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Is There Hope?
lawman87
Member Posts: 3
I'm not your typical MMORPG player. I'm an amateur bodybuilder, I'm a firefighter in the military, and I have a hot, tall, blonde hair, blue eyed wife. I do however have a demon in the closet... I'm a sucker for MMORPG's. I love them... However, in recent years my hopes and expectations have been let down considerably, so again, is there hope?
I've been around the block (with games mind you), starting with Everquest. However, I've played SWG, Vanguard, even WOW and quite a few others. None have struck me like Everquest did, or SWG originally. Most games on the market today are what I have given the acronym HESPEWOG (Highly Enhanced Single Player Experience With Optional Grouping). Nothing today comes close to the original meaning of MMORPG. I'll highlight a few points I think an MMORPG should recreate, or better yet, a few points that go back to the roots of what an MMORPG are all about.
To make it easy, I'll concentrate on what Everquest did right, and go from there. First the death penalty. Today's games are a joke with this. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd start giving out bonuses soon for getting killed. Having to go on a corpse run was a pain in the ass in itself, but it made you wise. You didn't jump into a mob of creatures stupidly, you planned things out. It brought more realism and immersion into the fantasy world.
Travel... The whole point of a fantasy world is to feel like you're really in a fantasy world. Running distances from one place to another, taking ships to travel, etc. It was a big ordeal, as it should be. You didn't see many elves in the starting area of the Humans, and vice versa. Today's genre have more advanced globalization then our real world.
Language and factions... Again, another part of immersion.... Walking up into the Dark Elf realm as a human and starting up a conversation with them was unthinkable. Most games nowadays have all this lore, yet you can waltz right into the "enemies" lands and talk to them... Hm...
Leveling... Another joke nowadays. All the developers do is make it easier, and expand the end content. Whatever happened to it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey? Leveling should take time. The highest I got to was 32... I constantly rerolled to try out different races and classes because the journey was so enjoyable, even with the grinding. Which brings me to my next point.
Soloing... If you can solo to the end don't call yourself an MMORPG. Grouping should be a necessity. And if it isn't... Make it 10x harder to gain experience. People can play single player games. There's no shortage of that. What there's a shortage of is good grouping games, especially in this modern MMORPG world. I made such good friends grouping and leveling together, you don't see that nearly as often as you should nowadays.
There's plenty of other points I could make but I'll leave it at those... All these other people complain and say, "It's my money!" Etc... Well you can spend your money on a single player game. What about my money, our money... The money we give to companies hoping for these things, and yet we get let down again and again. Can there not be just one game for us? I'm sure there's plenty of us to make money, I'm sure you'd even get some new players, quite a few actually.
Many of us want a challenge... I know I do. The end game content is fun, but you should feel accomplished when you get there. There should be plenty of content inbetween to keep us fixated and challenged at the same time. I'll leave it at that...
Comments
I too am no typical player.
Olympic gold medalist, and All American Bunz of Steel Champion.
Even in my busy time fine toning my sexy abs, i find time to feed my addiction to MMO's and coke (the soda )
Oh.. to answer your question, no, MMO companies are only interested in making money, not good and original MMO's.
funny how you ppl are thinking that every MMORPG is about grouping together instead of thinking it can also be a game with a lot of players just on 1 server.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Well you know what they did after releasing A New Hope? They made 5 sequels, and only the first sequel was actually good/creative.
mixing corn on the cob with strawberry ice cream bleh.
So yeah, EQ to SWG, then what?
They try to appeal to the widest audience now, not just one but many, basically making a smorgasbord game, all in one pile though
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I know Warhammer has achievements for dying in certain ways, which you get xp for. Lets be honest with ourselves, though. Experience is just a number in a video game. That video game is meant to help you experience that world. In real life, there are no simple numbers that tell everyone how good you are at chopping logs, fixing cars, engineering a bridge, or genetic splicing. I think between the experience grind and the death system, video games of the future are going to move past those somehow.
I know that proabably isn't what you want to hear. You feel better about yourself when you overcome a large obstacle, like hitting level 50 in EQ when you risk losing multipule levels if you should happen to die in the wrong place. I'm not saying it is a bad thing to be gratified by that.
Unfortunately for you, the MMORPG industry is evolving to provide users with easier gratification. It makes people feel good in the short-term, but rarely in the long-term. WoW is a perfect example. They have had to release expansion packs to retain players. If it weren't for their expansions, people would stop playing. The difference between Blizzard and other MMOs is the numbers of players they would lose if they didn't release expansions. Players of WoW receive more short-term gratification than any other game. City of Heroes is a great example of a game that wouldn't lose players due to a lack of expansions. It has had very little meaningful content added since its original release, compared to other MMOs and it is still going strong.
My advice: Give up MMOs or be satisfied with what's out there. You can play an old one for the gratification of overcoming a large obstacle or a new one for instant gratification.
I think games these days are too easy, too. However, an MMO that is very hard to solo, has harsh death penalties and features lengthy travel times just isn't going to make enough money to interest a game company or its shareholders. Not in today's economic climate. Sad, but true. Wishing it wasn't so is pointless.
"Walking up into the Dark Elf realm as a human and starting up a conversation with them was unthinkable." There was nothing out of the ordinary in doing that. The Dark Elf Guards might kill you on sight, but there was nothing stopping a Human character walking up to a Dark Elf character and interacting socially or forming a party. I don't know where you got that idea. Characters in EQ could group with any other player race whatsoever and did so as a matter of course.
Levelling in EQ wasn't hard, either, not when you knew the ropes. I got several characters to 70+ before I moved on, and because my guild was mainly American and I was in Europe, I soloed a heck of a lot out of sheer necessity.
Well, I was talking about my experience on the Firiona Vie server... Where there was no common language... They had it right with that server. I played long before, a little before Velious came out... And hell, an MMORPG like that would sure as hell make money. It would be a one of a kind. The only difficult MMORPG on the market, one that took time. That would draw in a huuuge crowd. Knock offs don't make money. Take Jersey Shore for example... That was a hit... But was Jerseylicious or any other stupid "Jersey" themed show a hit? No... It wasn't original... Now, a game as I explained, very similar to Everquest wouldn't be entirely original... But at the same time a game such as that hasn't been seen in years, reason enough to give hope for a large crowd.
Yep, Firiona Vie was my #2 server. I had my Drui there if I recall correctly.
Sure I agree, what made mmo’s so good has not been done in a long time, and those that were such games changed to something like most all the ones on the market are now… and can’t go back. But at some point something has gotta give, a few game companies with vision rather than gimmick. Right now the only game running with such a vision is from CCP, an indie developer, their mission statement is to create worlds. World creation is much of the original formula of mmo's, persistent-community worlds and all that. Of course we need more variety, some more companies with vision.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Sorry but i dont see anything in the acronym MMORPG that says Grouping... there are many ways to interact with other people, none of which requires grouping. Grouping with others s far from the only reason to play an MMO.
You dont need to be in group/party to chat with others.
You dont need a group to be a crafter and sell stuff to other players.
You dont need to group to have a living economy influenced by other players for selling/trading.
You dont need a group to match your skill and achievements vs other players.
You dont need a group to PvP.
Some play to be a part of a Guild, to sometimes do things with them, but that does not mean grouping 100% of the time.
None of these things above can be done in single player games, except the achievements thing maybe (like on XBL).
Grouping is not, and has never been a "requirement" for an MMORPG, all thats required is other players be there, nothing about HOW you choose to interatc with them. If you prefer grouping, then fine go ahead and group, but dont try to insist that others are playing for the same reason as you or enjoy the same things as you. Your one of a small group of people who play for the purpose of grouping, but there are many other groups out there, none of them which can exist on a single player game.
And thus Farmville was born.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Added a disclaimer for you.
I don't believe that. In fact, a lot of recent games had legendary, and I mean LEGENDARY, IP's behind them, yet failed because gameplay was too easy, too on rails, and too unrewarding.
When the next AAA quality MMO comes out that fits the OP's design, watch out. That will be a real hit, wills top WOW into the ground.
Very nice.
I agree with the op on everything but the soloing point. I also happen to dislike everquest.
Curse you dreaded farmville!!
...................actually its all about petville & cafe word now. Get with the times. I've got some angel fruit cake cookin' now
[size=8]PLAYED: TSO, SWG, WOW, EQ2, Vanguard, FFXII, AOC, AION, Guild Wars, Second Life
Waiting: SWTOR, FFXIV
You want to know the true beauty I found in early EQ1? I had a UO sub too and could play that at any time
Wat? Oh, well the true beauty was they were both fundamentally different in most every respect
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
A lot of casual games out there, even EQ got in on the trend.
I think you just have to get to appriciate the new titles for what they are. Each of them have GOOD ideas and most have fun game play. But yeah, the path taken after AC, UO, and EQ wasn't exactly ideal for those who appriciated the difficulty and the community you pretty much HAD to become a part of to advance.
I recommend an older title in City of Heroes and Villains. Their recent 'packs' are an odd thing that's easily ignored, but it's not really hard to find a group or a guild to go do things with while having a lot of customization and freedom to sort of make the game what you want it to be.
Another thing.. Mr. Bodybuilder, all of these games are better if you have a core group of friends to jump to them all in.
We're probably a few good development cycles away from getting that AWE-MOMENT title again. But honestly the market is so full of good games, there's a million critics for each of them.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Vanguard and Dark & Light failed.
The next big thing, will truly be a new thing. The OP's games exists all over, but we've played them all to death.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I soloed mostly in EQ and the challenges were fun. Fond memories of running through 3 zones and getting on a damned boat to where my corpse was very interesting. It made dying mean something. I played on Talon Zek and loved every minute of it, never got bored. I think now it caters too much to the instant traveling and that is why I quit the game. The instant traveling took the fun out of many zones. The community was great. I moved from that to Shadowbane and haven't found any game compare to the two even though they are so different from each other. I think whether the content is meant to solo or group it needs to be challenging. I haven't really found any of it challenging anymore. I don't find killing 20 mobs in under an hour challenging unless I purposely gimp my toon in order to make it harder.
Juegos de Lucha-Free online games
RPG Titles
Juego De Guerra
Rift Universe
They failed because of lack of polish, really crappy implementation, not because they were open worlds. Those were NOT AAA games. But if EQ Next comes out and is anything like EQ1, but with advanced graphics, smooth UI, smooth movement, I would think folks would flock to it.
Juegos de Lucha-Free online games
RPG Titles
Juego De Guerra
Rift Universe
Bad points:
Linear theme parks
Instanced zones
Instanced mob’s
Instant travel for all
Instant loot for all
Kitten death penalty
Hand holding quests
Carrot to ride solo
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Similar deal here. Went from UO to EQ and sort of appriciated the optional PVP approch, tho' still played pvp when I could. Then Shadowbane had it so I could customize my class how I wanted (mino/barb/2h) and it felt different from everyone else.
We're in the age of locked combat, instances, solo difficulty, walk thrus, blinky map icons.
EVE is still out there, if only I gave a crap about space ships.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Shadowbane was awesome. I"m not a true PVP'er, so I couldn't hang too long, but while I did play, I always found it exciting. Never knew what to expect. Probably most immersive game I have ever played.
You know what I liked about SB mostly is it gave me a real reason to join a guild. I didn't join to just level faster, but to build a city together in order to build better gear. To unit and fight against those who tried to take our city away and to punish those who attacked us. There was solo content, group content, group effort to grow as a collective so we could beat other player characters. There was a cause and a reason you came back. Now there is just a grind for the next shiney and you may have a guild for raids but for really what? The next trinket that no one can take away from you? If you lost a city in SB that meant a lot of work lost and hard to get the gear you wanted. Plus there was real politics in this game and it was great.
Now the games are just I don't know, lame. Sure if I played SB too much I got bored, but isn't that the case with everything? You take a break and come back. I still can't get over Raiding so you can sit in a city and look cool, feeling secure that you can't lose your pixels. Looking back SB was apparently very complex on many levels that other producers haven't caught on to yet.
<Pouring a brew on the sidewalk> Here's to you SB, I miss you.
Juegos de Lucha-Free online games
RPG Titles
Juego De Guerra
Rift Universe
sry don't know if it was mention yet but.............
have you ever tried out EVE Online?
I must warn you it has what we "EVErs" like to call a learning cliff, we don't believe in curves :P
it is a very hard game to get in to but once you find a group of people to play with or a corp to join, in my opinion it is THE best mmo out atm, to me it came in dead even with SWG (pre-CU and NGE) but it has advanced well beyond that now with 13 expansions and 2 more planned this year including allowing you to walk in stations and own buisnesses and such (it is a sci-fi space game) also they are launching "Dust 514" a console FPS that attaches to the EVE universe to allow FPSers to capture planets for the corps in EVE.....it really is amazing what they have done in the last 7 years I have been in this game.
if anything just give it a try, they have a 14 day trial, and my name in game is "JD Barrett" if your looking for someone to have some fun with, it also has a player driven Econemy where the players make 90% of the items in the game, and on top of that the death penalty is the harshest I have seen in any game......if you die, you loose your ship along with 50% of what was in your cargo hold or on your ship, and then you are in your pod, then your pod can also be killed and your loot stolen, there are 3 types of systems in the 5000 system universe and 2500 Wormholes you have relitively safe space "security status .5-1.0" then you have low sec 0.1 - 0.4, then you have null sec or lawless space 0.0.
there is so much that it would just be easier if you checked it out for yourself
the link is www.eveonline.com
oh forgot to mention all 13 +the 2 others planned this year where compleatly free, plus right now its only $20 to buy the game and play for 30 days then $15 a month after that, oh and all your skills train in real time, so that way you can carry on a normal life without having to worry about grinding
just to give you an idea of my experience in gaming....
Fighter Ace, Diablo I and II, WoW, Aces High, DAoC, SWG (Pre NGE/CU), WWIIO, Dark and Light
WarHammer Online, PlanetSide, Tabula Risa, Aion, Asherons Call, Anarchy Online, Earth and Beyond,
DDO, FFXI, PotBS, Guild Wars, Legend of Mir, Wurm Online, Fallen Earth, SB, Horizons
as you can see I have been around hehe, not many games cath my interest, however EVE and SWG did, and since SWG is no longer around in the good way EVE is it
fighter ace
diablo
wow
aces high
daoc
SWG
WWIIO
Dark and Light
Warhammer Online
PlanetSide
AION
AO
AC
EnB
DDO
FFXI
POTBS
Guild Wars
Legend of Mir
fighter ace
diablo
wow
aces high
daoc
SWG
WWIIO
Dark and Light
Warhammer Online
PlanetSide
AION
AO
AC
EnB
DDO
FFXI
POTBS
Guild Wars
Legend of Mir
I will check into Eve. Mainly because you gave a good broken down description of the game and it sounds interesting.
Juegos de Lucha-Free online games
RPG Titles
Juego De Guerra
Rift Universe