Just wondering if anyone else is in this sad state of affairs as well. (wall of text, sorry in advance)
MMO Gaming history.
EQ1 was my cherry popper when I was about 16 years old. Loved the game and the expansive layout at the time back in the late 90's. I used to make my GF watch me play EQ. lol
Asheron's Call -- great game at the time from what I remember, pvp was fun as well, something new from EQ.
Went on to College, had not played MMOs for awhile. Started Shadowbane when it first came out on "Scorn"., then transferred to Vengeance. Was something completely different for me, FFA full loot PvP. Took awhle to get use to, but it was badass in it's age. Had a good guild at the time, and we dominated the server. (Keep in mind I had lots of time on my hands)
WoW came out in 2003 or whatever, think I was in my second year College. Great game at the time, I was actually on a PvE server when I first started, but the fights at Tarren Mill were great before any of the mini games were ever even thought of. Went to two or three other PvP servers after that, then grew old of the game, and the raiding requirements.
AoC has been my last downfall. Started on early access and have re-subbed several times since launch. When it first came out, it was great, ffa pvp was fun, but once the high tier raiding kicked in at high levels, really didn't have the time.
Tried Darkfall, but just didn't have the time. Killed lots of goblins, got bored, got killed by same faction way higher level several times.
Out of MMOs now, do not see anything good on the horizon. Married, have a house, job. No kids yet, but damn, is it me, or the MMO industry? Maybe I am getting too old, or maybe someday there will be a badass MMO once again that will grab my attention. Any thoughts, or am I losing it?
I have the same age, and i played all the games you mention and more. I feel the same, the only mmorpg i wait now is Guild Wars 2, hoping that it will be decent. Besides EVE that i played too much, there is not much to play at the moment.
MMO Industry now i mostly runned by big corporation that only invest to get money, so they release manistream, dumb shit games. Smaller companies might try new things, some will succed, some fail.
Asherons's Call was one of the best mmorpg ever, loved that game.
I'm 52, apparently I haven't outgrown MMO's yet. But as someone else said, you've probably outgrown the type of MMO that is currently available (there's nothing out like those classic games you listed) and the only thing that really has kept me interested is by playing a completely different style game, EVE.
But EVE appeals to a small audience, and if its not your thing I'm not sure how many options you have now or in the future. GW2 might be the next big thing for a person of your tastess, I think SWTOR is going to be more of the same.
If that's all there is to look forward to, I guess I'm screwed. EvE just isn't the game for me, I detest PvP and that's the majority of what that game has to offer. I'm sort of looking forward to GW2, but that's off in the future somewhere, that doesn't help right this second.
I'm 52, apparently I haven't outgrown MMO's yet. But as someone else said, you've probably outgrown the type of MMO that is currently available (there's nothing out like those classic games you listed) and the only thing that really has kept me interested is by playing a completely different style game, EVE.
But EVE appeals to a small audience, and if its not your thing I'm not sure how many options you have now or in the future. GW2 might be the next big thing for a person of your tastess, I think SWTOR is going to be more of the same.
If that's all there is to look forward to, I guess I'm screwed. EvE just isn't the game for me, I detest PvP and that's the majority of what that game has to offer. I'm sort of looking forward to GW2, but that's off in the future somewhere, that doesn't help right this second.
Yeah, I 'd like to see a well made PVE centric sandbox game made (a la Ryzom I suppose) that broke the mold a bit from what's been done in the past. Not every sandbox has to have FFA PVP with full looting at its core to be successful, but right now the indie Dev's all seem pretty focused on it. (forget the big houses, most of them are stuck on the "formula" and won't give us much in the way of innovation)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"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
Yeah, I 'd like to see a well made PVE centric sandbox game made (a la Ryzom I suppose) that broke the mold a bit from what's been done in the past. Not every sandbox has to have FFA PVP with full looting at its core to be successful, but right now the indie Dev's all seem pretty focused on it. (forget the big houses, most of them are stuck on the "formula" and won't give us much in the way of innovation)
Yeah, I'd like to see something a bit more sandboxy than most put out, although not the extreme "there is nothing but sand, find something to do" nonsense. One thing I absolutely want is NO MORE FUCKING FANTASY! Fantasy games are right out as far as I'm concerned, I've developed a serious magic allergy. Fantasy games need not apply.
The mmo industry has changed their games to fit the prophet margin and that means they have pussied their games out and made them weak, pathetic shadows of their former selves. Many say try EVE, but that games is all clickie clickie and you don't get to actually drive your ship or have a toon that you can walk around your ship, it is good if you like that stuff, but not for me. I just want everything in a game or nothing? LOL! Just kidding but it pains me to say that you are not growing out of the mmo they are shrinking away from you! Instead of bigger and better they are making smaller and lessor. Plus with ingame stores they are basically charging more and spending less. Hopefully, the games next year will be awesome and we will not have to sit and debate what is bad but what is great.
I am almost 29 and I don't think it's a case of growing out of MMOs, I think it is a case of modern MMOs not appealing to our demographic at all.
I still love gaming, and do game when I have an interesting one to play (this is harder to do in the non MMO world too, I still love Counter Strike better then every FPS that's come since then to show you how hard it is for me to find an interesting game, SC2 has my hopes though.
I started playing MMOs with The Realm. I bought UO as soon as it was released and it was amazing, they started to change systems in a way I didn't like at all (The first few months which was really anything goes was so much fun, the red grey blue system they implemented a few months in was so completely lame it made me quit, along with other changes before that), so I tried EQ. EQ was alright but it was lacking something for me, but then they came out with the RvR server and that was a blast to be one of the first to level up and to outfit your side with armor and really work as a team. But it wasn't the type of system most people who were interested in EQ were into, so the population on that server dropped off very quickly.
Fortunatly AC came out at that time, and that game blew me away. It was more like UO then EQ was, and it had it's own take on things. The game was truly enjoyable and I spent way too much time playing. But then I left for the Navy and obviously couldn't play MMOs for a while.
Once I could play again I picked up DAoC, another well done game. At some point I got bored of that (mostly because my system couldn't handle the huge endgame battles which was such a bummer. I'd log into the zone and then freeze until I died).
Finally one day I tried WoW, and within a month was almost max level and realized how shallow the game was. Since that point in time (and I'm not blaming WoW for this) I have felt all new MMOs have been that way so I can't stick with any for more then a month or two. The design of MMOs has changed significantly since all the early ones and the new design just does not interest me AT ALL.
I would guess there are a lot of people in my age range that feel this way. We just want a different style of MMO design to come back around. If it did I would play MMOs for several hours a week, but as it is now the only one I play is AC, nothing newer then that.
Here's hoping at some point the industry stops targetting the instant gratification, I want to hit max level in 2 weeks, and I want to have end game raiding crowd and designs MMOs for the other people.
I started with Gemstone 3 and Dragonrealms by Simutronics (text games). I also played the Dark Sun MMO and Ultima Online. Then Everquest, took a long break then got addicted to WOW. Playing AOC right now.
I don't know if its a question of outgrowing so much as becoming pickier and knowing what you want and refusing to settle. I find myself just less satisfied and willing to overlook flaws the older I get.
Just need to take a break for them for a while. Try out some other things and then come back to them in a bit. Can always still keep an eye on things in the meantime or laugh at posters that still complain about the same 'ole things when the supposed "worthwhile" mmorpgs finally release and they bitch about those ones too.
>_>
You do something long enough you're bound to get burned out on it and need a break from it for a while.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Just need to take a break for them for a while. Try out some other things and then come back to them in a bit. Can always still keep an eye on things in the meantime or laugh at posters that still complain about the same 'ole things when the supposed "worthwhile" mmorpgs finally release and they bitch about those ones too.
>_>
You do something long enough you're bound to get burned out on it and need a break from it for a while.
I know alot of people think it is burnout but I disagree.
I personally took a break from MMOs for over 2 years, and when I came back and tried some I had the same feelings I had before taking the break, and those feelings persist.
MMOs just aren't made well anymore so they don't hold people's attention. It's the same reason new MMOs release with high sales numbers and drop off to a third or less of those numbers in subscriptions within a month or two. Within 4-6 months they're down to a tenth or less of the sales numbers.
People want to find that new MMO that holds their attention so they buy the new one that comes out. They realize quickly that it's the same thing they're bored of and quit within a month or two. This cycles keeps happening and it isn't because hundreds of thousands of people are all simultaneously burned out. It's because the quality and design of new MMOs is poor.
MMOs just aren't made well anymore so they don't hold people's attention. It's the same reason new MMOs release with high sales numbers and drop off to a third or less of those numbers in subscriptions within a month or two. Within 4-6 months they're down to a tenth or less of the sales numbers.
People want to find that new MMO that holds their attention so they buy the new one that comes out. They realize quickly that it's the same thing they're bored of and quit within a month or two. This cycles keeps happening and it isn't because hundreds of thousands of people are all simultaneously burned out. It's because the quality and design of new MMOs is poor.
They seem fine to me. In some ways some have even made improvements. There are those that are awful and considering how many years have gone by there certainly is an argument to be made that there have not been more innovations made or genres attempted by them but there are still some good titles out there.
So far as I'm concerened it is burnout. Unless the genre you care for isn't being looked into or you want more of an old school oriented game.
It isn't a grand era in the industry by any means but it also isn't near as bad as some make it out to be either.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Just wondering if anyone else is in this sad state of affairs as well. (wall of text, sorry in advance)
MMO Gaming history.
EQ1 was my cherry popper when I was about 16 years old. Loved the game and the expansive layout at the time back in the late 90's. I used to make my GF watch me play EQ. lol
Asheron's Call -- great game at the time from what I remember, pvp was fun as well, something new from EQ.
Went on to College, had not played MMOs for awhile. Started Shadowbane when it first came out on "Scorn"., then transferred to Vengeance. Was something completely different for me, FFA full loot PvP. Took awhle to get use to, but it was badass in it's age. Had a good guild at the time, and we dominated the server. (Keep in mind I had lots of time on my hands)
WoW came out in 2003 or whatever, think I was in my second year College. Great game at the time, I was actually on a PvE server when I first started, but the fights at Tarren Mill were great before any of the mini games were ever even thought of. Went to two or three other PvP servers after that, then grew old of the game, and the raiding requirements.
AoC has been my last downfall. Started on early access and have re-subbed several times since launch. When it first came out, it was great, ffa pvp was fun, but once the high tier raiding kicked in at high levels, really didn't have the time.
Tried Darkfall, but just didn't have the time. Killed lots of goblins, got bored, got killed by same faction way higher level several times.
Out of MMOs now, do not see anything good on the horizon. Married, have a house, job. No kids yet, but damn, is it me, or the MMO industry? Maybe I am getting too old, or maybe someday there will be a badass MMO once again that will grab my attention. Any thoughts, or am I losing it?
We are very similar. I am also 28 years old. Married and have a 2 yeard old son. When I started playing, FFXI was my first mmo. Quite frankly I was addicted. Played for 10 hours a day, because I could. During law school, got into wow and raided while still going ot law school (horrible idea).
At this point, I think it's a combination of two things. MMO'S are no longer a novelty. They don't have the new car smell, so there isn't any overriding reason to play a game extensively, especially (reasons number 2) you have way more important priorities.
I absolutely will not commit to a raid that will last 3-4 hours when it's all the time I have after work to spend with my wife and son. How in the world can I stare at a computer screen and leave my son to play with his toys, by himself.
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing. I'm playing AoC right now. I absolutely love it, but not as much as playing FFXI for the first time. The best word I can think of with respect to me (or you) is "Stale."
If you do end up finding an mmo that is like "the first time" then you're going to have to prioritize your family around your gametime because in all honesty, can you say playing 20 hours a week does not take away from your family. If i'm playing the same way as I was when I was 20 or 21 (while in college), then i'm neglecting my family. But when my son is sound asleep, and I got a good hour or two before bed, then i'll pull up my 71 Guardian and go adventuring. I hope future mmo's can give satisfying, and challenging entertainment at a 1 hour to 2 hour clip, because the generation of gamers are growing and will not be able to wait an hour while a 40 person raid forms.
So yes, you are outgrowing MMO'S only because your priorities make it so. Nothing is like the first time, and to try to find an MMO with the "first time" feeling is a fool's errand.
Play in stints that maximize the enjoyment. As soon as it feels as though it's a chore, turn it off, play later, or find another game.
I've outgrown the days of having a "full tier 19 set!" I don't have time for that carrot on a stick approach.
IF you don't care about being in the top tier of players i actually find EVE to be the best MMO for people who are sick of following purple carrots around and don't have a huge amount of time for MMO's. People will say the game is a huge time sink....but thats only if you want to be elite or if you want to invest the time.. And even with my limited playing time I have had some great battles when the corp was at war so you CAN pvp with limited time it just most likely will be in fleets with no-lifers lol.
You might have just grown out of MMO's. Maybe just stop playing them for awhile and see if the itch comes back. They are just games and you shouldn't be struggling so hard for an answer........it should be easy.
Playing: PO, EVE Waiting for: WoD Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Unfortunately, the likes of Vanguard, AOC, Tabula Rasa, STO, and others fail to learn the lesson that WoW keeps tr..........................................e" anymore, it's "build it and they will come for the first 30 days and then god help you if you aren't up to scratch"
I'm sorry, but I belong to the "wow was better in Vanilla crowd"and even back in Vanilla I recognized the fact that the crafting was crap, the interaction was crap and most of it was too easy to obtain, or at least by far not engaging enough.
I'm not saying that wow is unpolished (and mind you, it was unpolished right after release), but it damn well caters the more casual crowd these days. I mean, player non-combat pets? Get your epics free here?. I'm not talking about the game for what it is, but the game for what it could be. MMO's are no longer challenging, because they realize that the customer only wants easy access, cool armor and the standard cookie cutter talents.
Anything midly hard to understand is too hard to understand for the customer and itl ikes it like that.
I never said that WoW was perfect. Its crafting system for instance is awful compared to others. But that's my opinion. the fact remains that as a COMPLETE package (rather than focusing on one or two individual elements in it), WoW does what it needs to do and does that well.
Sure, it could be better and more in depth. But Blizzard obliously didn't want to do that.
The point is, that at launch WoW was in a better fundamental state than many MMO's that launched after it. Yes, it had server issues, yes it had bugs. But the state of the game at launch gave Blizzard the opportunity to deal with those issues much faster than its competitors because they were / are reeling from the poor foundations that their products had at launch.
EQ2: Lack of solo / duo play after level 25 ish and the poor client performance hurt this game a lot after launch.
AOC: Poor performance and lack of content. To this day, the game still suffers from poor performance (just read some of the reviews of the expansion).
STO: Lack of content to slow player progression (sounds weird i know but its true). Thus many players hit the max level in 2 weeks ("average" gameplay time of approximately 23 hours per week).
Vanguard: Poor performance, lack of high end content, poorly managed beta and the company gets sold out to SOE and is left with a very small development team.
Tabula Rasa: Nice sci-fi idea, but failed miserably due to it being very "samey". Lack of crafting and economy.
Exactly. The cause of all these failures, lies with the fact that they needed to compete. In the past they didn't have to compete, because the MMO business was simply not a business. MMO's were there by gamers, for gamers. It wasn't untill the massive success of WoW, that suddenly people started to realize they could be making money. From this point on, MMO industry has shifted into customer persepctive.
I really do not understand why people have this misconception. Are you really suggesting that Ultima Online, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot and more were made by enthusiasts who were not in any way driven by the desire and need to turn a profit?
Video gaming has been big business for decades, sure UO was a "gamble" by origin but they very quickly realized that it was no such thing as a gamble.
As to the OP and the crowd here that believe MMO standards have slipped, hence their lack of appeal, may I remind you all that the only thing that has changed for the worse is your own enthusiasm as a result of familiarity with the genre. Take any new MMORPG, even SW:ToR, and it will feel instantly familiar to a seasoned mmo player, in fact it can feel like rerolling for the billionth time. How many of you vets need to plod through a new mmo's tutorial? Yeah me neither.
I thought the same thing once, but what I realized was that I wasn't outgrowing MMOs, I was outgrowing the TYPE of MMOs I was playing.
Try playing a game that is the polar opposite of what you generally play. You just might be surprised.
Words of wisdom, there. Given what I (thought I) like about MMO's, I was convinced that AoC would be my cup of tea and that games like LotRO would never make me happy. AoC gave me a few months of enjoyment, but I got bored with just killing and killing and killing. I went on to LotRO, and it's the first game I broke the 1 year barrier for since 2004.
Describing the gameplay, it sounds like a game that would bore me to tears. But I LOVE playing it.
You could be done with the genre. There are certainly worse things you could do than leave it behind and, perhaps, work on the house, have a kid, write your own software, etc.
I generally agree with a lot of the sentiment regarding the new games rather than being burnt out, but I don't blame the devs. Other than their part in giving the community what it asked for, because the community by and large has shit for brains and we are now awash with a milliard of instant gratification, greatly unrewarding, pointless time sinks.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
To the OP, I'd say it is partially you and partially the games. I don't know if you're still reading this thread, but you might find that taking a good long time off and pursuing other hobbies or playing other types of games will do the trick. Or it might just be that your tastes are changing along with your lifestyle and priorities. It could also be that there aren't any stand-out games right now. It looks like you're looking for fun PvP game without a ton of grinding to get into it and without raiding. Guild Wars might be ok for now, but if you're looking for a mostly non-instanced world, that might not be your thing either.
I am at the other end, but perhaps in a similar situation-- all my kids are grown or in school now, and I am just starting to get back on a school-and-career path, which isn't leaving me a lot of time for games that don't grab me. I have some hopes for new games, but also low expectations of those hopes being met.
I feel the same way as so many others.... just can't get excited about doing the same stuff over again that I already did like 6 years ago. In one way it seems like MMO's just haven't really evolved that much, but the general community and the market has changed dramatically. I think when the history of MMO's is written there will be "before F2P' and "after F2P", I think the money grab has over taken the whole, "lets make a good game" idea and now dev's are putting more effort into marketing and new and exciting ways of enticing you into spending money then actually trying to finish half of a game before release.
Unfortunately, the likes of Vanguard, AOC, Tabula Rasa, STO, and others fail to learn the lesson that WoW keeps tr..........................................e" anymore, it's "build it and they will come for the first 30 days and then god help you if you aren't up to scratch"
I'm sorry, but I belong to the "wow was better in Vanilla crowd"and even back in Vanilla I recognized the fact that the crafting was crap, the interaction was crap and most of it was too easy to obtain, or at least by far not engaging enough.
I'm not saying that wow is unpolished (and mind you, it was unpolished right after release), but it damn well caters the more casual crowd these days. I mean, player non-combat pets? Get your epics free here?. I'm not talking about the game for what it is, but the game for what it could be. MMO's are no longer challenging, because they realize that the customer only wants easy access, cool armor and the standard cookie cutter talents.
Anything midly hard to understand is too hard to understand for the customer and itl ikes it like that.
I never said that WoW was perfect. Its crafting system for instance is awful compared to others. But that's my opinion. the fact remains that as a COMPLETE package (rather than focusing on one or two individual elements in it), WoW does what it needs to do and does that well.
Sure, it could be better and more in depth. But Blizzard obliously didn't want to do that.
The point is, that at launch WoW was in a better fundamental state than many MMO's that launched after it. Yes, it had server issues, yes it had bugs. But the state of the game at launch gave Blizzard the opportunity to deal with those issues much faster than its competitors because they were / are reeling from the poor foundations that their products had at launch.
EQ2: Lack of solo / duo play after level 25 ish and the poor client performance hurt this game a lot after launch.
AOC: Poor performance and lack of content. To this day, the game still suffers from poor performance (just read some of the reviews of the expansion).
STO: Lack of content to slow player progression (sounds weird i know but its true). Thus many players hit the max level in 2 weeks ("average" gameplay time of approximately 23 hours per week).
Vanguard: Poor performance, lack of high end content, poorly managed beta and the company gets sold out to SOE and is left with a very small development team.
Tabula Rasa: Nice sci-fi idea, but failed miserably due to it being very "samey". Lack of crafting and economy.
Exactly. The cause of all these failures, lies with the fact that they needed to compete. In the past they didn't have to compete, because the MMO business was simply not a business. MMO's were there by gamers, for gamers. It wasn't untill the massive success of WoW, that suddenly people started to realize they could be making money. From this point on, MMO industry has shifted into customer persepctive.
I really do not understand why people have this misconception. Are you really suggesting that Ultima Online, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot and more were made by enthusiasts who were not in any way driven by the desire and need to turn a profit?
Video gaming has been big business for decades, sure UO was a "gamble" by origin but they very quickly realized that it was no such thing as a gamble.
As to the OP and the crowd here that believe MMO standards have slipped, hence their lack of appeal, may I remind you all that the only thing that has changed for the worse is your own enthusiasm as a result of familiarity with the genre. Take any new MMORPG, even SW:ToR, and it will feel instantly familiar to a seasoned mmo player, in fact it can feel like rerolling for the billionth time. How many of you vets need to plod through a new mmo's tutorial? Yeah me neither.
He’s totally right about by gamers and for gamers, many of the devs that came into mmo development came from MUD development. Many of the systems in old school mmo’s were the graphical version of MUD’s, not CRPG’s. Now we have schools set up to learn game development, a quick way into the business for many, many now coming from non-MUD experience, coming from CRPG’s and other sorts because there is money to be made with subs in mmo’s. It doesn’t even seem to be about mmorpg’s any longer, but subs or item shops, the quick money making ideas… which in many ways goes against what mmo’s were.
MMO’s were time consuming in that progress was slow and you didn’t have a hoard of items nor your own private CRPG style instances. Now getting fast play which means faster item shop sales. Instant travel gets you nine of the ten items needed for your crafted item in very quick time, resulting in the players buying the last component in the store (in all variations of the example).
It’s like, well there was a major natural disaster in some US city, and store owners decided to make a living price gouging. Hey, like what you said, they too are in the business to make money, right? Once upon a time people did what they liked to do, not what was best for their bank account, but enough to get by doing what they loved. When a disaster happened, they weren’t worried about how much money they could make off their neighbor, but how they could help because they were a part of that community.
Fast play has nothing to do with community though, and publishers rely on market numbers to concoct some high yield formula out of the bits and pieces of the mmo disaster. Well, wasn’t a natural disaster, only a disaster that is progressing from greed. Those dev/publishers you find with their finger up in the air seeing which way the wind blows, then following the currents, not making art.
As to the OP and the crowd here that believe MMO standards have slipped, hence their lack of appeal, may I remind you all that the only thing that has changed for the worse is your own enthusiasm as a result of familiarity with the genre. Take any new MMORPG, even SW:ToR, and it will feel instantly familiar to a seasoned mmo player, in fact it can feel like rerolling for the billionth time. How many of you vets need to plod through a new mmo's tutorial? Yeah me neither.
I do believe that the standards in making modern MMOs have actually slipped. And I am not talking about technological standards but gameplay mechanic standards. I have played quite a few MMOs and I am still looking forward to some of the new batch with enthusiasm (GW2, TSW). I looked forward to Warhammer with enthusiasm but that game pretty much exemplified the "slipping standards" that have crept in to the industry.
I don't believe developers are looking at these games simply saying "lets make money, who cares if the game itself is shit". But I think that the considerations of how to keep players playing and how to make money have crept into game design, when really they never should have. I think we can guarantee that if the game design paradigm was "make money" we would never have seen a number of the big name pre-WoW MMOs because they were designed as games, where gameplay was the focus not money making (not to say the developers didnt want to make money but they thought by making a great game they would make money, the mindset is vastly different).
When you enter an artistic endeavour with "making money" as the raison d'etre then many things get sacrificed along the way - gameplay mechanics get altered to cater to the largest possible audience and games become much less than what they could be. WoW was not developed with this mindset but it has crept in over the life of the game and the result is the game we have today - as different from vanilla WoW as to be almost different games entirely.
Making money is not bad, but it becomes the big bugbear that people quote when it starts to interfere with game design. We get all these terms like "dumbing down" getting thrown around. They are all indicative of gameplay mechanics being changed to cater to a larger audience (ie. the people who like things easy and like them now - the majority of people today).
We do have to remember that trends in MMO gaming are not like fashion trends. MMOs take 5 years (on average) to develop so you really do have to wait to see things change. We have gone through the deadzone of copycat finance-driven MMOs that started development once the money started rolling in from WoW. Now we are entering a new era where games are including innovations, movements away from the old EQ model. But unfortunately for those of us that love MMOs, we won't see these for 1-2 years at the moment. It is if these new games are crap that we really have to worry about the industry.
As to the OP and the crowd here that believe MMO standards have slipped, hence their lack of appeal, may I remind you all that the only thing that has changed for the worse is your own enthusiasm as a result of familiarity with the genre. Take any new MMORPG, even SW:ToR, and it will feel instantly familiar to a seasoned mmo player, in fact it can feel like rerolling for the billionth time. How many of you vets need to plod through a new mmo's tutorial? Yeah me neither.
I don't believe developers are looking at these games simply saying "lets make money, who cares if the game itself is shit". But I think that the considerations of how to keep players playing and how to make money have crept into game design, when really they never should have. I think we can guarantee that if the game design paradigm was "make money" we would never have seen a number of the big name pre-WoW MMOs because they were designed as games, where gameplay was the focus not money making (not to say the developers didnt want to make money but they thought by making a great game they would make money, the mindset is vastly different).
When you enter an artistic endeavour with "making money" as the raison d'etre then many things get sacrificed along the way - gameplay mechanics get altered to cater to the largest possible audience and games become much less than what they could be. WoW was not developed with this mindset but it has crept in over the life of the game and the result is the game we have today - as different from vanilla WoW as to be almost different games entirely.
I'm sorry, but to suggest that any serious MMO made pre-wow has sidelined "making money" in preference to some idealistic principle is a folly. Game production is a business, businesses have overheads and in this case financial backers, these things must be the highest priority. Many developers want to make the best they can afford in an effort to make a return.
Yes there are many poor quality mmo's out there as the market has expanded and a huge rate, this is true for any retail/service sector. There are, however many quality titles in the market today, the general consensus in these forums is biased in favour of the "disgruntled & bored" by it's very nature.
When Blizzard decided to enter the MMORPG market there is no way in hell they did so on the premise that making a healthy return would take second place to making a quality product, the reverse would have been true, after all they were cashing in on a hugely successful IP. Yes indeed high production values are essential to making a successful product but do not be sucked into the "it was better in my day" mindset of the burned out mmo player base.
The chances for failure of a new mmorpg in today's market are huge compared to those of a decade ago. Why? Because games such as WoW, Lotro etc have had the luxury of time and cash flow to invest heavily in polish and content padding. Any game wishing to compete must spend massive, massive amounts of money and time to develop a game that will be compared to such titles.
Games like WAR fell flat because they didn't have the budget & time to include all the things they would have liked to. The development team don't mooch around for 4 years straining to think of content, they find they have to compromise and cut swathes of content because of production constraints. I know some of you think making an MMO is like baking a cake i.e add the listed features, bake for 4 years, sell it and then send the icing ( frosting ) to the consumer at a later date. It's more like hand building the Pyramids, you need a huge solid base to build upon which is labour intensive and expensive, put bluntly most developers bite off more than they can chew.
there is nothing you can do but except that mmos are getting old. take a brake…” Jakdstripper
Agreed, but
“MMOs are getting old”, I am getting older, but MMO community is getting younger. We are moving in different directions.
MMOs become more affordable/accessible (cheap computers and internet connection) to a very broad audience. MMOs are also “massive” nowadays because they can be played by masses, by “mass-men” (Ortega y Gasset).
Online games become dominated by aggressive badly educated kids that have plenty of time to play and level up. A college/university student as well as a working person with or without a family having limited free time has no chance against these guys. These two groups of gamers are not able by definition to find common interests, play/communication style, fun in a game.
The problem is that we are all in one MMO “pot” now: old and young; minor and adult; a street gang member-drug dealer and a college student; Easterner and Westerner; solo PvE player and PK/PvP fan…
IMHO after the first iteration of market saturation game developers should pay more attention to additional/extra game divergency within genre (fantasy, RPG, ScFi, FPS, etc.) and age group (we have now very simple age division: kindergarten kids and all others). This can be achieved in the frame of the same game e.g. designating special severs for different age groups of players e.g. 18-30, 30-100; PK-free servers; servers for solo lovers etc. There are bars for youngsters, rockers, milk-bars… and we are all sitting in one now.
Interestingly, I (Requiem Bloodymare, Karos, Aion) and my son (L2, EVE, WoW) are always playing different MMOs. I prefer WASD control, do not like ScFi and cartoon graphics.
“Innovation”, “novelty”. Unfortunately, the main “advancement” of so called new generation MOOs is restricted to graphics (maybe also a bit more formal game physics). Better graphics are great but I expect something more: for instance significantly better AI and collision detection; “moddability” à la Second Life but in other genres (e.g. RPG); better organization of massive PvP battles (training camps for guilds, possibility to organize players in units/formations).
I am also now in a search for a new game to play that could fit my “demands”. I am bored with playing RB for so long and appeared to be too “peaceful” for Aion and Karos.
I empathize with a lot of these posts. The MMO market doesn't have a lot of new choices due to the costs of developing these games. And unfortunately MMO gameplay is often constantly repeating the same thing for months, and months; this is generally not as much fun, as it is more like, well, work.
In either case, I think many gamers have "grown out of", or matured in the sense that it generally just isn't fun to wait 1,2,10 hours to camp a Mob/wait for a ship, kill x hundred Mobs/do a 1000 clicks (LOTRO, Geez...), or simply wait for the next level (Eve; can't believe I would have to literally wait real time/do nothing for a skill to level up to get a new ship; that's gotta be the most unintuitive gaming model I've seen ).
Comments
I have the same age, and i played all the games you mention and more. I feel the same, the only mmorpg i wait now is Guild Wars 2, hoping that it will be decent. Besides EVE that i played too much, there is not much to play at the moment.
MMO Industry now i mostly runned by big corporation that only invest to get money, so they release manistream, dumb shit games. Smaller companies might try new things, some will succed, some fail.
Asherons's Call was one of the best mmorpg ever, loved that game.
If that's all there is to look forward to, I guess I'm screwed. EvE just isn't the game for me, I detest PvP and that's the majority of what that game has to offer. I'm sort of looking forward to GW2, but that's off in the future somewhere, that doesn't help right this second.
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
Yeah, I 'd like to see a well made PVE centric sandbox game made (a la Ryzom I suppose) that broke the mold a bit from what's been done in the past. Not every sandbox has to have FFA PVP with full looting at its core to be successful, but right now the indie Dev's all seem pretty focused on it. (forget the big houses, most of them are stuck on the "formula" and won't give us much in the way of innovation)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
Yeah, I'd like to see something a bit more sandboxy than most put out, although not the extreme "there is nothing but sand, find something to do" nonsense. One thing I absolutely want is NO MORE FUCKING FANTASY! Fantasy games are right out as far as I'm concerned, I've developed a serious magic allergy. Fantasy games need not apply.
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
The mmo industry has changed their games to fit the prophet margin and that means they have pussied their games out and made them weak, pathetic shadows of their former selves. Many say try EVE, but that games is all clickie clickie and you don't get to actually drive your ship or have a toon that you can walk around your ship, it is good if you like that stuff, but not for me. I just want everything in a game or nothing? LOL! Just kidding but it pains me to say that you are not growing out of the mmo they are shrinking away from you! Instead of bigger and better they are making smaller and lessor. Plus with ingame stores they are basically charging more and spending less. Hopefully, the games next year will be awesome and we will not have to sit and debate what is bad but what is great.
I am almost 29 and I don't think it's a case of growing out of MMOs, I think it is a case of modern MMOs not appealing to our demographic at all.
I still love gaming, and do game when I have an interesting one to play (this is harder to do in the non MMO world too, I still love Counter Strike better then every FPS that's come since then to show you how hard it is for me to find an interesting game, SC2 has my hopes though.
I started playing MMOs with The Realm. I bought UO as soon as it was released and it was amazing, they started to change systems in a way I didn't like at all (The first few months which was really anything goes was so much fun, the red grey blue system they implemented a few months in was so completely lame it made me quit, along with other changes before that), so I tried EQ. EQ was alright but it was lacking something for me, but then they came out with the RvR server and that was a blast to be one of the first to level up and to outfit your side with armor and really work as a team. But it wasn't the type of system most people who were interested in EQ were into, so the population on that server dropped off very quickly.
Fortunatly AC came out at that time, and that game blew me away. It was more like UO then EQ was, and it had it's own take on things. The game was truly enjoyable and I spent way too much time playing. But then I left for the Navy and obviously couldn't play MMOs for a while.
Once I could play again I picked up DAoC, another well done game. At some point I got bored of that (mostly because my system couldn't handle the huge endgame battles which was such a bummer. I'd log into the zone and then freeze until I died).
Finally one day I tried WoW, and within a month was almost max level and realized how shallow the game was. Since that point in time (and I'm not blaming WoW for this) I have felt all new MMOs have been that way so I can't stick with any for more then a month or two. The design of MMOs has changed significantly since all the early ones and the new design just does not interest me AT ALL.
I would guess there are a lot of people in my age range that feel this way. We just want a different style of MMO design to come back around. If it did I would play MMOs for several hours a week, but as it is now the only one I play is AC, nothing newer then that.
Here's hoping at some point the industry stops targetting the instant gratification, I want to hit max level in 2 weeks, and I want to have end game raiding crowd and designs MMOs for the other people.
I started with Gemstone 3 and Dragonrealms by Simutronics (text games). I also played the Dark Sun MMO and Ultima Online. Then Everquest, took a long break then got addicted to WOW. Playing AOC right now.
I don't know if its a question of outgrowing so much as becoming pickier and knowing what you want and refusing to settle. I find myself just less satisfied and willing to overlook flaws the older I get.
It's burnout.
Just need to take a break for them for a while. Try out some other things and then come back to them in a bit. Can always still keep an eye on things in the meantime or laugh at posters that still complain about the same 'ole things when the supposed "worthwhile" mmorpgs finally release and they bitch about those ones too.
>_>
You do something long enough you're bound to get burned out on it and need a break from it for a while.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I know alot of people think it is burnout but I disagree.
I personally took a break from MMOs for over 2 years, and when I came back and tried some I had the same feelings I had before taking the break, and those feelings persist.
MMOs just aren't made well anymore so they don't hold people's attention. It's the same reason new MMOs release with high sales numbers and drop off to a third or less of those numbers in subscriptions within a month or two. Within 4-6 months they're down to a tenth or less of the sales numbers.
People want to find that new MMO that holds their attention so they buy the new one that comes out. They realize quickly that it's the same thing they're bored of and quit within a month or two. This cycles keeps happening and it isn't because hundreds of thousands of people are all simultaneously burned out. It's because the quality and design of new MMOs is poor.
Look forward World of Darkness it will come when you less expect.
They seem fine to me. In some ways some have even made improvements. There are those that are awful and considering how many years have gone by there certainly is an argument to be made that there have not been more innovations made or genres attempted by them but there are still some good titles out there.
So far as I'm concerened it is burnout. Unless the genre you care for isn't being looked into or you want more of an old school oriented game.
It isn't a grand era in the industry by any means but it also isn't near as bad as some make it out to be either.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I've been playing mmo's since Uo and have messed around with at 10 since then...
Lately mmo's have lost their flavor... it seems like companies only see $$$ instead of making a quality game.
I'm not playing anything new until swtor releases, and if it's a flop.. i'm perma-done with mmo's.
We are very similar. I am also 28 years old. Married and have a 2 yeard old son. When I started playing, FFXI was my first mmo. Quite frankly I was addicted. Played for 10 hours a day, because I could. During law school, got into wow and raided while still going ot law school (horrible idea).
At this point, I think it's a combination of two things. MMO'S are no longer a novelty. They don't have the new car smell, so there isn't any overriding reason to play a game extensively, especially (reasons number 2) you have way more important priorities.
I absolutely will not commit to a raid that will last 3-4 hours when it's all the time I have after work to spend with my wife and son. How in the world can I stare at a computer screen and leave my son to play with his toys, by himself.
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing. I'm playing AoC right now. I absolutely love it, but not as much as playing FFXI for the first time. The best word I can think of with respect to me (or you) is "Stale."
If you do end up finding an mmo that is like "the first time" then you're going to have to prioritize your family around your gametime because in all honesty, can you say playing 20 hours a week does not take away from your family. If i'm playing the same way as I was when I was 20 or 21 (while in college), then i'm neglecting my family. But when my son is sound asleep, and I got a good hour or two before bed, then i'll pull up my 71 Guardian and go adventuring. I hope future mmo's can give satisfying, and challenging entertainment at a 1 hour to 2 hour clip, because the generation of gamers are growing and will not be able to wait an hour while a 40 person raid forms.
So yes, you are outgrowing MMO'S only because your priorities make it so. Nothing is like the first time, and to try to find an MMO with the "first time" feeling is a fool's errand.
Play in stints that maximize the enjoyment. As soon as it feels as though it's a chore, turn it off, play later, or find another game.
I've outgrown the days of having a "full tier 19 set!" I don't have time for that carrot on a stick approach.
IF you don't care about being in the top tier of players i actually find EVE to be the best MMO for people who are sick of following purple carrots around and don't have a huge amount of time for MMO's. People will say the game is a huge time sink....but thats only if you want to be elite or if you want to invest the time.. And even with my limited playing time I have had some great battles when the corp was at war so you CAN pvp with limited time it just most likely will be in fleets with no-lifers lol.
You might have just grown out of MMO's. Maybe just stop playing them for awhile and see if the itch comes back. They are just games and you shouldn't be struggling so hard for an answer........it should be easy.
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Age has nothing to do with "growing out of MMO's." You can be any age to play or get tired of games.
I really do not understand why people have this misconception. Are you really suggesting that Ultima Online, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Dark Ages of Camelot and more were made by enthusiasts who were not in any way driven by the desire and need to turn a profit?
Video gaming has been big business for decades, sure UO was a "gamble" by origin but they very quickly realized that it was no such thing as a gamble.
As to the OP and the crowd here that believe MMO standards have slipped, hence their lack of appeal, may I remind you all that the only thing that has changed for the worse is your own enthusiasm as a result of familiarity with the genre. Take any new MMORPG, even SW:ToR, and it will feel instantly familiar to a seasoned mmo player, in fact it can feel like rerolling for the billionth time. How many of you vets need to plod through a new mmo's tutorial? Yeah me neither.
Words of wisdom, there. Given what I (thought I) like about MMO's, I was convinced that AoC would be my cup of tea and that games like LotRO would never make me happy. AoC gave me a few months of enjoyment, but I got bored with just killing and killing and killing. I went on to LotRO, and it's the first game I broke the 1 year barrier for since 2004.
Describing the gameplay, it sounds like a game that would bore me to tears. But I LOVE playing it.
You could be done with the genre. There are certainly worse things you could do than leave it behind and, perhaps, work on the house, have a kid, write your own software, etc.
I generally agree with a lot of the sentiment regarding the new games rather than being burnt out, but I don't blame the devs. Other than their part in giving the community what it asked for, because the community by and large has shit for brains and we are now awash with a milliard of instant gratification, greatly unrewarding, pointless time sinks.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
To the OP, I'd say it is partially you and partially the games. I don't know if you're still reading this thread, but you might find that taking a good long time off and pursuing other hobbies or playing other types of games will do the trick. Or it might just be that your tastes are changing along with your lifestyle and priorities. It could also be that there aren't any stand-out games right now. It looks like you're looking for fun PvP game without a ton of grinding to get into it and without raiding. Guild Wars might be ok for now, but if you're looking for a mostly non-instanced world, that might not be your thing either.
I am at the other end, but perhaps in a similar situation-- all my kids are grown or in school now, and I am just starting to get back on a school-and-career path, which isn't leaving me a lot of time for games that don't grab me. I have some hopes for new games, but also low expectations of those hopes being met.
I feel the same way as so many others.... just can't get excited about doing the same stuff over again that I already did like 6 years ago. In one way it seems like MMO's just haven't really evolved that much, but the general community and the market has changed dramatically. I think when the history of MMO's is written there will be "before F2P' and "after F2P", I think the money grab has over taken the whole, "lets make a good game" idea and now dev's are putting more effort into marketing and new and exciting ways of enticing you into spending money then actually trying to finish half of a game before release.
He’s totally right about by gamers and for gamers, many of the devs that came into mmo development came from MUD development. Many of the systems in old school mmo’s were the graphical version of MUD’s, not CRPG’s. Now we have schools set up to learn game development, a quick way into the business for many, many now coming from non-MUD experience, coming from CRPG’s and other sorts because there is money to be made with subs in mmo’s. It doesn’t even seem to be about mmorpg’s any longer, but subs or item shops, the quick money making ideas… which in many ways goes against what mmo’s were.
MMO’s were time consuming in that progress was slow and you didn’t have a hoard of items nor your own private CRPG style instances. Now getting fast play which means faster item shop sales. Instant travel gets you nine of the ten items needed for your crafted item in very quick time, resulting in the players buying the last component in the store (in all variations of the example).
It’s like, well there was a major natural disaster in some US city, and store owners decided to make a living price gouging. Hey, like what you said, they too are in the business to make money, right? Once upon a time people did what they liked to do, not what was best for their bank account, but enough to get by doing what they loved. When a disaster happened, they weren’t worried about how much money they could make off their neighbor, but how they could help because they were a part of that community.
Fast play has nothing to do with community though, and publishers rely on market numbers to concoct some high yield formula out of the bits and pieces of the mmo disaster. Well, wasn’t a natural disaster, only a disaster that is progressing from greed. Those dev/publishers you find with their finger up in the air seeing which way the wind blows, then following the currents, not making art.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I do believe that the standards in making modern MMOs have actually slipped. And I am not talking about technological standards but gameplay mechanic standards. I have played quite a few MMOs and I am still looking forward to some of the new batch with enthusiasm (GW2, TSW). I looked forward to Warhammer with enthusiasm but that game pretty much exemplified the "slipping standards" that have crept in to the industry.
I don't believe developers are looking at these games simply saying "lets make money, who cares if the game itself is shit". But I think that the considerations of how to keep players playing and how to make money have crept into game design, when really they never should have. I think we can guarantee that if the game design paradigm was "make money" we would never have seen a number of the big name pre-WoW MMOs because they were designed as games, where gameplay was the focus not money making (not to say the developers didnt want to make money but they thought by making a great game they would make money, the mindset is vastly different).
When you enter an artistic endeavour with "making money" as the raison d'etre then many things get sacrificed along the way - gameplay mechanics get altered to cater to the largest possible audience and games become much less than what they could be. WoW was not developed with this mindset but it has crept in over the life of the game and the result is the game we have today - as different from vanilla WoW as to be almost different games entirely.
Making money is not bad, but it becomes the big bugbear that people quote when it starts to interfere with game design. We get all these terms like "dumbing down" getting thrown around. They are all indicative of gameplay mechanics being changed to cater to a larger audience (ie. the people who like things easy and like them now - the majority of people today).
We do have to remember that trends in MMO gaming are not like fashion trends. MMOs take 5 years (on average) to develop so you really do have to wait to see things change. We have gone through the deadzone of copycat finance-driven MMOs that started development once the money started rolling in from WoW. Now we are entering a new era where games are including innovations, movements away from the old EQ model. But unfortunately for those of us that love MMOs, we won't see these for 1-2 years at the moment. It is if these new games are crap that we really have to worry about the industry.
Until then it's just a waiting game.
I'm sorry, but to suggest that any serious MMO made pre-wow has sidelined "making money" in preference to some idealistic principle is a folly. Game production is a business, businesses have overheads and in this case financial backers, these things must be the highest priority. Many developers want to make the best they can afford in an effort to make a return.
Yes there are many poor quality mmo's out there as the market has expanded and a huge rate, this is true for any retail/service sector. There are, however many quality titles in the market today, the general consensus in these forums is biased in favour of the "disgruntled & bored" by it's very nature.
When Blizzard decided to enter the MMORPG market there is no way in hell they did so on the premise that making a healthy return would take second place to making a quality product, the reverse would have been true, after all they were cashing in on a hugely successful IP. Yes indeed high production values are essential to making a successful product but do not be sucked into the "it was better in my day" mindset of the burned out mmo player base.
The chances for failure of a new mmorpg in today's market are huge compared to those of a decade ago. Why? Because games such as WoW, Lotro etc have had the luxury of time and cash flow to invest heavily in polish and content padding. Any game wishing to compete must spend massive, massive amounts of money and time to develop a game that will be compared to such titles.
Games like WAR fell flat because they didn't have the budget & time to include all the things they would have liked to. The development team don't mooch around for 4 years straining to think of content, they find they have to compromise and cut swathes of content because of production constraints. I know some of you think making an MMO is like baking a cake i.e add the listed features, bake for 4 years, sell it and then send the icing ( frosting ) to the consumer at a later date. It's more like hand building the Pyramids, you need a huge solid base to build upon which is labour intensive and expensive, put bluntly most developers bite off more than they can chew.
[edit typo]
“mmos ,like most things, with time get booring.
there is nothing you can do but except that mmos are getting old. take a brake…” Jakdstripper
Agreed, but
“MMOs are getting old”, I am getting older, but MMO community is getting younger. We are moving in different directions.
MMOs become more affordable/accessible (cheap computers and internet connection) to a very broad audience. MMOs are also “massive” nowadays because they can be played by masses, by “mass-men” (Ortega y Gasset).
Online games become dominated by aggressive badly educated kids that have plenty of time to play and level up. A college/university student as well as a working person with or without a family having limited free time has no chance against these guys. These two groups of gamers are not able by definition to find common interests, play/communication style, fun in a game.
The problem is that we are all in one MMO “pot” now: old and young; minor and adult; a street gang member-drug dealer and a college student; Easterner and Westerner; solo PvE player and PK/PvP fan…
IMHO after the first iteration of market saturation game developers should pay more attention to additional/extra game divergency within genre (fantasy, RPG, ScFi, FPS, etc.) and age group (we have now very simple age division: kindergarten kids and all others). This can be achieved in the frame of the same game e.g. designating special severs for different age groups of players e.g. 18-30, 30-100; PK-free servers; servers for solo lovers etc. There are bars for youngsters, rockers, milk-bars… and we are all sitting in one now.
Interestingly, I (Requiem Bloodymare, Karos, Aion) and my son (L2, EVE, WoW) are always playing different MMOs. I prefer WASD control, do not like ScFi and cartoon graphics.
“Innovation”, “novelty”. Unfortunately, the main “advancement” of so called new generation MOOs is restricted to graphics (maybe also a bit more formal game physics). Better graphics are great but I expect something more: for instance significantly better AI and collision detection; “moddability” à la Second Life but in other genres (e.g. RPG); better organization of massive PvP battles (training camps for guilds, possibility to organize players in units/formations).
I am also now in a search for a new game to play that could fit my “demands”. I am bored with playing RB for so long and appeared to be too “peaceful” for Aion and Karos.
I empathize with a lot of these posts. The MMO market doesn't have a lot of new choices due to the costs of developing these games. And unfortunately MMO gameplay is often constantly repeating the same thing for months, and months; this is generally not as much fun, as it is more like, well, work.
In either case, I think many gamers have "grown out of", or matured in the sense that it generally just isn't fun to wait 1,2,10 hours to camp a Mob/wait for a ship, kill x hundred Mobs/do a 1000 clicks (LOTRO, Geez...), or simply wait for the next level (Eve; can't believe I would have to literally wait real time/do nothing for a skill to level up to get a new ship; that's gotta be the most unintuitive gaming model I've seen
).