I really don't think MMOs seem so lame at the moment because of 'clone war -itis'.
There's a lot of unique games that have come and gone because they were too different.
It's partly tech and partly social.
"Player don't hate the game, game hate the player."
If you are trying to take a jab at SWTOR, it is not the "clone wars".
It is The Old Republic.
Clone wars is another type of MMO it is nothing like SWTOR and is being targetted for children.
TOR is the one that is highly aniticpated, not The Clone Wars.
And they say repeated use of marijuana doesn't cause brain damage.
It was a general Star Wars jab, cuz people are saying most new MMOs coming out look like WoW clones.
I heard the primary brain cell damagers actually comes from chemicals in rolling papers dude, might want to switch to a nickle-based hash pipe. The copper ones have lead in them, and that wouldn't help.
Yes, and from your previous post I would imagine that you smoke plenty of it and like a champ.
and like a champ.
I think MMOs are fine, the idiots playing them are not.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I feel one of the issues is the current MMO player. Years ago the majority of MMO players were adults who could afford/were willing to spend $15 a month on an online game. Since the target audience was more mature, the game mechanics were more mature/complicated. Now both my kids (under 16) have accounts and from my understanding the 14 to 24 crowd is the biggest player base for MMO's. It makes sense that developers are designing games for this crowd, thou it sucks for us old timers to see us getting less from MMO's each year. Remember when MMO's had player housing, multiple play areas, customized clothing/food and crafting was an actual profession? We dont see much of that anymore.
New games like CO and STO go live with less than half the content older games had at launch.
Not to mention there are some teenagers with sopihsticated tastes like thyself.
The audience is being tricked to think these washed down games are fun and are not introduced to the old school system as you may call it (I had to find out for myself how games orginally worked from paper and pen games, I was pretty impressed when I first found out about them).
I'll say that I agree with your comments about CO and STO. I'm not even sure they have HALF the content, to be honest.
Not sure how you "trick" someone into thinking something is fun, though. It either is, or isn't. Some people think CO or STO are fun, but there's clear evidence that both games are declining quickly. Seems they're only fun for so long...
You CAN however, IMO, trick someone into thinking that if you work hard(in context of your toon), you'll be rewarded. This is what many of the old school games did, IMO. For example I just can't imagine someone telling me with a straight face that mining in UO was fun. Clicking on a rock. Not fun. That just appeals to... as I said before, that sense of working hard now for a better future, that instinct in most of us to gather resources for the future.
Maybe I misread you and THAT's what you mean by "tricking someone into thinking they're having fun." But CO and STO aren't built that way. They, cynically, IMO, think that everyone just wants to get into the action... blow stuff up, get loot, blow more stuff up, etc; they also seem to believe that people want to get to the highest level ASAP. I believe, that even those players that THINK that's what they want, generally get bored and move on if they get it.
Back on the OT, if we TRULY want a more sophisticated MMO than what we see in the mainstream, we may have to come to the reality that we're certainly in the minority. That such a game would be a niche game, and thus if we wanted something of top notch quality for that niche, $15 a month isn't gonna keep the lights on in the dev house. I won't be holding my breath for such a game; I think the next wave of MMO's are gonna be all about accessibility.
Til that "super MMO" gets made, I'll be enjoying LotRO, and the occasional visits to Eve/DDO/CoX. When KotR comes out, I'll probably enjoy it, too, though I doubt it will be tremendously deep or revolutionary. I'd love to see a deep, complex, intriguing game come out, but I don't despair for a second over what's out there now.
Devs dont need to be innovative, they dont have to think "outside the box" or try to actually do anything original or "Next Gen".
They just have to squeeze out the same crap they have been for years because they have learned that we will scoop it up and devour it every time.
Sure, players will bitch and whine about how much the game is fail (even though the hype level is 8.9 and everyone has been saying its a "Breath of Fresh Air" and "The New Hawtness") and Reviewers will post about how much the game sucks (even after posting for years about how this is the most anticipated game in gaming history), but you know what? Next year another slew of crappy games will release.
As long as Players keep buying the same lame crap, MMO Companies keep churning it out.
Why have MMOs become so lame? Because we keep buying lame MMOs.
Not sure how you figure that. Most MMO's these days are dying off, with only a handful maintaining or growing. Probably one of the most ambitious(as far as thinking outside the box) games in the past few years, Fallen Earth, is bleeding subs. On the other side of the coin, Alganon... the WoW copy of all WoW copies, is also crawling to its likely death. STO and CO are also on their way to screwedville.
Crappy, and even "decent" games are set for extinction.
To sum, if it's bad, it's dying. There's very little incentive for investors and developers to dump money and resources into a "me too" pile of crap. It's NOT working.
Yea I got a one year sub to fallen earth, there will not be a resub. The reasons are many. The nerf to crafting. The fired devs/cms and other folks. Used to be you could find a hazmat member when you wanted one. The addition of blood sports. Not to mention some changes to the way buffs stack thats mostly what chased of tons of folks, and then the changes to some of the combat. Nowdays I can got 3 to 4 hours without seing anybody chat even in the lb faction channel. I might see 2-3 folks max around in high level areas all night durring prime time. I hate that becasue it really was a great game, now it is darn near impossible to get a group unless you go to gank some poor fool in one of the pvp areas.
It's unfortunate. Sucks that so many non-fantasy MMO's are having such a hard time. Here's to hoping V13 gets off the ground and turns out to be an awesome sammich...
I feel with you, OP. Trust me, you are not alone. Many people here and otherwise feel that way.
The point is, the past MMOs of the 1st generation were great for their time. But the taste evolved; what most people like changed. Now we have three sort of MMO players.
1st Old School gamers, who more or less cling to hardships of the old days and usually play their niche game. For them, anything not like UO/EQ is a "WOW clone". You absolutely can not argue with them at all.
2nd VERY casual gamers with very low expectations. That is the WOW playing crowd. By and large. They seek an easygoing fun time to "kill stuff" and a chatroom, and thats it.
Finally there is that 3rd group. We. Those who don't want to suffer UO/EQ era hardships NOR are we satisfied with too shallow and simple MMOs. I can't say how big of a group we are. But for us who seek a balance between those extremes, most MMO developers have nothing to offer. They either tend towards one of the above groups and leave it with that. They take the easy way to aim for one simple target audience.
LOTRO is of the newer games the most close to a balance, as I see it. But after playing it for a long time, I just had seen it enough, and it developed too much to a way too casual type of game in the long run to really keep me. So for the hardcore I am too carebear/casual and for the casual I am too demanding. There is little present for a balanced expectation. At least that is IMO one of the central issues.
Don't let some fools annoy you. It is just people who are mindless and have nothing to say. *comfort*
I'll have to disagree with you on your first point, it's not the gamers who have changed the games. It's the game companies who have change games into McMMOs, and the poor succeeding generations of gamers have never known anything else, and so they are de facto "casual". Since tthey make up the majority of the current market, it's tough to justify taking risks on making a game which might challenge them more.
Unfortunately, the decision makers haven't figured out that challenge contributes to fun, and fun contributes to playing more. /facepalm
Hopefully the latest gen of games will fix that. It's been a good 5 years since I have felt actual challenge when playing an MMO, like a fight against an equal opponent that I'm not sure I can win with all of my char's powers and my own best efforts. (On a level playing field - PvP'rs need not chime in here, I can gank acceptably well at need, but it just makes me feel like a lamer).
I'll have to disagree with you on your first point, it's not the gamers who have changed the games.
Unfortunately, the decision makers haven't figured out that challenge contributes to fun, and fun contributes to playing more. /facepalm
The problem is however that the younger generation (wow did I really just say that!) have been brought up to see challenge as a bad thing, something to be avoided. Everyone has to be a winner because we can't bruise those delicate egos (it's why entire school districts have banned using the term "winner" at sports events, now there is just first place, second place etc and everyone who participates gets a trophy). The problem is that different skill levels exist and to ensure that everyone can win, a game has to be designed for the easiest level - which removes challenge and alienates huge portions of the possible population who enjoys challenge.
So many times I have seen children and teenagers attempt something, fail at it and give up instantly, citing the fact that the activity is stupid or designed poorly. People learn by their mistakes, challenge makes us think of alternate ways to approach a problem. I was shocked when I heard a 14 year old exclaim that chess was "retarded" because he lost a game - he actually complained at the way the pieces moved. Surely the game should be redesigned so every piece can move like the queen!
When the potential playerbase thinks this way, game developers tailor their experience to this market. WoW really is a great example because it has devolved so much over it's lifespan to perfectly epitomise this current trend in society. Developers most certainly are to blame for the lack of challenge in MMOs. They have not done this to piss off the people who like challenge. They simply saw the market changing and like good business people, changed to suit. It is lamentable but true.
It really needs a company or two to stand up and say, yes our game does have challenge. Not everyone will be able to do everything in this game, you cannot simply login and expect to experience every aspect of gameplay without expending effort to achieve. Someone has to break the mold of allowing players to have everything handed to them on a silver platter because as people get used to something they come to expect it as the norm (whether it be detrimental to their development or not).
Hope for me comes in the form of Guild Wars 2 and FFXIV. I am not interested in playing the latter but I hope that it is a great game that has challenge at it's core. When games with challenge are a success, developers may grow a set and actually start putting it back in their games.
I guess that is what I meant, I myself have experienced this.
I'm doing quest after quest, but after a while I start realizing I am not doing anything productive (Out of the repetitiveness of the tasks) and ask myself why the hell have I been doing is?, it's not fun. And that is how I tend to quit games.
MMOs can't revolutionize, they can only expand little by little, but that does not mean teh genre, gameplay and mechanics cannot be completely redesigned for a different feeling of accomplishment, reward and fun experiences.
Practice makes perfect, singeplayer games are not as complicated to experiment with as with an MMO, making simulations and dumbed down versions of such revolutionary MMO design could in the end make the possibility of such reconstruction possible.
And thanks for responding to my posts ;p (I feel accomplishment, perhaps we can also obtain it when another player thanks another for his actions in the gameworld, some sort of fame gathering through solving community problems mechanic could prove useful to replace the feeling of getting the latest raid gear).
Comments
and like a champ.
I think MMOs are fine, the idiots playing them are not.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I'll say that I agree with your comments about CO and STO. I'm not even sure they have HALF the content, to be honest.
Not sure how you "trick" someone into thinking something is fun, though. It either is, or isn't. Some people think CO or STO are fun, but there's clear evidence that both games are declining quickly. Seems they're only fun for so long...
You CAN however, IMO, trick someone into thinking that if you work hard(in context of your toon), you'll be rewarded. This is what many of the old school games did, IMO. For example I just can't imagine someone telling me with a straight face that mining in UO was fun. Clicking on a rock. Not fun. That just appeals to... as I said before, that sense of working hard now for a better future, that instinct in most of us to gather resources for the future.
Maybe I misread you and THAT's what you mean by "tricking someone into thinking they're having fun." But CO and STO aren't built that way. They, cynically, IMO, think that everyone just wants to get into the action... blow stuff up, get loot, blow more stuff up, etc; they also seem to believe that people want to get to the highest level ASAP. I believe, that even those players that THINK that's what they want, generally get bored and move on if they get it.
Back on the OT, if we TRULY want a more sophisticated MMO than what we see in the mainstream, we may have to come to the reality that we're certainly in the minority. That such a game would be a niche game, and thus if we wanted something of top notch quality for that niche, $15 a month isn't gonna keep the lights on in the dev house. I won't be holding my breath for such a game; I think the next wave of MMO's are gonna be all about accessibility.
Til that "super MMO" gets made, I'll be enjoying LotRO, and the occasional visits to Eve/DDO/CoX. When KotR comes out, I'll probably enjoy it, too, though I doubt it will be tremendously deep or revolutionary. I'd love to see a deep, complex, intriguing game come out, but I don't despair for a second over what's out there now.
It's unfortunate. Sucks that so many non-fantasy MMO's are having such a hard time. Here's to hoping V13 gets off the ground and turns out to be an awesome sammich...
I'll have to disagree with you on your first point, it's not the gamers who have changed the games. It's the game companies who have change games into McMMOs, and the poor succeeding generations of gamers have never known anything else, and so they are de facto "casual". Since tthey make up the majority of the current market, it's tough to justify taking risks on making a game which might challenge them more.
Unfortunately, the decision makers haven't figured out that challenge contributes to fun, and fun contributes to playing more. /facepalm
Hopefully the latest gen of games will fix that. It's been a good 5 years since I have felt actual challenge when playing an MMO, like a fight against an equal opponent that I'm not sure I can win with all of my char's powers and my own best efforts. (On a level playing field - PvP'rs need not chime in here, I can gank acceptably well at need, but it just makes me feel like a lamer).
The problem is however that the younger generation (wow did I really just say that!) have been brought up to see challenge as a bad thing, something to be avoided. Everyone has to be a winner because we can't bruise those delicate egos (it's why entire school districts have banned using the term "winner" at sports events, now there is just first place, second place etc and everyone who participates gets a trophy). The problem is that different skill levels exist and to ensure that everyone can win, a game has to be designed for the easiest level - which removes challenge and alienates huge portions of the possible population who enjoys challenge.
So many times I have seen children and teenagers attempt something, fail at it and give up instantly, citing the fact that the activity is stupid or designed poorly. People learn by their mistakes, challenge makes us think of alternate ways to approach a problem. I was shocked when I heard a 14 year old exclaim that chess was "retarded" because he lost a game - he actually complained at the way the pieces moved. Surely the game should be redesigned so every piece can move like the queen!
When the potential playerbase thinks this way, game developers tailor their experience to this market. WoW really is a great example because it has devolved so much over it's lifespan to perfectly epitomise this current trend in society. Developers most certainly are to blame for the lack of challenge in MMOs. They have not done this to piss off the people who like challenge. They simply saw the market changing and like good business people, changed to suit. It is lamentable but true.
It really needs a company or two to stand up and say, yes our game does have challenge. Not everyone will be able to do everything in this game, you cannot simply login and expect to experience every aspect of gameplay without expending effort to achieve. Someone has to break the mold of allowing players to have everything handed to them on a silver platter because as people get used to something they come to expect it as the norm (whether it be detrimental to their development or not).
Hope for me comes in the form of Guild Wars 2 and FFXIV. I am not interested in playing the latter but I hope that it is a great game that has challenge at it's core. When games with challenge are a success, developers may grow a set and actually start putting it back in their games.
I guess that is what I meant, I myself have experienced this.
I'm doing quest after quest, but after a while I start realizing I am not doing anything productive (Out of the repetitiveness of the tasks) and ask myself why the hell have I been doing is?, it's not fun. And that is how I tend to quit games.
MMOs can't revolutionize, they can only expand little by little, but that does not mean teh genre, gameplay and mechanics cannot be completely redesigned for a different feeling of accomplishment, reward and fun experiences.
Practice makes perfect, singeplayer games are not as complicated to experiment with as with an MMO, making simulations and dumbed down versions of such revolutionary MMO design could in the end make the possibility of such reconstruction possible.
And thanks for responding to my posts ;p (I feel accomplishment, perhaps we can also obtain it when another player thanks another for his actions in the gameworld, some sort of fame gathering through solving community problems mechanic could prove useful to replace the feeling of getting the latest raid gear).