The games weren't better back in the day, you old whiny complainers were. Age slows the mind and body. People like to think the things they did in their prime were the best of best. Truth is you just experienced them at your best. I wonder if a lot of you really want to have a constructive conversation about mixing new and old concepts into upcoming releases? I see a lot of ego stroking and bitter reminiscing.
Corpse runs made EQ harder than WoW. Now stick that where the sun don't shine
I'm sorry you found Corpse Runs hard, I just found them tedious.
@Tedly - what you describe sounds like it good be a pretty fun game.
Venge
Probably you are confusing EQ corpse runs with WOW corpse runs. Because, in EQ, getting in the same situation that got you killed, but naked, or in a worse backup gear, was VERY hard. Not to mention the travel to the place where you died, and good luck if you died deep in a dungeon.
i find these topic kinda funny we have all sorts (myself included) spouting why what is , is etc etc
im almost 40 years old n have to say games have steadily gotten better in my humble opinion .
u have to take this statement considering i started playin these type of game with pen n paper dnd , so its not perfect, n the suits care more for the bottom line but consider we could still be "limited" to playin all these via dice n paper.
i think people have forgetten what the "adventure" is all about its about the journey and not evryone can be the uber pawning player in evry game just as not evryone will enjoy evry game as like back when not evryone enjoyed the same campaigns ,
play the game till u dont enjoy it then move on ! i dont get the need to bash something cuase its not to your taste, state ur opinion n move on
sometimes too we remember the fun we had with game 15 years ago n say , "ahh there notting like them old days .."
really tho if we replayed those old days now we wouldnt have as much fun
sometimes we just need to move on n realize what we enjoyed in that past should stay in the past n we need to try n find something new, life is all about change n we DO change wether we know it or not
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Corpse runs made EQ harder than WoW. Now stick that where the sun don't shine
I'm sorry you found Corpse Runs hard, I just found them tedious.
@Tedly - what you describe sounds like it good be a pretty fun game.
Venge
Probably you are confusing EQ corpse runs with WOW corpse runs. Because, in EQ, getting in the same situation that got you killed, but naked, or in a worse backup gear, was VERY hard. Not to mention the travel to the place where you died, and good luck if you died deep in a dungeon.
No I'm clearly remembering EQ. There is nothing hard about either a. Going around the mob when you can, or b. Waiting for it to be clear by either the mob walking away or someone else's group coming and taking it.
Then when your withing 20 or so feet /corpse. Because thats all that cr's involved, avoidance, waiting, /corpse and sprint
I'm sorry you find waiting difficult, I just found it tedious.
And most times you could find someone to drag your corpse to a safe spot anyway. Those were nice players.
Venge
edited for bad grammar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
No I'm clearly remembering EQ. There is nothing hard about either a. Going the mob when you can, or b. Waiting for it to be clear by either the mob walking away or someone else's group coming and taking it.
Then when your withing 20 or so feet /corpse. Because thats all that cr's involved, avoidance, waiting, /corpse and sprint
I'm sorry you find waiting difficult, I just found it tedious.
And most times you could find someone to drag your corpse to a safe spot anyway. Those were nice players.
Venge
I don't think corpse runs made anything more difficult, you're right, they were tedious and annoying, but that was the point. Corpse runs and death penalties made you a better player, because you didn't want to die. You were cautious, you were part of the group you were with because you needed them to survive, there was a certain level of fear involved especially in deep and dangerous dungeons, which added to the immersion.
MMO's now you can solo your way even through dungeons. Hell, I've been in groups going into instanced dungeons where people just run off doing their own thing, there's no danger, no risk of death, yet when people die they complain that the cleric wasn't doing their job or accuse someone else instead of looking at their own stupidity. Immersion is gone, now you're literally playing a video game with sparkly lighting effects and shiny shinys, with all the immersion of a Space Invaders game.
I haven't felt immersed in a world since EverQuest, the closest any other MMO has come has been Lord of the Rings, which if they toned down the solo play and made things more dangerous would have been the best MMO of modern days.
LOTRO is nowhere good, it is quite rubbish and quite money driven, especially in game mechanics design. But it has a lot of oldschool aspects in it, which makes it cozy place for old timers - and ofc the granddad of fantasy IP to crown it.
But where were we? Ah, corpseruns. Pretty nifty mechanics when you think about it. Implementation kinda sucked and the combat mechanics do not mesh with it well but by itself corpse runs are interesting idea. I did a few in EvE and it teaches you to take reasonable risks and teaches you that you are surprisingly powerfull when you are on top of your game intead of facerolling. But, that is EvE, where corpse runs are completely optional and death is as bad as you make it be. I do not think EvE is especially fun game but there is a lot to be learned from it, it is a mix of deeply traditional with wildly unconventional.
I agree with what you both are saying. The cr wasn't hard it was just tedious, and yes it did make me be more cautious, maybe too cautious. When soloing blues was the way to go, or in rare cases a yellow (unless you got a high level thorns buff or something). Because dying was such a pain the butt. So if that was the point, it worked.
However, I'm not the type of person who is intrigued by risk. I like the challenge itself. To me the risk doesn't make the challenge of the fight that much sweeter. Just dying itself even with a near instant rez makes me rethink my actions because I failed, and failing sucks, so how do I now succeed. So while cr did make me more cautious, it didn't add anything positive to the game, for me anyway. But death penalties are the topic for that other thread.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
You are all deep set within EQ mentality, wearing the same best gear everywhere. If I do not know what is inside the cave I take some disposable armor so that if I die I can still join progress raids. Or I take something crafted, risk a rare spawn and when I die decide according to what I saw inside if I should go back, alone in stealth or with party en force, try to run the gauntlet naked or pull out my best gear because I know that properly perepared I can handle it. There is so much interesting and fun mechanics that goes down the drain if you remove corpse runs. And then you add PvP and it gets huge: will someone beat me to the corpse, will they corpse camp, will the random cleric rob me before raising me so should I wait for someone reliable and risk item decay?
If death just hurts, it is boring, but death can break tedium, it can be whole new, huge, fun experience. In games.
And you know what is best? The first paragraph gets you tons of gameplay with little developer effort. Eat that, theme parks with your neckbreaking budgets.
You are all deep set within EQ mentality, wearing the same best gear everywhere. If I do not know what is inside the cave I take some disposable armor so that if I die I can still join progress raids. Or I take something crafted, risk a rare spawn and when I die decide according to what I saw inside if I should go back, alone in stealth or with party en force, try to run the gauntlet naked or pull out my best gear because I know that properly perepared I can handle it. There is so much interesting and fun mechanics that goes down the drain if you remove corpse runs. And then you add PvP and it gets huge: will someone beat me to the corpse, will they corpse camp, will the random cleric rob me before raising me so should I wait for someone reliable and risk item decay?
If death just hurts, it is boring, but death can break tedium, it can be whole new, huge, fun experience. In games.
And you know what is best? The first paragraph gets you tons of gameplay with little developer effort. Eat that, theme parks with your neckbreaking budgets.
EVE has those mechanics (or very similar to it).
Then again, it does force grouping into your game which isn't good (if you want to have mainstream appeal) in the sub-max range.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Having a pvp that has a sense, a pvevpe like darkness falls and pve like the dragon raid. Make it contain a business/economy/crafting simulation, sandbox areas as well as tales of great legends that need to discovered back told with great ingame cinematics. Give the people the freedom to exploit the game mechanics (but not the software). If there is a fotm class or skill its up to the people to use it or not as long its making a sense to have this regarding to the lore and gameworld. It was one of the best experiences in AoC to kill the worm (raid-boss) with a friend even when the time consumption was insane but it was quite a fun to do it and that is why we play games - for FUN, Entertainment, Emotion.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
I always come in here hoping to hear about a great MMO that plays well, has a great community, and isn't a WOW clone...and guess what it's coming in GW2 so that's what I'm waiting for...I played GW1 and I can't WAITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Blutmaul, many thanks for the second video. I didn´t know my RL-friend´s guild made a server event and a video dedicated to him. I watched it for the first time here.
Its like we are all living the World of Darkness setting, and you noticed something is wrong, but instead of keeping it to yourself you choose to tell people about it.
If I were I would start taking care when walking down the street, and start noticing black suvs on the other side of the street.
Originally posted by Meowhead .... Why aren't you all playing EvE, Ultima Online (That game still exists, you know), Hearth and Home, Ryzom, Perpetuum or whatever else sandbox games actually really honestly exist? ....
Those are ALL PvP or Mostly PvP MMOs.
What do some of us want but haven't gotten yet?
A MMO with a huge sandbox style world that is not mostly about hunting other people, just about hunting monsters, aka PvE Sandbox virtual Worlds (not second life but real MMOs).
I will use EvE to elaborate.... EvE Space and NPC backstory without the BS player mindgames of PvP. EvE skills and Ships balanced for PvE not PvP. Just the virtual world of Space, the missions, the Industry, some(not all) of the Market functions. This is what some of us want. This is what we are waiting to pay for. Let us just enjoy space via EvE's virtual world and we will pay for the privilege.
But both the PvP Players and the Devs don't get it how you could have a sandbox virtual world MMO without the PvP. Ryzom actually did a fairly good job.... but as good as it is it's own history of being sold off over and over did too much damage to it's reputation I fear. I tried it out but the population is too low for any MMO to work correctly. Ryzom could have been it.
Maybe that answers your question to a degree.
As for what the majority wants... I honestly believe the "majority" shouldn't be playing MMOs in the first place, and since the Devs are targeting this "majority" with their MMO designs... well that's just a train wreck all the way through to the end.... and a train wreck is what the genre has become from my point of view.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I would suggest Istaria, I like it better than Ryzom, I think the crafting is better, but it's history is similar to Ryzom's - been sold a number of times. But I still play it.
Venge
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
A MMO with a huge sandbox style world that is not mostly about hunting other people, just about hunting monsters, aka PvE Sandbox virtual Worlds (not second life but real MMOs).
As for what the majority wants... I honestly believe the "majority" shouldn't be playing MMOs in the first place, and since the Devs are targeting this "majority" with their MMO designs... well that's just a train wreck all the way through to the end.... and a train wreck is what the genre has become from my point of view.
I'd like to politely ask in which way is Second Life NOT an MMO? It is massively multiplayer, and it is online.
It's not an MMORPG, but it definitely falls within the wider confines of MMOs.
Oh, and I'm a little disturbed that you want most people to stop playing games they enjoy.
A MMO with a huge sandbox style world that is not mostly about hunting other people, just about hunting monsters, aka PvE Sandbox virtual Worlds (not second life but real MMOs).
As for what the majority wants... I honestly believe the "majority" shouldn't be playing MMOs in the first place, and since the Devs are targeting this "majority" with their MMO designs... well that's just a train wreck all the way through to the end.... and a train wreck is what the genre has become from my point of view.
I'd like to politely ask in which way is Second Life NOT an MMO? It is massively multiplayer, and it is online.
It's not an MMORPG, but it definitely falls within the wider confines of MMOs.
Oh, and I'm a little disturbed that you want most people to stop playing games they enjoy.
That's a little weird, isn't it?
Second Life technically is a MMO its more of a social networking type.
But where is MMOs we and most of us on this site are talking about are "games"
And I also agree, don't stop playing games you enjoy, even if its the ecchi ones
What is the OP talking about? Pen and paper roleplay diverged from computer gaming way back with text-only MUDs. There were a lot of players in MUDs that were just there to kill stuff, complete quests, get gear, and feel heroic. Going to graphics in games like UO and EQ was the same old thing. The only thing I see having changed since MUDs is that people are busier, attentions spans are slightly shorter, and the amount of subscribers is much bigger.
Pen and paper roleplaying and online rpgs have always been split to some extent, even though you will always have some players that want to roleplay. I don't see how you come to the belief that the MMO genre has suddenly changed drastically.
The core of the mmo wow clone grinder market is based on the acceptance and embracing of the quest grind pardigm. Gone are the days of UO and EQ. No one seems interested/capable in making a world that brings them back.
Capable- absolutely (if not beyond); interested... not so much. It's a lost cause. There is more money to be made from players that want to be led completely through a game, absolutely the same as a single player RPG, but online. And even when that player drops the game because he/she cannot go further without the horrendous notion of having to interact with others- the publishers and investors have made back their money. They put forth a bit more effort than making a single player game, hype the hell out of it, and make back the investment if not a tidy profit and on top of that, if players' expectations are set so low as to continue subscribing? More money- and on top of that even further- no risk of piracy such as the single player RPGs have.
In today's market, the devs/publishers can have their cake and eat it too, because not only are today's gamers too ignorant to know what they should expect, but the majority of the genre has been so dumbed down since wow that if they did get what would truly be a next generation MMORPG, they'd have no idea what to do with it.
I swear these "holier then thou" post get on my last nerves. Some of you need to get off your high horses. Everyone thinks they know what's best for the genre. I tell you what. How about you spend time and effort. Get some investors together or put up the money yourself. Get some programmers, artist, marketing folks together. Then make this game with your idea's since you believe it will be "oh so great". Since you know so much about what everyone should be playing. I'm sure you'll create something AAA, that will just knock our socks off right? Because if someone doesn't like the same games you do, there is something obviously wrong with them right? I'm glad you can tell me what sort of games I should be playing and enjoying. Heaven forbid I make that choice for myself.
People keep talking about the genre isn't heading in the right direction. Fact of the matter is you all only think it isn't. Because you keep trying to roll us back to those EQ & UO days. It's just funny that you all swear that you know where the genre is, and where it is heading. When it seems like you aren't looking at the present or the future. Just stuck looking at the past.
In War - Victory. In Peace - Vigilance. In Death - Sacrifice.
Neverwinter Nights with a nice mod, DM, and some friends is the computer version of pen and paper D&D. Sort of.
As for what MMOGs are today, it's driven by the consumer. Some MUDs are still around today, including the one I used to play on. I ocassionally log in once in a while, then get bored and remember why I moved onto graphical MMOGs.
"I am the harbinger of hope. I am the sword of the righteous. And to all who hear my words, I say this: What you give to this Empire, I shall give back unto you." -Empress Jamyl Sarum I
Comments
The games weren't better back in the day, you old whiny complainers were. Age slows the mind and body. People like to think the things they did in their prime were the best of best. Truth is you just experienced them at your best. I wonder if a lot of you really want to have a constructive conversation about mixing new and old concepts into upcoming releases? I see a lot of ego stroking and bitter reminiscing.
Probably you are confusing EQ corpse runs with WOW corpse runs. Because, in EQ, getting in the same situation that got you killed, but naked, or in a worse backup gear, was VERY hard. Not to mention the travel to the place where you died, and good luck if you died deep in a dungeon.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
i find these topic kinda funny we have all sorts (myself included) spouting why what is , is etc etc
im almost 40 years old n have to say games have steadily gotten better in my humble opinion .
u have to take this statement considering i started playin these type of game with pen n paper dnd , so its not perfect, n the suits care more for the bottom line but consider we could still be "limited" to playin all these via dice n paper.
i think people have forgetten what the "adventure" is all about its about the journey and not evryone can be the uber pawning player in evry game just as not evryone will enjoy evry game as like back when not evryone enjoyed the same campaigns ,
play the game till u dont enjoy it then move on ! i dont get the need to bash something cuase its not to your taste, state ur opinion n move on
sometimes too we remember the fun we had with game 15 years ago n say , "ahh there notting like them old days .."
really tho if we replayed those old days now we wouldnt have as much fun
sometimes we just need to move on n realize what we enjoyed in that past should stay in the past n we need to try n find something new, life is all about change n we DO change wether we know it or not
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
No I'm clearly remembering EQ. There is nothing hard about either a. Going around the mob when you can, or b. Waiting for it to be clear by either the mob walking away or someone else's group coming and taking it.
Then when your withing 20 or so feet /corpse. Because thats all that cr's involved, avoidance, waiting, /corpse and sprint
I'm sorry you find waiting difficult, I just found it tedious.
And most times you could find someone to drag your corpse to a safe spot anyway. Those were nice players.
Venge
edited for bad grammar
I don't think corpse runs made anything more difficult, you're right, they were tedious and annoying, but that was the point. Corpse runs and death penalties made you a better player, because you didn't want to die. You were cautious, you were part of the group you were with because you needed them to survive, there was a certain level of fear involved especially in deep and dangerous dungeons, which added to the immersion.
MMO's now you can solo your way even through dungeons. Hell, I've been in groups going into instanced dungeons where people just run off doing their own thing, there's no danger, no risk of death, yet when people die they complain that the cleric wasn't doing their job or accuse someone else instead of looking at their own stupidity. Immersion is gone, now you're literally playing a video game with sparkly lighting effects and shiny shinys, with all the immersion of a Space Invaders game.
I haven't felt immersed in a world since EverQuest, the closest any other MMO has come has been Lord of the Rings, which if they toned down the solo play and made things more dangerous would have been the best MMO of modern days.
LOTRO is nowhere good, it is quite rubbish and quite money driven, especially in game mechanics design. But it has a lot of oldschool aspects in it, which makes it cozy place for old timers - and ofc the granddad of fantasy IP to crown it.
But where were we? Ah, corpseruns. Pretty nifty mechanics when you think about it. Implementation kinda sucked and the combat mechanics do not mesh with it well but by itself corpse runs are interesting idea. I did a few in EvE and it teaches you to take reasonable risks and teaches you that you are surprisingly powerfull when you are on top of your game intead of facerolling. But, that is EvE, where corpse runs are completely optional and death is as bad as you make it be. I do not think EvE is especially fun game but there is a lot to be learned from it, it is a mix of deeply traditional with wildly unconventional.
I agree with what you both are saying. The cr wasn't hard it was just tedious, and yes it did make me be more cautious, maybe too cautious. When soloing blues was the way to go, or in rare cases a yellow (unless you got a high level thorns buff or something). Because dying was such a pain the butt. So if that was the point, it worked.
However, I'm not the type of person who is intrigued by risk. I like the challenge itself. To me the risk doesn't make the challenge of the fight that much sweeter. Just dying itself even with a near instant rez makes me rethink my actions because I failed, and failing sucks, so how do I now succeed. So while cr did make me more cautious, it didn't add anything positive to the game, for me anyway. But death penalties are the topic for that other thread.
Venge Sunsoar
You are all deep set within EQ mentality, wearing the same best gear everywhere. If I do not know what is inside the cave I take some disposable armor so that if I die I can still join progress raids. Or I take something crafted, risk a rare spawn and when I die decide according to what I saw inside if I should go back, alone in stealth or with party en force, try to run the gauntlet naked or pull out my best gear because I know that properly perepared I can handle it. There is so much interesting and fun mechanics that goes down the drain if you remove corpse runs. And then you add PvP and it gets huge: will someone beat me to the corpse, will they corpse camp, will the random cleric rob me before raising me so should I wait for someone reliable and risk item decay?
If death just hurts, it is boring, but death can break tedium, it can be whole new, huge, fun experience. In games.
And you know what is best? The first paragraph gets you tons of gameplay with little developer effort. Eat that, theme parks with your neckbreaking budgets.
EVE has those mechanics (or very similar to it).
Then again, it does force grouping into your game which isn't good (if you want to have mainstream appeal) in the sub-max range.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I want a modern MMO which makes it happen i feel this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlCco3tJx4w
But also in a greater sense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFIbpyl-Dso
Ingame you can do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrChzu3pCpU&feature=related
And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJEHSgvths&feature=related
And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mBQ1aAy5wY
Having a pvp that has a sense, a pvevpe like darkness falls and pve like the dragon raid. Make it contain a business/economy/crafting simulation, sandbox areas as well as tales of great legends that need to discovered back told with great ingame cinematics. Give the people the freedom to exploit the game mechanics (but not the software). If there is a fotm class or skill its up to the people to use it or not as long its making a sense to have this regarding to the lore and gameworld. It was one of the best experiences in AoC to kill the worm (raid-boss) with a friend even when the time consumption was insane but it was quite a fun to do it and that is why we play games - for FUN, Entertainment, Emotion.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
I always come in here hoping to hear about a great MMO that plays well, has a great community, and isn't a WOW clone...and guess what it's coming in GW2 so that's what I'm waiting for...I played GW1 and I can't WAITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
I liked Guildwars before the expansions came out, people actually played together more to do the quests, not just the instances.
Now you spend more time with your companions than with real people, unless you know people to quest with.
There are benefits to this, for example, when theres no one at a certain quest, however, it just made me lose interest.
Not everyone will agree with my opinion, i dont expect anyone to, but the game was more enjoyable when you actually had someone to talk to lol.
Blutmaul, many thanks for the second video. I didn´t know my RL-friend´s guild made a server event and a video dedicated to him. I watched it for the first time here.
Its like we are all living the World of Darkness setting, and you noticed something is wrong, but instead of keeping it to yourself you choose to tell people about it.
If I were I would start taking care when walking down the street, and start noticing black suvs on the other side of the street.
Be carefull.
It's really simple, actually.
Players want fun, virtual worlds to play in.
Game companies want cash cows.
When the former gets what they want, we get games like EQ, UO, Eve, Ryzom, Vanguard, CoH,DaoC, and original LotRO.
When the latter gets what they want, we get games like WoW, Aion, Rift, Allods, RoM, current LotRO.
If the majority wanted that, those games would *be* the cash cows.
Especially since creating an empty sandbox world is considerably lighter on the content costs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Those are ALL PvP or Mostly PvP MMOs.
What do some of us want but haven't gotten yet?
A MMO with a huge sandbox style world that is not mostly about hunting other people, just about hunting monsters, aka PvE Sandbox virtual Worlds (not second life but real MMOs).
I will use EvE to elaborate.... EvE Space and NPC backstory without the BS player mindgames of PvP. EvE skills and Ships balanced for PvE not PvP. Just the virtual world of Space, the missions, the Industry, some(not all) of the Market functions. This is what some of us want. This is what we are waiting to pay for. Let us just enjoy space via EvE's virtual world and we will pay for the privilege.
But both the PvP Players and the Devs don't get it how you could have a sandbox virtual world MMO without the PvP. Ryzom actually did a fairly good job.... but as good as it is it's own history of being sold off over and over did too much damage to it's reputation I fear. I tried it out but the population is too low for any MMO to work correctly. Ryzom could have been it.
Maybe that answers your question to a degree.
As for what the majority wants... I honestly believe the "majority" shouldn't be playing MMOs in the first place, and since the Devs are targeting this "majority" with their MMO designs... well that's just a train wreck all the way through to the end.... and a train wreck is what the genre has become from my point of view.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I would suggest Istaria, I like it better than Ryzom, I think the crafting is better, but it's history is similar to Ryzom's - been sold a number of times. But I still play it.
Venge
I'd like to politely ask in which way is Second Life NOT an MMO? It is massively multiplayer, and it is online.
It's not an MMORPG, but it definitely falls within the wider confines of MMOs.
Oh, and I'm a little disturbed that you want most people to stop playing games they enjoy.
That's a little weird, isn't it?
Second Life technically is a MMO its more of a social networking type.
But where is MMOs we and most of us on this site are talking about are "games"
And I also agree, don't stop playing games you enjoy, even if its the ecchi ones
If all that matters is what an assumed majority wants we'd all be playing platformers and FPS games.
What is the OP talking about? Pen and paper roleplay diverged from computer gaming way back with text-only MUDs. There were a lot of players in MUDs that were just there to kill stuff, complete quests, get gear, and feel heroic. Going to graphics in games like UO and EQ was the same old thing. The only thing I see having changed since MUDs is that people are busier, attentions spans are slightly shorter, and the amount of subscribers is much bigger.
Pen and paper roleplaying and online rpgs have always been split to some extent, even though you will always have some players that want to roleplay. I don't see how you come to the belief that the MMO genre has suddenly changed drastically.
Why can't we have it all?
My theme song.
I swear these "holier then thou" post get on my last nerves. Some of you need to get off your high horses. Everyone thinks they know what's best for the genre. I tell you what. How about you spend time and effort. Get some investors together or put up the money yourself. Get some programmers, artist, marketing folks together. Then make this game with your idea's since you believe it will be "oh so great". Since you know so much about what everyone should be playing. I'm sure you'll create something AAA, that will just knock our socks off right? Because if someone doesn't like the same games you do, there is something obviously wrong with them right? I'm glad you can tell me what sort of games I should be playing and enjoying. Heaven forbid I make that choice for myself.
People keep talking about the genre isn't heading in the right direction. Fact of the matter is you all only think it isn't. Because you keep trying to roll us back to those EQ & UO days. It's just funny that you all swear that you know where the genre is, and where it is heading. When it seems like you aren't looking at the present or the future. Just stuck looking at the past.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Neverwinter Nights with a nice mod, DM, and some friends is the computer version of pen and paper D&D. Sort of.
As for what MMOGs are today, it's driven by the consumer. Some MUDs are still around today, including the one I used to play on. I ocassionally log in once in a while, then get bored and remember why I moved onto graphical MMOGs.
"I am the harbinger of hope. I am the sword of the righteous. And to all who hear my words, I say this: What you give to this Empire, I shall give back unto you."
-Empress Jamyl Sarum I