has proved making a WoW clone takes an insane amount of money, and usually results in disasters (WAR, AoC, LotRO somewhat) Whereas oldschool MMOs were made with teams of 30 people, on a small budget. Games like Darkfall, which had very minimal spending and a small development team, are making a greater profit than games like WAR and AoC, because they knew their target audience, and sold to them.
If someone were to make a proper oldschool MMO on a budget that didn't dedicated 10 million dollars to marketing alone, than its entirely possible for someone to be SUCCESSFUL without hitting WoW numbers. The market is still there. Vanguard sold itself as pure oldschool, and there were 300 THOUSAND box sales on the first day. For an OLDSCHOOL MMO. EverQuest in its prime had 500 thousand subscribers. That's more than WAR and AOC put together. Too many companies want to go big or go home. So far they've all gone home.
Wonder if the gaming industry looked at Hollywood as came to the same conclusion that good doesn't sell. Shiny and stupid does. Of course there are rare exceptions but not many.
You don't have to look any further than the music industry to understand that the consumer is stupid and will buy anything someone else does. We just went through the worst decade in music history, yet no talent hacks are still selling millions of records. There's more money to be made when companies control every aspect of production, rather than invest in real talent that doesn't answer to shareholders.
QFT
Nice post OP, agreed completely.
Not sure how long before the industry learns however that WE DON'T WANT YOUR STINKIN CLONE
I certainly agree with the OP as well. But, here's the problem: Until people stop licking WoW's balls and praising Blizzard for how "innovative" (what a laugh!) WoW is, we're never gonna get back to what MMOs used to be; engaging combat, deep storylines, real (and unspokenly mandatory) roleplay and enforced character naming policy, and PvP that actually matters in the game world rather than just being a d!ckwaving contest. As stated earlier, Guild Wars 2 looks like they're gonna be making a HUGE change. But in the meantime, most MMOs are merely dumbed-down WoW clones. I think we, as a community of veteran gamers, need to command attention from the industry and DEMAND (not request) better product because, in a way, WoW and its aftermath are OUR fault for not calling it out for what it was immediately.
Things don't change until they fail financially. All you can do is vote with your wallet.
In a way, however, we also couldn't be faulted. WoW vanilla wasn't all that different from the MMORPGs that preceded it in 2003 and 2002. It's the changes that happened after launch, especially the expansions, that ruined the game, and thus, the genre (reference WoW as being source inspiration for x MMORPGs since).
Vanilla WoW before BGs (especially before x-server BGs), before all the grinds. Granted, Blizzard's flavor of game is always one revolving around bigger tool to dig bigger hole to get more materials to build bigger tool for bigger hole.... Additionally, the extensive questing system could probably have been called out back then. But all in all, classic WoW wasn't all that different.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
SWG was my favorite game despite it's flaws. It had a lot more depth than most games currently out today. I'd love to play a game like that again.