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Are you satisfied with how MMORPG's have evolved?
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
When the graphical MMORPG genre was born, most games focused on a "virtual world" sandbox experience. They featured large, expansive worlds, and attempted to make players feel like they were "part" of the world. Many players enjoyed the freedom and flexibility these games offered. However these games were not user friendly at all, and sometimes it could feel like they lacked direction.
As the genrea has progressed, games have become more streamlined and user friendly. While the worlds are generally smaller, they are typically jammed packed with quests and such for players to do. Many players enjoy the accessibility of these games. However, others feel that the linear nature of these games make them shallow and the focus on leveling and large power-gaps makes players feel forced to "grind."
So what do you think? How satisfied are you with the way that the MMORPG genre has evolved? Do you think it has gone in the wrong direction, the right direction, or something in-between?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Comments
Sorry the Free to play genre games has killed it...Well over 200 free to play games and not one of them is a AAA....And as for the Pay to play games, not one of these game makers dare to shy away from the WOW clone making type games..
This genre is extremely slow to evolve. The risk/reward is so steep that most developers are forced to play it safe and keep it simple. But I do think the genre is going in the right direction if even at a snails pace. Currently, mmorpgs are entering a personal story and twitch based combat era. Hopefully in the next few years we will see exploration and crafting/economy make some much needed evolutionary strides.
The genre is headed in the wrong direction. Mass marketed, dumbed down game play.
It's not that they can't make a fantastic mmorpg anymore. They just don't want to risk it.
They have evolved in line with society in general, so that would be a no lol.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
When I played early MMO's I was impressed with the "virtual world" feel they had, and figured in the future they'd only get better. Instead they were simplified and narrowed in focus to make them more appealing to a broader audience and today's games are a shadow of what I thought this genre would evolve to.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't think really, we have just tons more of the same things we had 10 years ago. Also the hardware of today is lightyears ahead of the gaming software, someone is gonna have to bite the bullet and start utilizing the hardware and not worry about the people still playing on there 10 year old dell desktop. in a sense, if you build it, they will come .
Waiting on Guild Wars 2
This is basically what I feel as well. In my mind, UO was the king of the "virtual world" experience. Once EQ came out, the trend towards abandoning the virtual world in favor of "level grinding" gameplay began. It's been more or less downhill from there. WoW still had SOME feel of a virtual world, but more recent games like Aion and WAR felt like a total grindfest to me.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I disagree. MMORPGs have most definitely changed greatly in the past decade. Whether you think the change is positive or negative is your call, but they have definitely changed. Just look at UO and compare it with Aion. They are almost two completely different genres of games.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
hahaha, They built it and no one showed up!
You're saying that you get the same feeling from a solo friendly game like WoW as group focused and CC orientated games like EQ?
I'm not making a judgement on the merits of the changes but the tones of these games are completely different. Gameplay has changed immensely.
If I needed to buy a new $300-$500 video card tomorrow to play the latest and greatest MMO, I'd probably pass. Graphics have reached a point that they are not that big of a deal anymore to me. The style and quality of the art is far more important to me than the number of polys. Now, if it was a 3d game that provided the customizability in character appearance and a modable world of ancient (and modern) 2d games then I'd strongly consider it as that would be new, inovative, and therefore worth the cash to me.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Couldent agree more. The games that do it diffrently struggle time and time again. The games that offer the same old, on a strudy and lower tech level, thrive. In case you havent noticed, people chose stability and gameplay over top notch graphics.
Your basically asking someone to invest hundreds of millions of dollars (you want the best technology to be use right) on a game that 5-10% of the playerbase can use (best technology) AND you want it to be diffrent (proven track record of low returns)...oh and you want near perfection im sure.
Sure ill just get right on that.
In case of my absence just look to Kyleran for my statement.
Seriously, though, I get a sense that the developers of the first MMOs actually played Pencil & Paper RPGs and beyond the hack-n-slash point. They were a crew who looked beyond their characters adventuring days or at least knew how important and relevant the non-combat side played into world-building.
MMO developers on the whole today don't understand that importance in my view. The few that do are drowned out by the rest of their teams or just there to draw a paycheck.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I think the genre as a whole reached its limits in both game-play and mechanics by 2004. Everything basically since 2004 has been a copy of everything pre-2004. In the end, every fantasy based mmo is a re-skinned EQ / AC / UO, or hybrid there of.
Eve was the last truely revolutionary game.
mmo's HAVEN'T evolved, that's the problem. The amount of evolution that has happened has been backwards in many cases and the F2P movement is killing the rest of it off.
Just as every football game is a reskinned super techmo bowl right? Broad generalizations......
Learn what makes a mmorpg a mmorpg (hint: its the RPG)
Can't the same be said for FPS games?
Doom -> Half Life 2
Why do you guys put up with running around shooting enemies over and over and over and over? All they do is change the setting and you're more than happy to run around and shoot at basically the same things you always have. Endlessly. We need to stand up against FPS developers and let them know we want to play our FPS games differently!
These are MMORPGs. They play a certain way. Grinding and progression are part of the experience. I think to many it adds to the sense of accomplishment.
Edit: Removed confrontational parts and added example.
I played FPS games since Doom and MMOs Since Meridian 59, I seen both genres a long time.
FPS games are different now, and sometimes really different FPS games shows up like Max Payne or Natural selection.
MMOs are a lot less evolved, we are more or less still using EQs mechanics with a few new things added. A few odd games do stick out but they are really rare, like Eve and UO.
MMOs have just evolved less. Grinding doesn't really give that much satisfaction, succeeding in something hard gives a lot more. MMOs needs to be more like pen and paper RPGs. There is D&D but there are many other fun mechanics you can use that would give a different experience.
You grind gear as a main thing in current MMOs, a system closer to Runequest where you instead better and customize your character is as fun amd adds to the feeling of accomplishment.
The holy triad is what drags the MMOs AI down. Mobs are not much smarter today than in Meridian but in FPS games it is a large difference between Doom and a current game.
Sometimes when you get a FPS game it feels like a different game but almost every MMO feels like I played it before and that is just not good enough.
But it seems like ANET and CCP finally are trying something different, I hope it works.
Sorry, we are talking about MMO's, not football games. And *hint* your rebuttal is nothing but air =/
I'm satisified in some regards and dissatisfied in others....I have notihng against intancing dungeons as others do because I remember the reason isntancing was implemented whixch was the vast majority of peopel were tire dof being having their boss stolen or mobs trained on them by other groups etc,it wa sone of the biggest complaints back in the day and isntancing was the response,however I tihnk instancing is being taken way too far by a few companies.
I don't like the push toward cash shops especially sub + cash shops and see it as one step closer to another market crash in the video games market. I really don't give a dman about the them park V Sandbox BS arguements here I enjoy both as long as they are actually good games.
I do agree thoguh the MMO genre as a whole is evolving very slowly compared to it's single and small scale multiplayer coutnerparts.
I'm a big fan of both Guild Wars and EVE. They really are different and very good. Which leads me to question the basis for this thread more, not less. In both of those games, there has been a solid amount of innovation over previous games in the genre.
Maybe I should just list games where I have seen a lot of innovation:
EVE
Atlantica
Guild Wars
Ryzom
City of Heroes
And to me, FPS games generally feel the same. The exception was Portal. The rest are just doom with better graphics, different skins and more story. The game play is almost exactly the same.
Evolution is not even close to a way to describe the change in the Genre, I look at it simple. UO and EQ where a game. EQ II came out to be a polished and updated EQ, WoW came out and everyone thought it would be a same type game. WoW is a different game that appeals to a broader base so EQ II dumbs down thier game because once they saw the monitary potential, they decided to go more WoW and thus the real MMORPG genre died when WoW was born and mistakin for an MMORPG. WoW is a great game, so is Vindictus but neither are MMORPG's they are just games that the masses have labeled. The real old school MMORPG players know what I am talking about and the products of WoW existance will call foul, oh well. WoW is fun, for a while, but it killed the Genere when it showed that MMO games dont have to be pure and can make a crud load of money.
I'm Completely Satisfied. I remember the days when I was hooked on MUDs. They were only text (no graphics at all) and free to play. Then there was Diablo 2's Battle.net. The graphics of online games have gotten prettier over the years and with the F2P genre, I am able to try out different different games with different looks and gameplay.
Since there are so many F2P games to try out, I have yet to be bored.
Not satisfied at all.
I could go into a long post about why, but I'll leave it like this. A few months ago I stopped / canx the last one I was active on. For the first time in years I'm not playing any MMORPGs. Not even temporarily leaving one to be inactive for a while and coming back to.
Done.
And none of the ones out now strike my tastes. And I'm very wary about Upcoming Big Titles. The recent years have burned me badly in that regard. Oh, WAR and AOC? Nice of you to come by...
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
When wow started making 20 times the amount of revenue as its nearest competitor, the genres evolution came to a screeching halt. It's going to take years for the genre do get back into evolution mode.