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Anyone miss that sense of mystery or something being magical and beyond you?
Miffy
Member Posts: 244
I've been watching movies like LOTR and The Village recently and they've reminded me of what the old MMOs used to have. Like in the Village where they can't cross over into the woods in fear of the creatures inside. I'd love to have that sense of mystery again in an MMO where people are speculating on what's inside there or how to do something. I remember MMOs used to be hard and we couldn't go to alot of zones alone because they were too hard. I was so excited to find groups to do this content that very few people have. People never really spoke about it because they didn't want to reveal the secrets. Even had it with games as recent as EQ in 2004 where I couldn't wait to see what was in Nek castle, I had to wait so long because I needed a good group to go down there. Even with Star Wars Galaxies with people wondering how to unlock Jedi, the class seemed to be this giant secret everyone wanted to get in on. Watching LOTR the moment in the first movie where the elven land just seemed so magical and beyond you, like they were the superior race.
The problem is with modern MMOs, the developers make the game so everyone can do everything and have it all NOW! There's no sense of accomplishment anymore because everyone has already done it. I remember in Star Wars Galaxies, quest givers could be hidden and looking at the stats only 100 people had done it before. You felt special, like you found something noone has. Now there is a giant icon above their head and quests are just to grind levels. There isn't any magical special NPCs anymore that you can't defeat because the dev's want you to be the most elite people. Frigging I can't believe they killed off Arthas in the pathetic way that they did. A Character from WC3 and FT that should have had a much more epic story in the game. Now maps show every bit of land and everything they have there. You don't find secret locations that aren't on the maps anymore. Playing EQ and SWG I just felt so lost because not everything was on the map, EQ didn't even have good maps. So everything felt so special, exploring the worlds and finding things on your own.
The problem now as MMOs gear towards the casuals, we're losing proper virtual worlds and they're turning into games for the console crowd. People always say go play darkfall or whatever, but them type of MMOS lack a good budget to make a good game. I want developers with a proper budget to start making true MMOs again and none of this casual shit we've been seeing. People always say they wont be popular but noone is put off by a hard or challenging game. They are put off by the poor execution, we haven't seen it been done properly with modern graphics and mechanics.
Comments
I hear what your saying and agree with you to some extent. But it's not like the dev's are 100% to blame.
When we were playing EQ back in the day we hated certain aspects, funny how WoW seems to have directly addressed them and improved on what we hated. (not an I love WoW rant but it pulled a lot of EQ people out). We didnt like that non-melee had no gate: we get Hearthstone. We didnt like that we had to run to our body: we get spirit res. Lvling curve (50's+), grind and questing sucked: we get more even lvl's, quests that mean something and "!" to find them.
We the community have put pressure on ourselves to do things like post on youtube the fights so we know them before we go in. We the community have made the websites to share the "hidden" knowledge. We the community have requested that causual players get the same content as the hardcore because we are paying the same price.
To some extent seems we shot ourselves in the foot.
I understood exactly where you were going. This point was entirely clear to me and I would agree with it, but then you seemed to jump from the logic that games had lost a lot of mystery, right into:
I just fail to see a connection. Being difficult or not does not create mystery, a lack of knowledge and understanding does. Hard monsters can certainly slow down the acquisition of knowledge but they are a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny part of a greater whole.
Mystery in games, in my opinion, vanished simply because the internet continued to grow. People can get upset at mini-maps or quest markers but when I played my first two MMO's, EQ and UO, there were no databases providing a comprehensive list of every available item or atlas sites that linked every inch of the world with a highly detailed satellite shot.
I don't really blame these sites for existing. It's only natural to try to catalogue and understand the world around you, whether it's a fictional virtual world or a real one, but as far as I'm concerned they're the direct reason that we don't wonder what's inside a forest and have a feeling of suspense - cultivating a sensation that "anything" could happen once we entered. We can quite easily pull the information up on a website with a fast ALT-TAB command and even if we choose not to, chances are there will be an abundance of people around us who already have and will be increasingly annoyed with our ignorance if we don't.
Additionally, our own familiarity with MMOs tends to tell us what is possible and what isn't: We know the trees won't change shape, the forest won't alter a path in order to confuse us, and monster spawns are probably static, and if something rare appears it's probably on an X spawn timer. We're victims of our own addiction.
That's what killed the mystery for me. It would take serious overhauls to game design to even stave off these types of problems. Even then, such an effort will probably be short-lived before fans simply find a way around it or we grew familiar with a new type of game engine. Whether the monsters in said forest are dangerous or not is irrelevant to the mystery - a different point entirely.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
I agree with the OP 100%. The magic and mystery is gone. Now it's just paint by numbers scripted leveling followed by endless loot grinding.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I felt that sence of mystery while playing games like Lineage2, or FFXI. Asian games. They (usually) don't hand hold you through content. The devs keep things a secret longer, leveling is slower with a better sence of accomplishment, and there are less giant databases walking you through how to attain everything in the games. Unfortunately, they usually end up failing at a different aspect of the game.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Your point about youtube is very true. People always say fights are too easy these days, but when was the last time you joined a raid without looking it up on youtube or using mods that basically tell you where to stand. Guilds are always running to websites and youtube to get the kill tactics. If you want to feel get the feeling back, simply don't use them. I never look up fights, partly because I don't care that much, and I always find most raid to be really fun the first time around because i have no idea what will happen. I also never, ever use mods. You can even get warnings for when another player is casting certain spells in pvp from some mods. How is that any fun?!?! Simply don't look up info online and I promise you, most of those feeling can return. There were a lot of posts today how SE posts hardly anything about there game, which is why I like their mmo(s) a lot.
I think progression was slow and there was a lot of pressure on achieving levels quickly, and the result that came up was that web sites could make money giving away game secrets and selling advertising on those pages.
I remember the first time I went to the web to try and solve a quest that I couldn't figure out...
To me it felt like I was cheating.
After a while, this became the normal way to play. Now players simply do the mechanical end of gameplay but the substance is gone. The cheat mechanics are now built into the UI.
Grab a quest. Follow the little red arrow to the target. Gather 10 yack noses. Run back to turn it in.
Is that all that's left to gaming? No wonder things feel insubstantial.
QFT.
I still remember how magical and mysterious Asheron's Call first felt when I started. I was terrified to leave main cities are stray far from the road in the lower levels. And even as I got higher, there was always something scarier and more terrifying a little further out. I've actually found this again with Kingdom Heroes as there is so much to explore and sometimes you happen upon stuff you wish you hadn't.
I agree with the OP too that is so true. I'll never forget making the mistake of going into Nek forrest at night because I hadn't realized that the mobs were totally different at night than during the day. Or the one time in EQ during an event that wasn't announced the GMs dropped werewolves on top of everyone. It was total suckage and exhilarating at the same time heh. I could blather on all day about stuff like that but I think the OP hit the nail on the head.
The OP confcused lacking in information with fun.
Early EQ mystery arises from lacking of user accessible database of information. Game fun, however is personal, you want mystery? turn off all chats and turn off all websites. Do NOT read the manual and try out any game you know, you have a long period of mystery, but is that fun?
Human knowledges comes from documentation. From sharing. We do not want to explore our world like a baby till we die. We read and study so we know about the world from the wisdom of those who failed before, so we can try to optimise with some understanding of the world around us. We play a game with some personal agenda, like running the AH, gearing up, killing ppl in pvp, and we want to do so efficiently, so we go read up webs. If the fun is in the mystery, we would not go read, but does everyone want gaming for the sake of mystery? No all.
If you want mystery, go play puzzle games, like myst, without hint books, tons of exploration in that aspect, of fun.
For me, It wasn't about mystery, but more suspense and wonder. There was plenty of information out in early days of EQ, and even knowing that at night, kithicor forest was a death trap, there was a eerie suspense entering and trying to make it through the zone.
It just seems I no longer get that sense of awe when playing the more current MMOs. I can still get it when I go back to an older one, but for various reasons, I don't last for too long (population usually).
It probably has to do that most MMOs are quest based now which I can't stand and very solo oriented in progression. I guess I just lose that awe and wonder, the suspense of doing a dungeon crawl with a group, hoping we can make it against overwhelming numbers as 1 of our group tries to lock down the 6+ monsters waiting to demolish us as we destroy each before they destroy us.
Now, it is more like, kill 10 boars, move here, 10 rats now, go there and get 5 snake skins and come back with a bottle of milk.
I don't think it has anything to do with mystery, but that magical quality of progressing in an epic world has become mundane with a series of menial tasks. (Not to say it was never drudgery before, but never on this scale these days for me at least.)
The OP is right
Cheesy spoonfed carebear theme parks killed the magic .
And yeah original EQ was hard & awesome, even though you could read the walkthrus on EQAtlas & Allakhazam.
Too many devs & players forgot that : Fear + Challenge = Thrills + Adventure
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Playing : Uncharted Waters Online
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In an effort to increase the player base by pandering to everyone, MMO’s have ended up being satisfying in the long term to no one.
So you've lost that first MMO feeling? You're a little jaded now?
.
You can't recapture the first time.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
I still get that sense of wonder all the time.
Magnets, how do they work?!
I dare say you're looking back at old games with a nostalgic bias, and honestly I'm not exactly sure what point you are trying to make here because you go in so many different directions. What's the connection between a sense of wonder and casual play - more specifically why do you believe they are mutually exclusive?
I'm sure there are people who speculate about what is in each new raid dungeon they add in newer games...then those people either run it or look it up on youtube. Like others have pointed out - that's not the fault of the developer. It also makes sense for the developer to allow most of the community a chance to see the new zones they put so many resources into crafting. I wonder if the speculation about the "mysteries" of zones in older games you describe didn't take place when the games were early in their lifespan, like would be done with any game.
In any case, l like others have pointed out, this mostly boils down to the perspective you personally choose to take on a game and how/why you play it.
Nostalgia & frame of mind are a typical counter argument but it doesn't make up for the lack of immersion in recent mmos.
Playing Fallout 3 or Oblivion on hard settings with the right player made add-ons brings back mystery & magic for me.
(immersion is not specific to mmo's).
So the player's perspective doesn't make up for the crappy wow clones who get released left and right these days.
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Playing : Uncharted Waters Online
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Except that many people do feel immersed in today's MMO's, more so than earlier ones. And many people fave fun in these so called, mostly-ill named wow clones.
So IMO the nostalgia argument and rose-coloured glasses is a huge contributor.
Venge Sunsoar
Interesting question. I think theres a couple things you have to realize:
1) In the old days, MMORPGs were completely new to us. Every thing was mysterious and exciting.
2) Newer MMOs have tilted more towards "content" and being user friendly.
Most of it comes down to predictability. These games have become more and more predictable, partly because we've seen it all before and partly because players complain when they're challenged or surprised in an MMO. You're not going to find much mystery with instanced questing and static mob spawns unless you're completely new to the genre.
Could some one make an MMO that feels "new" and "mysterious"? Definately. Will it happen? Who knows. One thing is for sure, it would have to be an MMO that breaks the old 1-2-3 button mashing, mob killing, quest training, level grinder mold.
Not me. Hopefully my design will be given a chance. If I get that chance I guarantee you that the mmo I am designing will be your new mmo home.
That sense of "newness" and "mystery" and "difficulty" came more from the player than from the game. Some of the games back then were quite awful.
Hell, i remember my spine tingling when I first played the (text-based) Legend of the Red Dragon over a 2400bps connection to a BBS. Would that game give me the same sense today? Nope, it wouldn't. The game is the same, but "Would you to attempt to [E]nter Bigbob's room at the Inn?" just doesn't cut it for me as a player anymore.
I have changed. I'm better at playing MMORPGs. I'm more experienced. I can play damn near any MMO out there without a manual and quickly get good at it. Killing a wolf and finding a sword no longer has any novelty for me. Not because it's not cool, but because i've killed hunreds of different wolves and have found thousands of different swords. It's not the wolf's fault or the sword's fault. It could very well be the best realized wolf in history, and the coolest sword in history, but it simply takes more than a wolf and a sword to entertain me now.
There is the issue that today's game continue to be built as though we've never played one. The problem isn't that before it took 10 minutes to find a cool place, but now it takes 5. The problem is that finding a cool place isn't that cool anymore. The experiences the games offer are the same experiences we've had countless times. In order to create that sense of newness and wonder, they have to offer new experiences. If some game out there had a "seed" feature that allowed a player to plant a seed anywhere in the world and that seed would grow over a month and eventually become a tree, this would create the experience of newness and wonder for the player - because a player hasn't done anything like that before. Now, planting trees is not a particularly exciting thing to do and you can't really base a game around it, but the point i'm trying to make is that to get people to feel like they're discovering something new, you have to create new mechanics and ways to interact with the game. Building a harder boss or having 20km zones instead of 5km zones changes very little.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
That's pretty much the issue.
Personally, I'm not optimistic. Why would developers work on some thing "new" when they can just roll out the same old template and gaurantee some sort of return for their investors?
Reminiscing about our first time are we?
MMO ±> sex
The first time you will always remember.
Try sticking with your first love, then realize there are options out there, move on.
Next couple you try is just as good, but missing a certain something.
Now and again you get it offered for free, but that lowers your standards and makes you feel cheap.
Slowly become jaded, realize that sometimes its not worth the effort.
Nowadays you pay full price, the fun lasts an hour. You feel dirty afterward.
You wish you could go back. Recapture the magic.
You only stay a virgin once. You realize that you are now a whore.
MMO whore that is
In my opinion it's all about box sales nowadays. Game companies likely make a large percentage of their investment back on pre-orders alone. It doesn't matter what's in the game as long as they can get you to pony up $50 for the box/DL.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Pretty much. I actually wanted to use the virginity analogy as well but abstained.
(There are also some issues with the analogy in that - unlike an mmo - even bad sex is still pretty good.)
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO