I'm with you ham, I think people play MMO's for the enjoyment of the journey not the "end game". Most end game experiences are stale and get boring in about an hour.
Errr...
While I'm absolutely in that boat of "playing to enjoy the journey" in a MMO - 100% so - I really don't know where you come to that conclusion.
Over the past several years, players have been wanting to move farther away from the 'journey' and get to the destination as quickly as possible.
This is why so many players are dead-set on doing only what gets them the fastest xp and the best gear with the least effort... because they don't want to be "held back" by "the journey".
There are many players who insist that MMOs are all about the end-game and everything before that is useless filler intended only for the company to get as much money from you as possible.
There are people who argue that there should be no leveling in MMOs, that everyone should start at level cap and be able to jump straight into the end-game content.
And on and on...
The era of "playing for the journey" died the day WoW hit the market and made everyone believe it was how a MMO is *supposed* to be... and hell, even people in WoW complain that it takes too long to get to end game and what it made even faster than it is.
Anyway... again... not disagreeing with the "journey" mindset. I'm with you 100% on that.
Well, WoW's been out for a long time so the action really is at the endgame. Same with most MMORPGs.
I think when those games were released, people enjoyed the journey. In any case, there was tons of content to see and exprience and explore. Nowadays, the early levels are pretty empty so they're not nearly as fun.
The rabid fan in this thread does seem to be one of those "new-age" mmorpg players, who can't distinguish between grinding and content, and plays to participate in "end-game encounters" (which is really weird because there is zero end-game in this game- he's said he's grinding now so he'll be all set when and if they get around to putting in content).
Well, WoW's been out for a long time so the action really is at the endgame. Same with most MMORPGs.
I think when those games were released, people enjoyed the journey. In any case, there was tons of content to see and exprience and explore. Nowadays, the early levels are pretty empty so they're not nearly as fun.
The rabid fan in this thread does seem to be one of those "new-age" mmorpg players, who can't distinguish between grinding and content, and plays to participate in "end-game encounters" (which is really weird because there is zero end-game in this game- he's said he's grinding now so he'll be all set when and if they get around to putting in content).
Heh... I've never understood what the hurry is.
End-game is some vague far-away concept to me in any MMO. Something that's "out there" and I'll get to... eventually. Especially when I'm first starting out. I play for the moment, and my goals are measured in days, at most.
The MMOs that have kept me the most engaged have been those that were worlds and not merely games. It's no surprise (to me anyway) that FFXI is my #1 favorite all-time MMO, because it captured that feeling of being in a world beautifully... to me anyway. Have yet to find a newer MMO in the last few years that has done that.
But again.. that's just me.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Here is how I see FFXIV, some of you will probably go rabid and disagree with me, but what the hell huh. I'm a bit of a sports fan, not the couch fan, but the player type fan. Bare with me as I give you the theory here, and then you can all go ape nutts on me.
There are two types of people in the world when it comes to sports, the athletes and the spectators. Lets start with the basics.
An open grass field, flat, 200 yards long by 200 yards wide. The person who owns the field sees it and one day decides to make a football field out of it, figuring 'if you build it they will come' (hahah I couldnt' resist). He mows the grass, paints on the yard lines, puts up some nice goal posts and builds some nice bleachers on each side. Now we get to the two types of people.
The spectator; he arrives, looks at the field and says 'damn nice football field ya got here' and proceeds to head up to the bleachers to have a seat. A few more spectators arrive, sit there for about 15-20 minutes and says 'wow, beautiful field, but its boring as hell. Nothing to do here.' And then they step off the bleachers and go home, where they proceed to tell all thier friends how the new sports park is pretty and all, just nothing to do there.
And now to the other type of people:
The athlete; he arrives at the field, looks it over and says 'damn nice football field ya got here' and proceeds to walk onto the field looking for the football. He finds the ball, picks it up and begins to look around for someone else to play the game with. Several more athletes show up, and eventually they are all on the field playing a game of football. When they are done playing the game, they proceed to go home where they tell all thier friends how great the new sports park is because of all the things you can do there.
Now, it doeesn't matter how many spectators you get to show up at the field, if there isn't a game going on, they will be bored and leave - nothing to do. But give them a schedule of events, tell them where the game is, when it will be played, and let them show up to watch it and the same boring sports park becomes a great place and tons of fun.
But, to the athlete, it doesn't change for them - they see the field and its potential, what its there for and what they can do with it... They dont need a schedule of events, just a grass field, a ball, and some painted lines with a few rules to get them started.
This is what I see FFXIV as. They made the field, damn pretty field it is too. Put in the ball for ya, painted the lines, and gave ya the basic rules to get you started. They even tossed in a hotdog vendor or two if you needed them, and said have fun everyone! Some of us, we took that ball and hit the field to play some football. The rest of you hit the stands and well....
I dont know if this is called sandox like that one guy says or not (have no idea what that is), its just a game world to me. Its like SE built the world expecting us, the players, to fill the world and live in it. Like we were to make our own game inside the world they built for us to play in. (If you build it they will come!) The problem I see is its just like sports, far more spectators than athletes out there. So when the spectators all shoot the new sports park down as boring and nothing to do, well who are you going to believe, the 100 players on the field, or the 500,000 fans in the stands.
Ok, so now that my HUGE post is all done, does this make any sense to anyone else? I dont know if its the wrong idea or not, but its what I think they were thinking when they made FFXIV, it sure does fit how the game is right now, whats there and what isn't. Thoughts???
Here is how I see FFXIV, some of you will probably go rabid and disagree with me, but what the hell huh. I'm a bit of a sports fan, not the couch fan, but the player type fan. Bare with me as I give you the theory here, and then you can all go ape nutts on me.
There are two types of people in the world when it comes to sports, the athletes and the spectators. Lets start with the basics.
An open grass field, flat, 200 yards long by 200 yards wide. The person who owns the field sees it and one day decides to make a football field out of it, figuring 'if you build it they will come' (hahah I couldnt' resist). He mows the grass, paints on the yard lines, puts up some nice goal posts and builds some nice bleachers on each side. Now we get to the two types of people.
The spectator; he arrives, looks at the field and says 'damn nice football field ya got here' and proceeds to head up to the bleachers to have a seat. A few more spectators arrive, sit there for about 15-20 minutes and says 'wow, beautiful field, but its boring as hell. Nothing to do here.' And then they step off the bleachers and go home, where they proceed to tell all thier friends how the new sports park is pretty and all, just nothing to do there.
And now to the other type of people:
The athlete; he arrives at the field, looks it over and says 'damn nice football field ya got here' and proceeds to walk onto the field looking for the football. He finds the ball, picks it up and begins to look around for someone else to play the game with. Several more athletes show up, and eventually they are all on the field playing a game of football. When they are done playing the game, they proceed to go home where they tell all thier friends how great the new sports park is because of all the things you can do there.
Now, it doeesn't matter how many spectators you get to show up at the field, if there isn't a game going on, they will be bored and leave - nothing to do. But give them a schedule of events, tell them where the game is, when it will be played, and let them show up to watch it and the same boring sports park becomes a great place and tons of fun.
But, to the athlete, it doesn't change for them - they see the field and its potential, what its there for and what they can do with it... They dont need a schedule of events, just a grass field, a ball, and some painted lines with a few rules to get them started.
This is what I see FFXIV as. They made the field, damn pretty field it is too. Put in the ball for ya, painted the lines, and gave ya the basic rules to get you started. They even tossed in a hotdog vendor or two if you needed them, and said have fun everyone! Some of us, we took that ball and hit the field to play some football. The rest of you hit the stands and well....
I dont know if this is called sandox like that one guy says or not (have no idea what that is), its just a game world to me. Its like SE built the world expecting us, the players, to fill the world and live in it. Like we were to make our own game inside the world they built for us to play in. (If you build it they will come!) The problem I see is its just like sports, far more spectators than athletes out there. So when the spectators all shoot the new sports park down as boring and nothing to do, well who are you going to believe, the 100 players on the field, or the 500,000 fans in the stands.
Ok, so now that my HUGE post is all done, does this make any sense to anyone else? I dont know if its the wrong idea or not, but its what I think they were thinking when they made FFXIV, it sure does fit how the game is right now, whats there and what isn't. Thoughts???
I don't see this glorious field you're talking about. I see an empty if not pretty landscape. Yeah grafics are great but the landscape is pretty much the exact same everywhere; it gets old fast. The game world is boring because of it's complete lack of story. Yeah WOW may be getting old but at least when I've played I was intrigued by the lore, the stories and history for each race and area. It made it worth exploring because I wanted to see a little bit more and learn a bit more of that world's story. You really don't get much in FFXIV. No real information past the beginning and a glimpse of the vague storyline every 5 levels or so. Their leve quests are the epitomy of "filler content". It's all the same, go to X kill Y monsters and come back to do it over again till you either hit your exp limit for the day or you've finished your 8 leves for the day.
I want a rich world to explore and to keep me interested not a shell. I don't want the games to be too easy or for the end content to be handed to me on a silver platter. If the background story for the world made it interesting enough to explore and the games UI and basic systems were at least user friendly then many, many more people would actually enjoy this game.
Comments
Well, WoW's been out for a long time so the action really is at the endgame. Same with most MMORPGs.
I think when those games were released, people enjoyed the journey. In any case, there was tons of content to see and exprience and explore. Nowadays, the early levels are pretty empty so they're not nearly as fun.
The rabid fan in this thread does seem to be one of those "new-age" mmorpg players, who can't distinguish between grinding and content, and plays to participate in "end-game encounters" (which is really weird because there is zero end-game in this game- he's said he's grinding now so he'll be all set when and if they get around to putting in content).
Heh... I've never understood what the hurry is.
End-game is some vague far-away concept to me in any MMO. Something that's "out there" and I'll get to... eventually. Especially when I'm first starting out. I play for the moment, and my goals are measured in days, at most.
The MMOs that have kept me the most engaged have been those that were worlds and not merely games. It's no surprise (to me anyway) that FFXI is my #1 favorite all-time MMO, because it captured that feeling of being in a world beautifully... to me anyway. Have yet to find a newer MMO in the last few years that has done that.
But again.. that's just me.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Here is how I see FFXIV, some of you will probably go rabid and disagree with me, but what the hell huh. I'm a bit of a sports fan, not the couch fan, but the player type fan. Bare with me as I give you the theory here, and then you can all go ape nutts on me.
There are two types of people in the world when it comes to sports, the athletes and the spectators. Lets start with the basics.
An open grass field, flat, 200 yards long by 200 yards wide. The person who owns the field sees it and one day decides to make a football field out of it, figuring 'if you build it they will come' (hahah I couldnt' resist). He mows the grass, paints on the yard lines, puts up some nice goal posts and builds some nice bleachers on each side. Now we get to the two types of people.
The spectator; he arrives, looks at the field and says 'damn nice football field ya got here' and proceeds to head up to the bleachers to have a seat. A few more spectators arrive, sit there for about 15-20 minutes and says 'wow, beautiful field, but its boring as hell. Nothing to do here.' And then they step off the bleachers and go home, where they proceed to tell all thier friends how the new sports park is pretty and all, just nothing to do there.
And now to the other type of people:
The athlete; he arrives at the field, looks it over and says 'damn nice football field ya got here' and proceeds to walk onto the field looking for the football. He finds the ball, picks it up and begins to look around for someone else to play the game with. Several more athletes show up, and eventually they are all on the field playing a game of football. When they are done playing the game, they proceed to go home where they tell all thier friends how great the new sports park is because of all the things you can do there.
Now, it doeesn't matter how many spectators you get to show up at the field, if there isn't a game going on, they will be bored and leave - nothing to do. But give them a schedule of events, tell them where the game is, when it will be played, and let them show up to watch it and the same boring sports park becomes a great place and tons of fun.
But, to the athlete, it doesn't change for them - they see the field and its potential, what its there for and what they can do with it... They dont need a schedule of events, just a grass field, a ball, and some painted lines with a few rules to get them started.
This is what I see FFXIV as. They made the field, damn pretty field it is too. Put in the ball for ya, painted the lines, and gave ya the basic rules to get you started. They even tossed in a hotdog vendor or two if you needed them, and said have fun everyone! Some of us, we took that ball and hit the field to play some football. The rest of you hit the stands and well....
I dont know if this is called sandox like that one guy says or not (have no idea what that is), its just a game world to me. Its like SE built the world expecting us, the players, to fill the world and live in it. Like we were to make our own game inside the world they built for us to play in. (If you build it they will come!) The problem I see is its just like sports, far more spectators than athletes out there. So when the spectators all shoot the new sports park down as boring and nothing to do, well who are you going to believe, the 100 players on the field, or the 500,000 fans in the stands.
Ok, so now that my HUGE post is all done, does this make any sense to anyone else? I dont know if its the wrong idea or not, but its what I think they were thinking when they made FFXIV, it sure does fit how the game is right now, whats there and what isn't. Thoughts???
I don't see this glorious field you're talking about. I see an empty if not pretty landscape. Yeah grafics are great but the landscape is pretty much the exact same everywhere; it gets old fast. The game world is boring because of it's complete lack of story. Yeah WOW may be getting old but at least when I've played I was intrigued by the lore, the stories and history for each race and area. It made it worth exploring because I wanted to see a little bit more and learn a bit more of that world's story. You really don't get much in FFXIV. No real information past the beginning and a glimpse of the vague storyline every 5 levels or so. Their leve quests are the epitomy of "filler content". It's all the same, go to X kill Y monsters and come back to do it over again till you either hit your exp limit for the day or you've finished your 8 leves for the day.
I want a rich world to explore and to keep me interested not a shell. I don't want the games to be too easy or for the end content to be handed to me on a silver platter. If the background story for the world made it interesting enough to explore and the games UI and basic systems were at least user friendly then many, many more people would actually enjoy this game.