People want to take part in HUGE events that actually change the MMO world there in, content is supposed to be storyline. The problem with non MMo's is that they finish, and you replay them till youre bored of that game, whereas MMO's we was promised a storyline that would continue forever based around the universe of the MMO.
This is exactly the problem I have with nearly all MMOs. They. Never. Change. Yes, they get additional content and updates, but the world that you saw when you started your very first character all those years ago, is the same one that all of your subsequent characters have seen.
For me, to make a game with true longevity (I don't count gear grinds as longevity), the worlds need to be altered in a permanent way, as the game's story proceeds. This makes having a grizzled old veteran character something to be proud of because you were witness to events in the game that will never be seen again. Perhaps the fall of a kingdom, the destruction of a great evil, or the birth of a demi-god. There could be one-time only events that happen in a game that if you aren't present for them when they took place, the only way you'll get to experience them is through stories -- which can easily become legends.
Most MMOs don't have worlds that come alive and breathe like this. They are static constructs which rely on shovelling more content on to the existing content, without any thought given to addressing what's already there, and what people have become deathly tired of seeing.
Other things that can be done is permanently removing quests and adding entirely new ones, removing NPCs who die in the storyline (from stickpickers to regents), seeing villages develop over time into towns, and then from town to city, then watching the city sacked by outside invaders and be left a haunted, charred ruin (and a new explorable quest zone). Or what about NPCs who grow from child to hero over the years (see Gwen from Guild Wars as an example)? There's much that can be done to give a game a long life by having it mutate organically over time. But if you want to be part of these events, you've got to be in the game. When they're done, they become part of the history of the constantly evolving storyline.
Yes, I can see where it might tick some people off that aren't able to be present for major events for reasons that have nothing to do with the game, but it does make participating in the ones they are present for, that much more memorable. And it provides a good reason to stay involved for many of us who just get bored because we've seen and done it all already, and there's nothing left to look forward to beyond upgrading our gear. Personally, it's at this point I seek out another venue to devote my entertainment dollars.
Of all the things I chide Blizzard/WoW for, destroying the old world and forever changing the face of the game is not one of them. It's actually the only thing about the game that I still have respect for. They should have just done it more incrementally over their history, rather than hitting their playerbase over the head with a mallet when they were clearly unprepared. Of course, WoW will probably remain in it's current state until it closes it's doors, however many years down the road, so the new will quickly become the old -- again.
Well said...applaud! This was a good article. It describes what is wrong with many themepark games today - the treadmill grind for gear at the end. Something I truly hate. I could barely stomach WoW's gear grind. Have to have PvE gear, have to get special PvP gear, add to that trinkets, enchants, gems all kinds of silly garbage...before you can actually experience the higher tiered dungeons, and PvP. I will always be the gamer that will voice my disdain for this type of game element - the need to grind for gear!
Sadly, I must admit that I will never get to this "End Game" thing that you speak of. I get bored too easily with the grind, especially when you get .001 exp for killing some thing 5 levels higher than you char...
I'm surprised Guild Wars has only been really brought up once.
The "grind for gear" exists solely as a superficial thing, as Max armor can be obtained easily, and inscriptions can be bought. You have the "raids" like Underworld, FoW and such to do, in normal and hard mode, on top of vanquishing, skill capping, and exploration. Sure it can feel like a bit of a tedium, but a lot of the titles in the game (what you'd be working towards most likely) actually fit together well.
Lucky and Unlucky, as well as rep-based titles can be earned through Vanquishing, which can be paired with the exploration title as well. And in multiple cases, you can replace "Vanquishing" with the Hardmode missions as well. Most can be done fairly well alone if you prefer, but having others in a team exponentially increases your chances of success.
Sure, some things require a bit of a grind (Obsidian armor comes to mind immediately), but in the end what game doesn't? At least Guild Wars makes gear less of a requirement than other games.
For me, the endgame of "World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade" was the best in all the history of MMO's. The attunements that you could get there where very funny to work on und you always had to do something in the game.
Too bad Blizzard ruined the game with Wrath of the Lich King :'-(
Just make the endgame fun!!! Even though we can't describe what is fun, and everyone has a different opinion, and anything gets boring as enough time passes.
If it were fun, then it would be real content, and by definition, not part of the endgame.
Just make the endgame fun!!! Even though we can't describe what is fun, and everyone has a different opinion, and anything gets boring as enough time passes.
If it were fun, then it would be real content, and by definition, not part of the endgame.
That's... a little confusing. I have to admit, I've never heard of a community coming to a consensus on a universal definition of "endgame". I actually did a thread in the FFXIV forums about the definition of endgame, since there had been a lot of talk about how little endgame content there was at release. The definition certainly does vary from person to person.
I've never heard that endgame content is, by definition, less fun than everything before it.
So, you maxed out you level and if your gear could possably get any better it would only have to be a gift from the game gods. You can kick ass on anything that you come across and solo any instance that would have taken a raid to do. Now what, good question. Lets see: you can make a zillion chars and get all of them to the same place but then what?
Seems like the Dev's don't have enough smarts to make a mega zone so damn big that it takes you a freaking year just to see it all let alone try to figure out how to beat everything and become the god-uber character you are now, once again.
I've been playing Lotro for about 3 years......the life of the game so far and it's really boring, all my chars are maxed out, there crafting ability is maxed out, there's nothing new to see and even when the Dev's finially reviel the next expansion, I have now dought I'll have concured it in a few months if that because its gonna be soo freaking small and once you exsaust the quest line I'm gonna wind up doing repeat quests till the next crappy expansion comes out with even more disapointment.
So what the hell happened to expansions that were entire worlds, Like yeah I kow what your all gonna say, here he go's again talking about an almost dead mmo, but what the hell, EQ1 with 29 expansions and everyone of them was huge. Took me forever to see them all and I was rarely bored. Except for when the other places in the game became ghost towns and it became impossable to find a group or complete a quest.
Here's what you do, ether wait till the Dev's show us they still have some entegrety and make an expansion thats uber or abnaden all you've worked on for the last 3 or 4 years and go on a surf about for the next best. Thats the bottom line. Stay or leave.
The saddest part of all these great rants is that although they may be red by game companies, they don't really give a flying fart how we feel and there not going to do anything different as long as there making the money we keep pumping into them. It just sucks that they just don't want to make it better, they want to make it passable so they get what we all get, a steady pay check for the minimal servers that can be rendered.
Very nice topic. I am sure most of us agree totally. I know I do. Hence you get to the end and after raiding and at least trying to obtain some of that really nice uber end game gear then there is the absolute void. After you have created all the alts you can then what? I have always had many alts. One to try out different classes and races another to help with the boredom. But the truth is it begins to be boring doing the low level stuff as well so when that gets to much the only other options is to say bye and move on.
I have played two different game for over five years each and one for I guess around three. No not all my alts were max level. There were times when I would just simply take one of my lower alts and explore where they shouldn't be. Little xp and some excitement and challenge in seeing how far I could get. yea I know that showed just how bored I was.
I think we all agree that the endgame grind for gear is unsatisfying. Personally, I have not capped any of my players ever, even after playing Anarchy Online for dang near 3 years straight for at least 40 hours a week. Its not that I have alt-itice either. I just don't like the feeling of slowing down, which I guess equates to a grind for me. So I will get my main character to about 80% through the game, feel the slow-down and then make an alt or leave the game.
I don't think that having a static world is the only problem. I used to play tons and tons of Counterstrike which had the same maps, guns, and scenarios over and over and it was still fun everytime. The difference is that counterstrike gave players the tools needed to get creative with tactics and those tactics always were changing because they were against live players rather than machines.
MMO's do this essentially by PvP, however, they are constantly dealing with balance issues because of player development. In Counterstrike I could run around with a standard pistol, no armor, and no accessories and still get kills. In an MMO a player of lvl 8 has zero chance of killing one at lvl 30 even because of evades, HP and such.
The idea about once per server battles is creative. We need more creative ideas like this.
I think a good starting point is to create conflict. In AO if a clan member went to an omni area they were killed by guards. It wasn't until you became really high level that you could go to these areas and it was still risky. I remember playing this game and hating everything about Omni. Their cities, their armor, they zones, everything. I don't know why, I just did. I felt like I couldn't and shouldn't make friends or team with an Omni. I wasn't even that into role playing but we just never made friends or contact with omni. It was GREAT!
This conflict can be created by the game devs but every conflict can be increased by the proper propaganda. Not only should players be given the ability to declare war on another guild, but they should have tools available to make it public. Get people on their side, grab teh innocent bystanders and make them pick a side. incorporate video blogs into the game. Pop this stuff up on screens places so people can see the content. Get them fired up. Then give them the tools to create a movement in game and shift the environment towards their cause.
Aside from conflict I would just say people are naturally creative and that in games their creativity is limited to the game rules. In themepark mmo's there are many rules. Sandbox, less. If I get to lvl 35 I get a new skill. The skill is fixed... I know I will get it automatically when I get to lvl 35. There is nothing creative about it. If I'm a guardian in LOTRO then I can either parry hits or block hits. If I block i get a shield and work on those skills. What if the game allowed you to decide how you want to tank...like it was completely open. Whats to say you have to block (a physical activity) why can't you have a skill that makes the air thick around you, partially mitigating damage or slowing down the mob enough that you take less damage. What if you got really good at deflecting blows with your feet? What if you developed a machine that was a movement predictor and you could dodge more often because you'd see ahead a few steps and actively position yourself accordingly.
Why does a tank have to have high HP anyways? Why do they do better with more armor points? Why can't a tank focus on their diet, to create a scent about them that aggro's mobs more rather than doing the typical "taunt" skill. If you give people the tools they will be able to create characters more unique than anybody could ever imagine.
Maybe once you played your personalized character long enough, you were allowed to build a school around your methods. People could "study" under you and learn your skills. Hardcore gamers (or perhaps creative ones, or perhaps only the most connected ones) would be able to attract people to their school. These people could learn your skills. After a certain point, the game wouldn't even need to have a system in place where you get a skill at x level because that skill would be player generated.
Crafting - do we need recipes? I mean do people IRL go kill someone, search their clothes, find a recipe for a new axe and then go make it? The purpose is you want a better way of killing people. You don't need to know what an axe is persay to create a weapon to accomplish that. Take these pre-determined recipes out, or at least at end game take them out. Consider yourself an accomplished weaponsmith at that point - then you can work on crafting your own personal killing machines.
So, you maxed out you level and if your gear could possably get any better it would only have to be a gift from the game gods. You can kick ass on anything that you come across and solo any instance that would have taken a raid to do. Now what, good question. Lets see: you can make a zillion chars and get all of them to the same place but then what?
Seems like the Dev's don't have enough smarts to make a mega zone so damn big that it takes you a freaking year just to see it all let alone try to figure out how to beat everything and become the god-uber character you are now, once again.
I've been playing Lotro for about 3 years......the life of the game so far and it's really boring, all my chars are maxed out, there crafting ability is maxed out, there's nothing new to see and even when the Dev's finially reviel the next expansion, I have now dought I'll have concured it in a few months if that because its gonna be soo freaking small and once you exsaust the quest line I'm gonna wind up doing repeat quests till the next crappy expansion comes out with even more disapointment.
So what the hell happened to expansions that were entire worlds, Like yeah I kow what your all gonna say, here he go's again talking about an almost dead mmo, but what the hell, EQ1 with 29 expansions and everyone of them was huge. Took me forever to see them all and I was rarely bored. Except for when the other places in the game became ghost towns and it became impossable to find a group or complete a quest.
Here's what you do, ether wait till the Dev's show us they still have some entegrety and make an expansion thats uber or abnaden all you've worked on for the last 3 or 4 years and go on a surf about for the next best. Thats the bottom line. Stay or leave.
How about having enough integrity (sorry, "entegrety") to admit that for a small payment for an expansion and/or a couple of bucks a month, being thoroughly entertained for "a few months" is an effing fantastic deal? You can't buy a DVD and be entertained by it for 8 hours a day for months, you can't buy a board game or a stack of comic books and be entertained for months.
It takes a team of world designers, animators, music composers, programmers, and testers to pull an expansion together and make it ready for release. And—especially in an older game with a smaller following—it's a financial risk because you have to just hope that enough people purchase it to cover the costs of making it. For less than it takes to get an oil change and tire rotation you get a whole new world to explore, and instead of being grateful you turn around and say the deveopers lack integrity because it only takes you a few months to race through it instead of a whole year. Ugh.
I really like Soul of the Ultimate Nation's idea of being able to generate dungeons from terrain to the monsters in the dungeons. It kept even endgame players satisfied with the experience, as something can always be done differently, and made the leveling experience more than just grinding the same dungeon over and over again. It's a shame SUN's controls, storyline, community, and events downright sucked. I swear, when a F2P game accomplishes something innovative, every other part of it was horrible...
Anyway, when I hit level 20 in Guild Wars, it was just the beginning. I finished the Prophecies storyline (I only have Prophecies), and could do some exploration and side quests. However, it quickly grew dry. Although hanging out with my guild and PvPing was fun, the game itself was just too stale for me to continue. If I could buy an expansion right now, I wouldn't. I'd save that money, because it's just more of the same from here on out. It's a shame; Guild Wars has been really fun for almost 3 or 4 years now for me.
The OP hit the nail on the head for me with the comments about EQ2 (and EQ1 and DCUO) and their ROBUST end game options. I have had a lot of people ask me why I prefer EQ2 to WoW and that is it in a nutshell, among a few other added activities that EQ2 has that WoW is sadly missing.
There is little I loathe more in a game than boredom. There is little that bores me more than being at level cap with nothing to do but grind for gear. I might be in the mood to do that two days a week, but if I feel like it's all there is to do EVERY day....you've lost me.
I hope to see "end game" change in future MMOs and offer us more choices. To ME....that's what makes a great game....lots of choices.
Every time I have hit the end game, I have shortly thereafter quit the game. Despite perhaps having a decent guild to do the end game with. It just felt like I was hitting the wall, and didn't want to do the same encounters/instances over and over.
To each their own, but that is my experience, over the past 12 years or so.
So the consensus I am getting form this community is, that getting gear=bad, but story=good. While I agree that story is a key element in ANY Rpg, it is not the only thing that makes said Rpg good. As for the comment about Guild Wars approach, that is just stupid. Do you really think its fun to be handed all your gear and have no point in the rest of the game, save for cosmetic ONLY upgrades? Why is getting better gear a bad thing? Only thing GW did right was graphics and PvP.
The story pret pretty good, but only using 8 abilities at atime...yea thats awesome. I just don't understand what people want companies to do. Do you really think its possible for anyone to make an endless story and stream of content? I would like to see you all try. And as for WoW not having a story, yea nice claim. Ever heard f the phasing that is now common place? How about the dungeons in BC that were completely story driven AND quest based. Taking on Illidan after countless encounters and hearing of his terror? The problem with most people is they click the NPC and click accept/complete quest and dont read anything at all. Maybe The Old Republic with its everything being voiced with snap all of you ADD kids out of your trance. While I can admit WoW has a lot of grinding and the end game is raiding and dalies, there is story. You just have to dedicate the time to get there.
If you don't like fighting mobs or doing quests or missions or whatever, then why do you care about gear whose only purpose is to let you better do things that you don't like?
WoW has some bits and fragments of lore here and there, but it never adds up to a coherent storyline. Even for people who read all the quest text and so forth, there's never any sense of, this is what could reasonably come next, apart from maybe the next quest in a short chain. Now, a lot of MMORPGs are like that, but they don't have to be. Guild Wars Prophecies has a very good storyline, for example.
Maybe more games could implement the continue'n to lvl up and let you choose a stat to buff like FFXI did. You didn't lvl up numerically, but you went through the exp bar and got to put a point into stam or agi. Gives you a reason to still gain exp after you've hit the cap and something to help you make your char stronger without the gear and what-not treadmill.
i have ypur solution, im not going to bore you with a wall of text like i usualy do on these forums! in stead im going to keep this post as simpl as the solution because it really is this simple.
remove loot and gear grinds completely.
add 100% player crafting
ensure that the crafting iss deep and complex requireing all kinds of resources
and the amount of cr aftable products needs to be vast and the customisation level of said items need to be free for the crafter to play and change at his will.
ensure obvious stat caps and level r estrictions to crafted items.
to solve over priceing issues, you simple have resaource vendors scattered around the game world selling the resources all of them for excessive prices.
this do two things. keeps player crafting prices competative and low and it ensures players cant do rediculous things and charge the earth for crap items.
it needs to be done in such a way that tradeing resources is a worth while play style that yields a decent reward in currency.
i do beleive in these games everything must be capped to some degree. for the simple reason as everythign is simple that the human being when ungoverned or not watched or not restricted is simply untrustworthy/greedy
and i think the above is the reason why we have these stupid grinds in the first place.
Gear chasing is essentially what many MMOs make as end game content. Personally I am all forthe games where items may be good, but are not the be-all-end-all. Games like Eve do this well and often I am wondering if such a process can be put into a more normal game. i would love to raid a dungeon for the simple desire to raid it (as opposed to getting an item).
Of course, the reason items are there in dungeons are as candy treats so people can make the numbers by attracting more people, but surely there are other ways to tempt people, like makign global effects from raiding a dungeon (eg. Vanilla WoW gave large buffs for placing dragon heads outside capital often then used in other dungeons).
I think developers have to go out and try some other ideas to entice players to raid, not everybody are materialistic item junkies.
Theme-Park games take you by the hand, show you a red thread of a storyline, give you goal after goal to strife for, give you the impression that it's all about you. New gear is the carrot they offer you to make you ride all roller coasters and merry-go-rounds. And finally the story ends, you rode everything in the park and that's it. Then they give you an elitist roller-coaster which you are only allowed to ride, once you completed everything else, and call it "end-game". They expect you to feel proud to ride it and be happy with this rollercoaster forever, riding it ever and ever again. Nothing new happens, only the numbers increase (item stats), but since they increase for everyone else, nothing really changes anymore.
The simple truth is: every theme-park has boundaries and get's boring after so and so much time. Endgame is just a label of the same stuff, you have seen before, it's only more difficult and has stricter restrictions. "Endgame" is an illusion, every pre-made story must hav an ending.
The basic problem is, you suddenly have no goal anymore, the game doesen't give you one (maybe apart from grind goals, oh again this is what "endgame" is about)
If noone makes a story for you, you would want to set your own goals, create your own story. But theme parks don't give you that. That's what sandbox games are supposed to do. More often than not, these games are just a framework settings without content and leave you alone to create your own epic story. Only that these stories feel shallow and repetitive and the stories unfold not around your sole character, but around groups, guilds, alliances. Eve Online comes to mind. A player-driven economy and territories that allow settlement give a lot of potential for stories to unfold, but again these are global stories, you don't necessarily feel them connected to you. But maybe this feeling comes from us having played to many theme parks and being used to feel like it's all about you, even when you know, it's not. But in my opinion there is also the problem, that the liberties you have in sandbox games, don't matter to the world. At least not enough. That's why empire space is separated from 0.0 space, not only spatially, but also logically in the game mechanics. The empires give a damn about what happens in 0.0. "The world" reacts to player actions only very limited, like an autist. It react's, but does not act. That's why it feels too shallow.
There are no levels in Eve you hardly can max out you char, so in terms of player progression there is no endgame. But there is no red thread either.
I think the next generation of MMOs will have a sandboxish base and above that a quest engine and a setting management, that generate tasks, quests and storylines for players, based on their desires (exploration, achievement, pvp). Quests, that have a consequence, if successful or not, a consequence not only to the player (reward, faction standing), but to the world as well (shifts in power, access to resources, standing change between factions). The lines between "world" and playerbase will become more blurry. Theme park elements are still possible, but they occur in pockets and not as a framework. For example a theme-parkish storyline can unfold around a player that wants to learn a certain trait or skill. The warrior (stances), hunter (pet abilites), warlock (demons) and druid (shapeshifting) quests in WoW were a meagre start to this idea, i loved them, only that they weren't continued at higher levels. Why not doing this for most skills and abilities, and so intertwine quests and player progression directly, instead of sending me to the next meaningless, fedex or kill mission for pity XP?
So these theme-park pockets can have a deeper and richer story than the general framework around it, and every player only picks the pockets he needs for his character, thus having a more individual story. That's a start. "The world" has to have it's own goals and use players to accomplish them. Instead of telling them fairytales in which they are the little heroes. That would be a major step.
Comments
This is exactly the problem I have with nearly all MMOs. They. Never. Change. Yes, they get additional content and updates, but the world that you saw when you started your very first character all those years ago, is the same one that all of your subsequent characters have seen.
For me, to make a game with true longevity (I don't count gear grinds as longevity), the worlds need to be altered in a permanent way, as the game's story proceeds. This makes having a grizzled old veteran character something to be proud of because you were witness to events in the game that will never be seen again. Perhaps the fall of a kingdom, the destruction of a great evil, or the birth of a demi-god. There could be one-time only events that happen in a game that if you aren't present for them when they took place, the only way you'll get to experience them is through stories -- which can easily become legends.
Most MMOs don't have worlds that come alive and breathe like this. They are static constructs which rely on shovelling more content on to the existing content, without any thought given to addressing what's already there, and what people have become deathly tired of seeing.
Other things that can be done is permanently removing quests and adding entirely new ones, removing NPCs who die in the storyline (from stickpickers to regents), seeing villages develop over time into towns, and then from town to city, then watching the city sacked by outside invaders and be left a haunted, charred ruin (and a new explorable quest zone). Or what about NPCs who grow from child to hero over the years (see Gwen from Guild Wars as an example)? There's much that can be done to give a game a long life by having it mutate organically over time. But if you want to be part of these events, you've got to be in the game. When they're done, they become part of the history of the constantly evolving storyline.
Yes, I can see where it might tick some people off that aren't able to be present for major events for reasons that have nothing to do with the game, but it does make participating in the ones they are present for, that much more memorable. And it provides a good reason to stay involved for many of us who just get bored because we've seen and done it all already, and there's nothing left to look forward to beyond upgrading our gear. Personally, it's at this point I seek out another venue to devote my entertainment dollars.
Of all the things I chide Blizzard/WoW for, destroying the old world and forever changing the face of the game is not one of them. It's actually the only thing about the game that I still have respect for. They should have just done it more incrementally over their history, rather than hitting their playerbase over the head with a mallet when they were clearly unprepared. Of course, WoW will probably remain in it's current state until it closes it's doors, however many years down the road, so the new will quickly become the old -- again.
Well said...applaud! This was a good article. It describes what is wrong with many themepark games today - the treadmill grind for gear at the end. Something I truly hate. I could barely stomach WoW's gear grind. Have to have PvE gear, have to get special PvP gear, add to that trinkets, enchants, gems all kinds of silly garbage...before you can actually experience the higher tiered dungeons, and PvP. I will always be the gamer that will voice my disdain for this type of game element - the need to grind for gear!
Sadly, I must admit that I will never get to this "End Game" thing that you speak of. I get bored too easily with the grind, especially when you get .001 exp for killing some thing 5 levels higher than you char...
This was by far one of your worst articles to date.
So let me get this straight -
Grinding instances/raids for Gear = Bad
but
Grinding quests/mobs for character stat points (AA) = Good?
What an absolute joke lol.
I'm surprised Guild Wars has only been really brought up once.
The "grind for gear" exists solely as a superficial thing, as Max armor can be obtained easily, and inscriptions can be bought. You have the "raids" like Underworld, FoW and such to do, in normal and hard mode, on top of vanquishing, skill capping, and exploration. Sure it can feel like a bit of a tedium, but a lot of the titles in the game (what you'd be working towards most likely) actually fit together well.
Lucky and Unlucky, as well as rep-based titles can be earned through Vanquishing, which can be paired with the exploration title as well. And in multiple cases, you can replace "Vanquishing" with the Hardmode missions as well. Most can be done fairly well alone if you prefer, but having others in a team exponentially increases your chances of success.
Sure, some things require a bit of a grind (Obsidian armor comes to mind immediately), but in the end what game doesn't? At least Guild Wars makes gear less of a requirement than other games.
For me, the endgame of "World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade" was the best in all the history of MMO's. The attunements that you could get there where very funny to work on und you always had to do something in the game.
Too bad Blizzard ruined the game with Wrath of the Lich King :'-(
If it were fun, then it would be real content, and by definition, not part of the endgame.
That's... a little confusing. I have to admit, I've never heard of a community coming to a consensus on a universal definition of "endgame". I actually did a thread in the FFXIV forums about the definition of endgame, since there had been a lot of talk about how little endgame content there was at release. The definition certainly does vary from person to person.
I've never heard that endgame content is, by definition, less fun than everything before it.
So, you maxed out you level and if your gear could possably get any better it would only have to be a gift from the game gods. You can kick ass on anything that you come across and solo any instance that would have taken a raid to do. Now what, good question. Lets see: you can make a zillion chars and get all of them to the same place but then what?
Seems like the Dev's don't have enough smarts to make a mega zone so damn big that it takes you a freaking year just to see it all let alone try to figure out how to beat everything and become the god-uber character you are now, once again.
I've been playing Lotro for about 3 years......the life of the game so far and it's really boring, all my chars are maxed out, there crafting ability is maxed out, there's nothing new to see and even when the Dev's finially reviel the next expansion, I have now dought I'll have concured it in a few months if that because its gonna be soo freaking small and once you exsaust the quest line I'm gonna wind up doing repeat quests till the next crappy expansion comes out with even more disapointment.
So what the hell happened to expansions that were entire worlds, Like yeah I kow what your all gonna say, here he go's again talking about an almost dead mmo, but what the hell, EQ1 with 29 expansions and everyone of them was huge. Took me forever to see them all and I was rarely bored. Except for when the other places in the game became ghost towns and it became impossable to find a group or complete a quest.
Here's what you do, ether wait till the Dev's show us they still have some entegrety and make an expansion thats uber or abnaden all you've worked on for the last 3 or 4 years and go on a surf about for the next best. Thats the bottom line. Stay or leave.
The saddest part of all these great rants is that although they may be red by game companies, they don't really give a flying fart how we feel and there not going to do anything different as long as there making the money we keep pumping into them. It just sucks that they just don't want to make it better, they want to make it passable so they get what we all get, a steady pay check for the minimal servers that can be rendered.
Very nice topic. I am sure most of us agree totally. I know I do. Hence you get to the end and after raiding and at least trying to obtain some of that really nice uber end game gear then there is the absolute void. After you have created all the alts you can then what? I have always had many alts. One to try out different classes and races another to help with the boredom. But the truth is it begins to be boring doing the low level stuff as well so when that gets to much the only other options is to say bye and move on.
I have played two different game for over five years each and one for I guess around three. No not all my alts were max level. There were times when I would just simply take one of my lower alts and explore where they shouldn't be. Little xp and some excitement and challenge in seeing how far I could get. yea I know that showed just how bored I was.
Gikku
I think we all agree that the endgame grind for gear is unsatisfying. Personally, I have not capped any of my players ever, even after playing Anarchy Online for dang near 3 years straight for at least 40 hours a week. Its not that I have alt-itice either. I just don't like the feeling of slowing down, which I guess equates to a grind for me. So I will get my main character to about 80% through the game, feel the slow-down and then make an alt or leave the game.
I don't think that having a static world is the only problem. I used to play tons and tons of Counterstrike which had the same maps, guns, and scenarios over and over and it was still fun everytime. The difference is that counterstrike gave players the tools needed to get creative with tactics and those tactics always were changing because they were against live players rather than machines.
MMO's do this essentially by PvP, however, they are constantly dealing with balance issues because of player development. In Counterstrike I could run around with a standard pistol, no armor, and no accessories and still get kills. In an MMO a player of lvl 8 has zero chance of killing one at lvl 30 even because of evades, HP and such.
The idea about once per server battles is creative. We need more creative ideas like this.
I think a good starting point is to create conflict. In AO if a clan member went to an omni area they were killed by guards. It wasn't until you became really high level that you could go to these areas and it was still risky. I remember playing this game and hating everything about Omni. Their cities, their armor, they zones, everything. I don't know why, I just did. I felt like I couldn't and shouldn't make friends or team with an Omni. I wasn't even that into role playing but we just never made friends or contact with omni. It was GREAT!
This conflict can be created by the game devs but every conflict can be increased by the proper propaganda. Not only should players be given the ability to declare war on another guild, but they should have tools available to make it public. Get people on their side, grab teh innocent bystanders and make them pick a side. incorporate video blogs into the game. Pop this stuff up on screens places so people can see the content. Get them fired up. Then give them the tools to create a movement in game and shift the environment towards their cause.
Aside from conflict I would just say people are naturally creative and that in games their creativity is limited to the game rules. In themepark mmo's there are many rules. Sandbox, less. If I get to lvl 35 I get a new skill. The skill is fixed... I know I will get it automatically when I get to lvl 35. There is nothing creative about it. If I'm a guardian in LOTRO then I can either parry hits or block hits. If I block i get a shield and work on those skills. What if the game allowed you to decide how you want to tank...like it was completely open. Whats to say you have to block (a physical activity) why can't you have a skill that makes the air thick around you, partially mitigating damage or slowing down the mob enough that you take less damage. What if you got really good at deflecting blows with your feet? What if you developed a machine that was a movement predictor and you could dodge more often because you'd see ahead a few steps and actively position yourself accordingly.
Why does a tank have to have high HP anyways? Why do they do better with more armor points? Why can't a tank focus on their diet, to create a scent about them that aggro's mobs more rather than doing the typical "taunt" skill. If you give people the tools they will be able to create characters more unique than anybody could ever imagine.
Maybe once you played your personalized character long enough, you were allowed to build a school around your methods. People could "study" under you and learn your skills. Hardcore gamers (or perhaps creative ones, or perhaps only the most connected ones) would be able to attract people to their school. These people could learn your skills. After a certain point, the game wouldn't even need to have a system in place where you get a skill at x level because that skill would be player generated.
Crafting - do we need recipes? I mean do people IRL go kill someone, search their clothes, find a recipe for a new axe and then go make it? The purpose is you want a better way of killing people. You don't need to know what an axe is persay to create a weapon to accomplish that. Take these pre-determined recipes out, or at least at end game take them out. Consider yourself an accomplished weaponsmith at that point - then you can work on crafting your own personal killing machines.
I've been rambling for a while and will stop now.
How about having enough integrity (sorry, "entegrety") to admit that for a small payment for an expansion and/or a couple of bucks a month, being thoroughly entertained for "a few months" is an effing fantastic deal? You can't buy a DVD and be entertained by it for 8 hours a day for months, you can't buy a board game or a stack of comic books and be entertained for months.
It takes a team of world designers, animators, music composers, programmers, and testers to pull an expansion together and make it ready for release. And—especially in an older game with a smaller following—it's a financial risk because you have to just hope that enough people purchase it to cover the costs of making it. For less than it takes to get an oil change and tire rotation you get a whole new world to explore, and instead of being grateful you turn around and say the deveopers lack integrity because it only takes you a few months to race through it instead of a whole year. Ugh.
Good topic. The gear grind is exactly why I stopped playing WoW.
There does need to be an end game that isn't an end game. Player generated content with proper tools given by the game is what I'd like to see.
I really like Soul of the Ultimate Nation's idea of being able to generate dungeons from terrain to the monsters in the dungeons. It kept even endgame players satisfied with the experience, as something can always be done differently, and made the leveling experience more than just grinding the same dungeon over and over again. It's a shame SUN's controls, storyline, community, and events downright sucked. I swear, when a F2P game accomplishes something innovative, every other part of it was horrible...
Anyway, when I hit level 20 in Guild Wars, it was just the beginning. I finished the Prophecies storyline (I only have Prophecies), and could do some exploration and side quests. However, it quickly grew dry. Although hanging out with my guild and PvPing was fun, the game itself was just too stale for me to continue. If I could buy an expansion right now, I wouldn't. I'd save that money, because it's just more of the same from here on out. It's a shame; Guild Wars has been really fun for almost 3 or 4 years now for me.
The OP hit the nail on the head for me with the comments about EQ2 (and EQ1 and DCUO) and their ROBUST end game options. I have had a lot of people ask me why I prefer EQ2 to WoW and that is it in a nutshell, among a few other added activities that EQ2 has that WoW is sadly missing.
There is little I loathe more in a game than boredom. There is little that bores me more than being at level cap with nothing to do but grind for gear. I might be in the mood to do that two days a week, but if I feel like it's all there is to do EVERY day....you've lost me.
I hope to see "end game" change in future MMOs and offer us more choices. To ME....that's what makes a great game....lots of choices.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Every time I have hit the end game, I have shortly thereafter quit the game. Despite perhaps having a decent guild to do the end game with. It just felt like I was hitting the wall, and didn't want to do the same encounters/instances over and over.
To each their own, but that is my experience, over the past 12 years or so.
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Rose-lipped maidens,
Light-foot lads...
So the consensus I am getting form this community is, that getting gear=bad, but story=good. While I agree that story is a key element in ANY Rpg, it is not the only thing that makes said Rpg good. As for the comment about Guild Wars approach, that is just stupid. Do you really think its fun to be handed all your gear and have no point in the rest of the game, save for cosmetic ONLY upgrades? Why is getting better gear a bad thing? Only thing GW did right was graphics and PvP.
The story pret pretty good, but only using 8 abilities at atime...yea thats awesome. I just don't understand what people want companies to do. Do you really think its possible for anyone to make an endless story and stream of content? I would like to see you all try. And as for WoW not having a story, yea nice claim. Ever heard f the phasing that is now common place? How about the dungeons in BC that were completely story driven AND quest based. Taking on Illidan after countless encounters and hearing of his terror? The problem with most people is they click the NPC and click accept/complete quest and dont read anything at all. Maybe The Old Republic with its everything being voiced with snap all of you ADD kids out of your trance. While I can admit WoW has a lot of grinding and the end game is raiding and dalies, there is story. You just have to dedicate the time to get there.
If you don't like fighting mobs or doing quests or missions or whatever, then why do you care about gear whose only purpose is to let you better do things that you don't like?
WoW has some bits and fragments of lore here and there, but it never adds up to a coherent storyline. Even for people who read all the quest text and so forth, there's never any sense of, this is what could reasonably come next, apart from maybe the next quest in a short chain. Now, a lot of MMORPGs are like that, but they don't have to be. Guild Wars Prophecies has a very good storyline, for example.
Maybe more games could implement the continue'n to lvl up and let you choose a stat to buff like FFXI did. You didn't lvl up numerically, but you went through the exp bar and got to put a point into stam or agi. Gives you a reason to still gain exp after you've hit the cap and something to help you make your char stronger without the gear and what-not treadmill.
i have ypur solution, im not going to bore you with a wall of text like i usualy do on these forums! in stead im going to keep this post as simpl as the solution because it really is this simple.
remove loot and gear grinds completely.
add 100% player crafting
ensure that the crafting iss deep and complex requireing all kinds of resources
and the amount of cr aftable products needs to be vast and the customisation level of said items need to be free for the crafter to play and change at his will.
ensure obvious stat caps and level r estrictions to crafted items.
to solve over priceing issues, you simple have resaource vendors scattered around the game world selling the resources all of them for excessive prices.
this do two things. keeps player crafting prices competative and low and it ensures players cant do rediculous things and charge the earth for crap items.
it needs to be done in such a way that tradeing resources is a worth while play style that yields a decent reward in currency.
i do beleive in these games everything must be capped to some degree. for the simple reason as everythign is simple that the human being when ungoverned or not watched or not restricted is simply untrustworthy/greedy
and i think the above is the reason why we have these stupid grinds in the first place.
Gear chasing is essentially what many MMOs make as end game content. Personally I am all forthe games where items may be good, but are not the be-all-end-all. Games like Eve do this well and often I am wondering if such a process can be put into a more normal game. i would love to raid a dungeon for the simple desire to raid it (as opposed to getting an item).
Of course, the reason items are there in dungeons are as candy treats so people can make the numbers by attracting more people, but surely there are other ways to tempt people, like makign global effects from raiding a dungeon (eg. Vanilla WoW gave large buffs for placing dragon heads outside capital often then used in other dungeons).
I think developers have to go out and try some other ideas to entice players to raid, not everybody are materialistic item junkies.
Good article.
My first MMO was DAoC (2001) and after i hit the Cap,the only thing i do was RvR every Day.
With TOA i unsuscribing.
All MMOs i played after DAoC has boring Endgame=Geargrind/BGs(WoW/Aion/WAR) or no Content(Vanguard/AoC),
except FFXI with his great Jobsystem.
Theme-Park games take you by the hand, show you a red thread of a storyline, give you goal after goal to strife for, give you the impression that it's all about you. New gear is the carrot they offer you to make you ride all roller coasters and merry-go-rounds. And finally the story ends, you rode everything in the park and that's it. Then they give you an elitist roller-coaster which you are only allowed to ride, once you completed everything else, and call it "end-game". They expect you to feel proud to ride it and be happy with this rollercoaster forever, riding it ever and ever again. Nothing new happens, only the numbers increase (item stats), but since they increase for everyone else, nothing really changes anymore.
The simple truth is: every theme-park has boundaries and get's boring after so and so much time. Endgame is just a label of the same stuff, you have seen before, it's only more difficult and has stricter restrictions. "Endgame" is an illusion, every pre-made story must hav an ending.
The basic problem is, you suddenly have no goal anymore, the game doesen't give you one (maybe apart from grind goals, oh again this is what "endgame" is about)
If noone makes a story for you, you would want to set your own goals, create your own story. But theme parks don't give you that. That's what sandbox games are supposed to do. More often than not, these games are just a framework settings without content and leave you alone to create your own epic story. Only that these stories feel shallow and repetitive and the stories unfold not around your sole character, but around groups, guilds, alliances. Eve Online comes to mind. A player-driven economy and territories that allow settlement give a lot of potential for stories to unfold, but again these are global stories, you don't necessarily feel them connected to you. But maybe this feeling comes from us having played to many theme parks and being used to feel like it's all about you, even when you know, it's not. But in my opinion there is also the problem, that the liberties you have in sandbox games, don't matter to the world. At least not enough. That's why empire space is separated from 0.0 space, not only spatially, but also logically in the game mechanics. The empires give a damn about what happens in 0.0. "The world" reacts to player actions only very limited, like an autist. It react's, but does not act. That's why it feels too shallow.
There are no levels in Eve you hardly can max out you char, so in terms of player progression there is no endgame. But there is no red thread either.
I think the next generation of MMOs will have a sandboxish base and above that a quest engine and a setting management, that generate tasks, quests and storylines for players, based on their desires (exploration, achievement, pvp). Quests, that have a consequence, if successful or not, a consequence not only to the player (reward, faction standing), but to the world as well (shifts in power, access to resources, standing change between factions). The lines between "world" and playerbase will become more blurry. Theme park elements are still possible, but they occur in pockets and not as a framework. For example a theme-parkish storyline can unfold around a player that wants to learn a certain trait or skill. The warrior (stances), hunter (pet abilites), warlock (demons) and druid (shapeshifting) quests in WoW were a meagre start to this idea, i loved them, only that they weren't continued at higher levels. Why not doing this for most skills and abilities, and so intertwine quests and player progression directly, instead of sending me to the next meaningless, fedex or kill mission for pity XP?
So these theme-park pockets can have a deeper and richer story than the general framework around it, and every player only picks the pockets he needs for his character, thus having a more individual story. That's a start. "The world" has to have it's own goals and use players to accomplish them. Instead of telling them fairytales in which they are the little heroes. That would be a major step.