Good stuff OP, my sentiments exactly. I think this is one of the main reasons why I've basically come to terms with it and decided I'd pursue other hobbies.
It kinda begs the question of what I'm still doing here... and I honestly don't know. I guess it's fun to talk about days gone by and stuff....
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
Really? So I should feel no sense of accomplsihment from creating works of art such as this on a computer screen?
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
That's kinda funny... seeing as how I earn my money and support my family off of what I do on a computer screen... So if I feel a sense of accomplishment while on a computer, regardless of how I get that feeling, I must be less of a person than you? Guess I should go dig a ditch since that's more of an accomplishment, right?
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
Really? So I should feel no sense of accomplsihment from creating works of art such as this on a computer screen?
Read the post before wasting my time with strawman arguments. Aftewards, watch this video:
Good stuff OP, my sentiments exactly. I think this is one of the main reasons why I've basically come to terms with it and decided I'd pursue other hobbies.
It kinda begs the question of what I'm still doing here... and I honestly don't know. I guess it's fun to talk about days gone by and stuff....
Thanks friend, and I feel your pain. We've been supplanted by the instant gratification crowd, but we have no where else to go.
Desperados Waiting For A Train, I guess.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
If games are that simple to you, why bother following a web forum about games ?
do you also read Twilight and enjoy it as you'd enjoy a Tolkien's book ?
I don't believe there are any MMORPGs out there today that are as easy and instantly gratifying as people say they are.
Have you seen how many cheat code sites there are on the internet? That is largely the same player base you are talking about. You can cheat in almost any single player game since the nintendo. Don't kid yourself that MMORPG players don't look for ways to "cheat" and make things easy and instantly gratifying. What the OP is complaining about is that more and more developers are condoning that and making players pay for it, I think.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
That's kinda funny... seeing as how I earn my money and support my family off of what I do on a computer screen... So if I feel a sense of accomplishment while on a computer, regardless of how I get that feeling, I must be less of a person than you? Guess I should go dig a ditch since that's more of an accomplishment, right?
You know what, I want to think you really know what I'm talking about. I want to think you're perfectly aware that I'm refering to playing a video game. I want to believe that you're not thinking that I'm somehow insulting choice of work; however, seeing that two people now have seemingly chosen to take a single sentence out of context, let me break it down and simplify it for you.
Video games = fun time wasters
Fun time wasters as a sense of accomplishment = lol
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
Really? So I should feel no sense of accomplsihment from creating works of art such as this on a computer screen?
Read the post before wasting my time with strawman arguments. Aftewards, watch this video:
Sorry. I can't feel compelled to take anyone who sounds about as eloquent a speaker as R. Crumb seriously.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
Really? So I should feel no sense of accomplsihment from creating works of art such as this on a computer screen?
Read the post before wasting my time with strawman arguments. Aftewards, watch this video:
Sorry. I can't feel compelled to take anyone who sounds about as eloquent a speaker as R. Crumb seriously.
Wow, first you take a sentence that I wrote out of context, and now you make fun of me for making a typo. I would like to think that someone with your beliefs can adress my points with a compelling argument, but you have yet to actually adress a single thing I said.
Let it be known that I also triple checked this post, as I was not aware that posting a message on a forum about MMORPGs was as serious as writing an essay for admission to Harvard University. Before you can make any further comments knocking my grammar, I apologize in advance. Not everyone can be as gifted with the English language as you sir, and I humbly admit to being a simple, uneducated little man.
First things first, OP. Too many pictures. That was intensely annoying to scroll through, though you had some good images.
I agree with the core of your premise, in that I think that games have become more about the company making a profit and less about providing a game that makes us feel like we have been through an adventure. I really think that comes from making a game because you are passionate about the idea of making a game, and there are precious few out there doing that.
I disagree that the major things that has gone wrong is the selling of virtual items. I think it is a bit greedy for a company with a subscription game to sell things, but that is far from the worst of our problems as an industry right now. And I especially love the buy to play model if the things you can buy are aesthetic or do not otherwise affect the power or in game abilities (e.g. new/better skills) of the player buying them.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
The words and poster names may change but the whines remain the same.
That aimed at me or at the most recent posters? Either way, from your previous posts I've read on this site, I expect far better quality dialog than this pointless troll-fest.
If you have some actual intelligent input on the subject, even if it is at complete odds with my opinions, I welcome it. If however, this post is the best you can do, why don't you do everyone a favor and just STFU.
Hey they can't all be golden posts sometimes all of us get tired of seeing the same old arguments reposted with different words and thne the same old arguments broken out.Not that it's confined to just the MMORPG genre.I'm pretty sure if there had been forums aroudn at th etime we'd find similar arguments in say the Wizardry forums comlaining aobut how Wizardry 2 was too dumbed down and easy.
Not that I'm completely in disagreement but as a long time gamer I roll with the changes and enjoy things for what they are.Granted right now I'm not playing any MMO but that's mroe because I've ahd my fill of the good ones that I enjoyed and have no itnerest in anything else out there because they do not fit my tastes.maybe nothing will and I won't paly an MMO again and I'm fine with that because there's plenty of other things to occupy my time that I enjoy just as much.I either adapt or move on.
I also remember the fun I had in the older MMORPGs(pre WoW and some pre Everquest) like others do,but unliek amny here I do remember the tediousness and sometimes frustration of many of the aspects of those games,which were only made bearable by having a good community to converse with whilst doing those tasks.Those games were nowhere near the perfect utopia's many make them out to be.
I applaud developers for attmepting to remove much of the tediousness out of the genre even if there efforts have been only partially successful and have brought in the short attention spanned element.
This is a video game. Video games are meant to be fun time wasters. It amazes me how so many of you people derive your sense of accomplishment out of what you do on a computer screen.
Really? So I should feel no sense of accomplsihment from creating works of art such as this on a computer screen?
Read the post before wasting my time with strawman arguments. Aftewards, watch this video:
Sorry. I can't feel compelled to take anyone who sounds about as eloquent a speaker as R. Crumb seriously.
Wow, first you take a sentence that I wrote out of context, and now you make fun of me for making a typo. I would like to think that someone with your beliefs can adress my points with a compelling argument, but you have yet to actually adress a single thing I said.
Let it be known that I also triple checked this post, as I was not aware that posting a message on a forum about MMORPGs was as serious as writing an essay for admission to Harvard University. Before you can make any further comments knocking my grammar, I apologize in advance. Not everyone can be as gifted with the English language as you sir, and I humbly admit to being a simple, uneducated little man.
Whoa! Ease back on those hammers big fellow. None of what I have posted in reference to you has been meant as malicious or insulting. It has been posted in the spirit of humorous chiding. The R Crumb crack was meant for the voice of the fellow in the video. He sounds like a mix of R. Crumb (the artist) and Weird Al Yankovitch ( both massive heroes of mine BTW). My point was that some people take their fantastical musing very seriously. They don't see them as pointless time wasting. AND I don't feel that we have a right to tell them they should feel otherwise. I sincerely apologise if my posts seemed belittling, that was not my intent at all.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
To the OP i agree with you with about 95% of what your saying. I however dont feel like the buying of fluff items is a bad thing i dont mind it at all unless its items that impact the power of the game like uber weapons that can only be gotten by buying them from the cash shop.If you dont wanna deal with it or if it bothers you turn your head and ignore it it will not affect your play is how i see it.
I feel as you do i have tryed every mmo out there and i am still looking for the MMO that gives me the sence of adventure that EQ1 did. The exploration the fact that if i wasnt cafull i could die and loose Experience and have to go retrive my corpse where i died. The fact that all the new mmo's are more "Solo Centric" gets me heated what happened to the days where we needed a group to get experience or actually earning things we work for .
Times have changed maybe just maybe us old school players if we speak up enough we can have a company or studio make a game for us as it seems the casual crowd has taken over and us old school players are left out in the cold.
I can blame a few games for this but again why have we been left out in the cold when it was us who actually started this genre i was playing since they started and again why are we the one's who are left out in the cold sure the casual gamers deserve there place as well but why do we have to suffer and them get all the control?
The words and poster names may change but the whines remain the same.
That aimed at me or at the most recent posters? Either way, from your previous posts I've read on this site, I expect far better quality dialog than this pointless troll-fest.
If you have some actual intelligent input on the subject, even if it is at complete odds with my opinions, I welcome it. If however, this post is the best you can do, why don't you do everyone a favor and just STFU.
Hey they can't all be golden posts sometimes all of us get tired of seeing the same old arguments reposted with different words and thne the same old arguments broken out.Not that it's confined to just the MMORPG genre.I'm pretty sure if there had been forums aroudn at th etime we'd find similar arguments in say the Wizardry forums comlaining aobut how Wizardry 2 was too dumbed down and easy.
Not that I'm completely in disagreement but as a long time gamer I roll with the changes and enjoy things for what they are.Granted right now I'm not playing any MMO but that's mroe because I've ahd my fill of the good ones that I enjoyed and have no itnerest in anything else out there because they do not fit my tastes.maybe nothing will and I won't paly an MMO again and I'm fine with that because there's plenty of other things to occupy my time that I enjoy just as much.I either adapt or move on.
I also remember the fun I had in the older MMORPGs(pre WoW and some pre Everquest) like others do,but unliek amny here I do remember the tediousness and sometimes frustration of many of the aspects of those games,which were only made bearable by having a good community to converse with whilst doing those tasks.Those games were nowhere near the perfect utopia's many make them out to be.
I applaud developers for attmepting to remove much of the tediousness out of the genre even if there efforts have been only partially successful and have brought in the short attention spanned element.
Hey thanks! This is more in line with the quality I've come to expect from your previous posts. Sorry for being a prick. I guess I got a bit defensive after Uquipu's and Eunichmaker's posts. As to being "tired of seeing th same old posts" I completely understand. I was about as unintersted in SgtFrog's post about vanity items yesterday.
Then I asked myself if maybe I could come up with an argument that hasn't been posed yet. Hence the creation of this thread.
I won't argue that the old MMORPGs were perfect. I agree there was some tediousness in all of them. But I do empahitcally disagree such things can be made better in modern MMOs just by handing or selling us all an "I WIN" button.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Have you seen how many cheat code sites there are on the internet? That is largely the same player base you are talking about. You can cheat in almost any single player game since the nintendo. Don't kid yourself that MMORPG players don't look for ways to "cheat" and make things easy and instantly gratifying. What the OP is complaining about is that more and more developers are condoning that and making players pay for it, I think.
Well, developers are making ENTERTAINMENT products. We are not talking about the Olympics here. There is no reason not to make it fun for their customers while making a bug. That is called a win-win in business.
Hey thanks! This is more in line with the quality I've come to expect from your previous posts. Sorry for being a prick. I guess I got a bit defensive after Uquipu's and Eunichmaker's posts. As to being "tired of seeing th same old posts" I completely understand. I was about as unintersted in SgtFrog's post about vanity items yesterday.
Then I asked myself if maybe I could come up with an argument that hasn't been posed yet. Hence the creation of this thread.
I won't argue that the old MMORPGs were perfect. I agree there was some tediousness in all of them. But I do empahitcally disagree such things can be made better in modern MMOs just by handing or selling us all an "I WIN" button.
Which MMORPG's are selling/Handing out these IWIN buttons?I mena evne in WoW currently you do have to put in some work for gear even if it is extremely easy compared to vanilla WoW.o you mena f2p titles that sell advantages and gear?That I do not liek either and so do not play such games.
I would agree that removing the tediousness should not equate to removing the challenge or effort required just make it fun to do.
what next step? the pit we are in now, constantly waiting hoping for the next game we are following to save us?
I have a feeling that we would have seen far more evolution in this hobby if it had stayed underground and for the nerds.
Exactly, I personally would have rather has this genre with the number of people it had than the large numbers it has now. Can you imagine what would have happened if wow didnt happen? Seriously. We might still have a pre-cu swg... and perhaps nge may have never happened. Hell.. imagine what may have been? Imagine al lthe wow clones that wouldnt have even came out or have been thought up. I can only imagine how many other epic gamess would have came out.
Does anyone have a time machine? /cry
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
what next step? the pit we are in now, constantly waiting hoping for the next game we are following to save us?
I have a feeling that we would have seen far more evolution in this hobby if it had stayed underground and for the nerds.
Exactly, I personally would have rather has this genre with the number of people it had than the large numbers it has now. Can you imagine what would have happened if wow didnt happen? Seriously. We might still have a pre-cu swg... and perhaps nge may have never happened. Hell.. imagine what may have been? Imagine al lthe wow clones that wouldnt have even came out or have been thought up. I can only imagine how many other epic gamess would have came out.
Have you seen how many cheat code sites there are on the internet? That is largely the same player base you are talking about. You can cheat in almost any single player game since the nintendo. Don't kid yourself that MMORPG players don't look for ways to "cheat" and make things easy and instantly gratifying. What the OP is complaining about is that more and more developers are condoning that and making players pay for it, I think.
Well, developers are making ENTERTAINMENT products. We are not talking about the Olympics here. There is no reason not to make it fun for their customers while making a bug. That is called a win-win in business.
I don't disagree with you. But "cheating" takes the spirit out of the game for many players. So while they are making fun products for some, they are ruining the experience for others. If developers want to dilute their games in order to make money, who am I to tell them they are wrong? It's the new thing.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Love the Oliver Twist picture, was around in a friend's house the other day and we were talking about how it sometimes feels like (in his phrasing) a large amount of players "want someone to play the game for them" - he didn't mean it in a literal sense, but more that people seem not to want to explore anymore, or find things out for themselves, they rather want the equivalent of walkthroughs made available to them (online or via in-game help/help channel), whereas "older gamers" enjoy working things out for themselves and get a sense of accomplishment from them.
I don't disagree with the OP at all, in fact I'd add the following quote from Carrie Fisher: "instant gratification takes too long" - as to me it's emblematic of some peoples' approach to gaming.
If you play a game that takes any amount of thought/planning, you wil constantly find people complaining that they don't want to have to think/plan/rtfm etc. I go between phases of finding it amusing, and finding it depressing. Sometimes both at once.
Not sure if it has been said, but it was with internet porn. I kid you not in the least. Think about it, back when you were a teenager (okay, you have to be over the hill and halfway up the next one like me I guess at this point) - but back when you were a teenager and you wanted some porn...
It was a grand adventure!
These days (and since that pesky thing the internet took off), porn is easy.
Instant gratification.
Just my two cents on the matter.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
I also remember the fun I had in the older MMORPGs(pre WoW and some pre Everquest) like others do,but unliek amny here I do remember the tediousness and sometimes frustration of many of the aspects of those games,which were only made bearable by having a good community to converse with whilst doing those tasks.Those games were nowhere near the perfect utopia's many make them out to be.
I applaud developers for attmepting to remove much of the tediousness out of the genre even if there efforts have been only partially successful and have brought in the short attention spanned element.
I often wonder if the "tediousness" was part of what brought people together and formed those great communities that most players remember so fondly.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
what next step? the pit we are in now, constantly waiting hoping for the next game we are following to save us?
I have a feeling that we would have seen far more evolution in this hobby if it had stayed underground and for the nerds.
Exactly, I personally would have rather has this genre with the number of people it had than the large numbers it has now. Can you imagine what would have happened if wow didnt happen? Seriously. We might still have a pre-cu swg... and perhaps nge may have never happened. Hell.. imagine what may have been? Imagine al lthe wow clones that wouldnt have even came out or have been thought up. I can only imagine how many other epic gamess would have came out.
Does anyone have a time machine? /cry
The what if game is always fun but ultimately fruitless enterprise.For one if WoW hadn't come along things may be better thna they are now,or worse or exactly the same because soemthing else similar came along and captured the public's attention.It's time to adapt,bide your time for something new to come along in the MMO category,probably not a MMORPG,or move on and find something to do with your spare time you do enjoy.
I also remember the fun I had in the older MMORPGs(pre WoW and some pre Everquest) like others do,but unliek amny here I do remember the tediousness and sometimes frustration of many of the aspects of those games,which were only made bearable by having a good community to converse with whilst doing those tasks.Those games were nowhere near the perfect utopia's many make them out to be.
I applaud developers for attmepting to remove much of the tediousness out of the genre even if there efforts have been only partially successful and have brought in the short attention spanned element.
I often wonder if the "tediousness" was part of what brought people together and formed those great communities that most players remember so fondly.
In part yes it was because you were forced to find entertainment in tohers because what you were doing in game was anything but fun by yourself.But there are still good communities out there even in WoW,you jsut have to search for them harder because of the greater number of jerks and idiots.
I sitll beleive there's the same percentage of good people in MMORPG communities as there ever was,there has always been a large percentage of jerkwads hiding behind net anonymity,but the greater number of actual players now exacerbates things because let's face it the jerks are always the most publically vocal.
Though some types of MMORPGs do tend to attract more asshats than others.
In the days of Everquest I always used to say that the gameplay found in MMOs was fun for a short time, but the reason people stuck around so long was the community. Now that game developers have focused more on improving aspects of gameplay rather than aspects of the community, for better or worse, the opposite is in effect.
I still don't think this lends to games tending to the "instant gratification crowd" because I don't believe there is such a crowd. As I explained earlier, video games are for fun. They're nothing more than a hobby, which in an of itself, is just a form of escapism. Many gamers are working teenagers, college students, or fully grown adults with full time jobs and a family to take care of. These gamers "work" enough in the real world, and the last thing they want to do is "work" inside of a video game. The problem with a lot of the older MMORPGs is that they were nothing more than grinds. When you strip away the community --the human element-- you're left with a shell of a game world with little else to do than to go out and grind mobs for hours on end for no other purpose than to level up your character to grind on even stronger mobs. The communities of games like UO, DAoC, and Everquest quite literally made the game.
Modern MMORPGs have done a way with a lot of the tedium of the previous generation of MMORPGs, and I think that's where a lot of the "instant gratification" rhetoric originates, but I challenge those who promote that ideology to actually come up with some examples of said instant gratification. Sure, games have gotten easier, but that's just a sign of the times. Games were getting easier and easier long before Everquest and UO were the kings of the MMORPG market. Ironically, we had a similar crowd crying over games being too easy back then just as we do now, but the fact is, while games have had a lot of the challenge and tedium removed, there still isn't an "instant gratification" game, and there's challenge in every game if you know where to look for it. A good case in point is World of Warcraft. Like the guy in the video I linked said, getting gear still requires a time commitment and isn't really any "easier" than it ever was. In fact, it may even be harder when you consider how easily a few poor players could get lost in the shuffle of 38 other skilled players in one of vanilla WoW's original 40 man raids. It was much easier to slack off and to not perform when you had so many people to make up for your lack of effort. In current WoW's 25 man raids, this is evident as well. In raids like the Blood Council, there may be 8 other ranged DPS classes around you to keep the orbs from hitting the floor whereas in 10-man there may only be one more, which probably can't prevent all the orbs from dropping on his or her own.
The badge system is yet another instance of how WoW has been made a bit more casual but not so much easier. Now, every time you kill a boss in a raid, you get "something" of value even if it's just a few frost badges. Those frost badges can then be turned in for raid quality gear. It's far less time consuming and less tedious, but it still fosters a sense of accomplishment. In essence, you still have to work for what you get. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter. It takes dedication and effort to get that gear. The only difference is that in vanilla WoW it took a bit more dedication and a bit more effort. Vanilla WoW was not any more difficult than current WoW. The sooner those who cry "instant gratification" realize that dedication and effort do not equal difficulty, the sooner we might start working towards some theoretical alternative to the carotte on a stick dog and pony shows that are modern MMORPGs.
Comments
Good stuff OP, my sentiments exactly. I think this is one of the main reasons why I've basically come to terms with it and decided I'd pursue other hobbies.
It kinda begs the question of what I'm still doing here... and I honestly don't know. I guess it's fun to talk about days gone by and stuff....
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
Really? So I should feel no sense of accomplsihment from creating works of art such as this on a computer screen?
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
That's kinda funny... seeing as how I earn my money and support my family off of what I do on a computer screen... So if I feel a sense of accomplishment while on a computer, regardless of how I get that feeling, I must be less of a person than you? Guess I should go dig a ditch since that's more of an accomplishment, right?
Read the post before wasting my time with strawman arguments. Aftewards, watch this video:
Thanks friend, and I feel your pain. We've been supplanted by the instant gratification crowd, but we have no where else to go.
Desperados Waiting For A Train, I guess.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Have you seen how many cheat code sites there are on the internet? That is largely the same player base you are talking about. You can cheat in almost any single player game since the nintendo. Don't kid yourself that MMORPG players don't look for ways to "cheat" and make things easy and instantly gratifying. What the OP is complaining about is that more and more developers are condoning that and making players pay for it, I think.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
You know what, I want to think you really know what I'm talking about. I want to think you're perfectly aware that I'm refering to playing a video game. I want to believe that you're not thinking that I'm somehow insulting choice of work; however, seeing that two people now have seemingly chosen to take a single sentence out of context, let me break it down and simplify it for you.
Video games = fun time wasters
Fun time wasters as a sense of accomplishment = lol
Sorry. I can't feel compelled to take anyone who sounds about as eloquent a speaker as R. Crumb seriously.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Wow, first you take a sentence that I wrote out of context, and now you make fun of me for making a typo. I would like to think that someone with your beliefs can adress my points with a compelling argument, but you have yet to actually adress a single thing I said.
Let it be known that I also triple checked this post, as I was not aware that posting a message on a forum about MMORPGs was as serious as writing an essay for admission to Harvard University. Before you can make any further comments knocking my grammar, I apologize in advance. Not everyone can be as gifted with the English language as you sir, and I humbly admit to being a simple, uneducated little man.
First things first, OP. Too many pictures. That was intensely annoying to scroll through, though you had some good images.
I agree with the core of your premise, in that I think that games have become more about the company making a profit and less about providing a game that makes us feel like we have been through an adventure. I really think that comes from making a game because you are passionate about the idea of making a game, and there are precious few out there doing that.
I disagree that the major things that has gone wrong is the selling of virtual items. I think it is a bit greedy for a company with a subscription game to sell things, but that is far from the worst of our problems as an industry right now. And I especially love the buy to play model if the things you can buy are aesthetic or do not otherwise affect the power or in game abilities (e.g. new/better skills) of the player buying them.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Hey they can't all be golden posts sometimes all of us get tired of seeing the same old arguments reposted with different words and thne the same old arguments broken out.Not that it's confined to just the MMORPG genre.I'm pretty sure if there had been forums aroudn at th etime we'd find similar arguments in say the Wizardry forums comlaining aobut how Wizardry 2 was too dumbed down and easy.
Not that I'm completely in disagreement but as a long time gamer I roll with the changes and enjoy things for what they are.Granted right now I'm not playing any MMO but that's mroe because I've ahd my fill of the good ones that I enjoyed and have no itnerest in anything else out there because they do not fit my tastes.maybe nothing will and I won't paly an MMO again and I'm fine with that because there's plenty of other things to occupy my time that I enjoy just as much.I either adapt or move on.
I also remember the fun I had in the older MMORPGs(pre WoW and some pre Everquest) like others do,but unliek amny here I do remember the tediousness and sometimes frustration of many of the aspects of those games,which were only made bearable by having a good community to converse with whilst doing those tasks.Those games were nowhere near the perfect utopia's many make them out to be.
I applaud developers for attmepting to remove much of the tediousness out of the genre even if there efforts have been only partially successful and have brought in the short attention spanned element.
Whoa! Ease back on those hammers big fellow. None of what I have posted in reference to you has been meant as malicious or insulting. It has been posted in the spirit of humorous chiding. The R Crumb crack was meant for the voice of the fellow in the video. He sounds like a mix of R. Crumb (the artist) and Weird Al Yankovitch ( both massive heroes of mine BTW). My point was that some people take their fantastical musing very seriously. They don't see them as pointless time wasting. AND I don't feel that we have a right to tell them they should feel otherwise. I sincerely apologise if my posts seemed belittling, that was not my intent at all.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
To the OP i agree with you with about 95% of what your saying. I however dont feel like the buying of fluff items is a bad thing i dont mind it at all unless its items that impact the power of the game like uber weapons that can only be gotten by buying them from the cash shop.If you dont wanna deal with it or if it bothers you turn your head and ignore it it will not affect your play is how i see it.
I feel as you do i have tryed every mmo out there and i am still looking for the MMO that gives me the sence of adventure that EQ1 did. The exploration the fact that if i wasnt cafull i could die and loose Experience and have to go retrive my corpse where i died. The fact that all the new mmo's are more "Solo Centric" gets me heated what happened to the days where we needed a group to get experience or actually earning things we work for .
Times have changed maybe just maybe us old school players if we speak up enough we can have a company or studio make a game for us as it seems the casual crowd has taken over and us old school players are left out in the cold.
I can blame a few games for this but again why have we been left out in the cold when it was us who actually started this genre i was playing since they started and again why are we the one's who are left out in the cold sure the casual gamers deserve there place as well but why do we have to suffer and them get all the control?
Hey thanks! This is more in line with the quality I've come to expect from your previous posts. Sorry for being a prick. I guess I got a bit defensive after Uquipu's and Eunichmaker's posts. As to being "tired of seeing th same old posts" I completely understand. I was about as unintersted in SgtFrog's post about vanity items yesterday.
Then I asked myself if maybe I could come up with an argument that hasn't been posed yet. Hence the creation of this thread.
I won't argue that the old MMORPGs were perfect. I agree there was some tediousness in all of them. But I do empahitcally disagree such things can be made better in modern MMOs just by handing or selling us all an "I WIN" button.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Well, developers are making ENTERTAINMENT products. We are not talking about the Olympics here. There is no reason not to make it fun for their customers while making a bug. That is called a win-win in business.
Which MMORPG's are selling/Handing out these IWIN buttons?I mena evne in WoW currently you do have to put in some work for gear even if it is extremely easy compared to vanilla WoW.o you mena f2p titles that sell advantages and gear?That I do not liek either and so do not play such games.
I would agree that removing the tediousness should not equate to removing the challenge or effort required just make it fun to do.
Exactly, I personally would have rather has this genre with the number of people it had than the large numbers it has now. Can you imagine what would have happened if wow didnt happen? Seriously. We might still have a pre-cu swg... and perhaps nge may have never happened. Hell.. imagine what may have been? Imagine al lthe wow clones that wouldnt have even came out or have been thought up. I can only imagine how many other epic gamess would have came out.
Does anyone have a time machine? /cry
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
+1: This sums up my feelings as well.
I don't disagree with you. But "cheating" takes the spirit out of the game for many players. So while they are making fun products for some, they are ruining the experience for others. If developers want to dilute their games in order to make money, who am I to tell them they are wrong? It's the new thing.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Love the Oliver Twist picture, was around in a friend's house the other day and we were talking about how it sometimes feels like (in his phrasing) a large amount of players "want someone to play the game for them" - he didn't mean it in a literal sense, but more that people seem not to want to explore anymore, or find things out for themselves, they rather want the equivalent of walkthroughs made available to them (online or via in-game help/help channel), whereas "older gamers" enjoy working things out for themselves and get a sense of accomplishment from them.
I don't disagree with the OP at all, in fact I'd add the following quote from Carrie Fisher: "instant gratification takes too long" - as to me it's emblematic of some peoples' approach to gaming.
If you play a game that takes any amount of thought/planning, you wil constantly find people complaining that they don't want to have to think/plan/rtfm etc. I go between phases of finding it amusing, and finding it depressing. Sometimes both at once.
Not sure if it has been said, but it was with internet porn. I kid you not in the least. Think about it, back when you were a teenager (okay, you have to be over the hill and halfway up the next one like me I guess at this point) - but back when you were a teenager and you wanted some porn...
It was a grand adventure!
These days (and since that pesky thing the internet took off), porn is easy.
Instant gratification.
Just my two cents on the matter.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I often wonder if the "tediousness" was part of what brought people together and formed those great communities that most players remember so fondly.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The what if game is always fun but ultimately fruitless enterprise.For one if WoW hadn't come along things may be better thna they are now,or worse or exactly the same because soemthing else similar came along and captured the public's attention.It's time to adapt,bide your time for something new to come along in the MMO category,probably not a MMORPG,or move on and find something to do with your spare time you do enjoy.
In part yes it was because you were forced to find entertainment in tohers because what you were doing in game was anything but fun by yourself.But there are still good communities out there even in WoW,you jsut have to search for them harder because of the greater number of jerks and idiots.
I sitll beleive there's the same percentage of good people in MMORPG communities as there ever was,there has always been a large percentage of jerkwads hiding behind net anonymity,but the greater number of actual players now exacerbates things because let's face it the jerks are always the most publically vocal.
Though some types of MMORPGs do tend to attract more asshats than others.
In the days of Everquest I always used to say that the gameplay found in MMOs was fun for a short time, but the reason people stuck around so long was the community. Now that game developers have focused more on improving aspects of gameplay rather than aspects of the community, for better or worse, the opposite is in effect.
I still don't think this lends to games tending to the "instant gratification crowd" because I don't believe there is such a crowd. As I explained earlier, video games are for fun. They're nothing more than a hobby, which in an of itself, is just a form of escapism. Many gamers are working teenagers, college students, or fully grown adults with full time jobs and a family to take care of. These gamers "work" enough in the real world, and the last thing they want to do is "work" inside of a video game. The problem with a lot of the older MMORPGs is that they were nothing more than grinds. When you strip away the community --the human element-- you're left with a shell of a game world with little else to do than to go out and grind mobs for hours on end for no other purpose than to level up your character to grind on even stronger mobs. The communities of games like UO, DAoC, and Everquest quite literally made the game.
Modern MMORPGs have done a way with a lot of the tedium of the previous generation of MMORPGs, and I think that's where a lot of the "instant gratification" rhetoric originates, but I challenge those who promote that ideology to actually come up with some examples of said instant gratification. Sure, games have gotten easier, but that's just a sign of the times. Games were getting easier and easier long before Everquest and UO were the kings of the MMORPG market. Ironically, we had a similar crowd crying over games being too easy back then just as we do now, but the fact is, while games have had a lot of the challenge and tedium removed, there still isn't an "instant gratification" game, and there's challenge in every game if you know where to look for it. A good case in point is World of Warcraft. Like the guy in the video I linked said, getting gear still requires a time commitment and isn't really any "easier" than it ever was. In fact, it may even be harder when you consider how easily a few poor players could get lost in the shuffle of 38 other skilled players in one of vanilla WoW's original 40 man raids. It was much easier to slack off and to not perform when you had so many people to make up for your lack of effort. In current WoW's 25 man raids, this is evident as well. In raids like the Blood Council, there may be 8 other ranged DPS classes around you to keep the orbs from hitting the floor whereas in 10-man there may only be one more, which probably can't prevent all the orbs from dropping on his or her own.
The badge system is yet another instance of how WoW has been made a bit more casual but not so much easier. Now, every time you kill a boss in a raid, you get "something" of value even if it's just a few frost badges. Those frost badges can then be turned in for raid quality gear. It's far less time consuming and less tedious, but it still fosters a sense of accomplishment. In essence, you still have to work for what you get. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter. It takes dedication and effort to get that gear. The only difference is that in vanilla WoW it took a bit more dedication and a bit more effort. Vanilla WoW was not any more difficult than current WoW. The sooner those who cry "instant gratification" realize that dedication and effort do not equal difficulty, the sooner we might start working towards some theoretical alternative to the carotte on a stick dog and pony shows that are modern MMORPGs.