And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
Yeah, having to swing your sword and attack enemies is boring and lazy design to fill up play-time too. I want them to fall over as soon as I target them. That is more convenient.
I disagree, i think it would just be easier if I didnt have to target them and they just died as I entered the zone.
lol I dont care how much you guys liked it, i never did. I played EQ for around 4 years just because a couple of my real life buddies played and we hung out all the time. That game is hell im sure i could write a book on how horrible it is. lol
Yes the cool part is not having things handed to you, no its not cool not even having the slightest clue what to do to progress in a game. No matter what, you do not play video games with the intention of not progressing in some manner be it battle, crafting, or exploring and whatever. We play to progress. I could go on but i got bored of my own thinking. I wanna go play some Assassins Creed i got from onlive.com for $12.50. =p
Anyways you can play Darkfall or Mortal Online (i havent tried that one yet still) and maybe Dawntide or somethin?
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. Join me on TwitchFacebook Twitter
If you think the genre started with EQ you may believe there is no difference between casual friendly and instant gradification but I am here to tell you there is a significant difference between the two. UO was very casual friendly but it was not instant gradification friendly. If you only have a half an hour to play you could get on do a little something log off and feel like you progressed. EQ killed the idea of playing a mmo for fun. OMFG this is serious business we must have the perfect group, with all the classes built perfectly so we can sit in one spot and grid mobs for days just trying to get that 1 level.
lol I dont care how much you guys liked it, i never did. I played EQ for around 4 years just because a couple of my real life buddies played and we hung out all the time. That game is hell im sure i could write a book on how horrible it is. lol
Yes the cool part is not having things handed to you, no its not cool not even having the slightest clue what to do to progress in a game. No matter what, you do not play video games with the intention of not progressing in some manner be it battle, crafting, or exploring and whatever. We play to progress. I could go on but i got bored of my own thinking. I wanna go play some Assassins Creed i got from onlive.com for $12.50. =p
Anyways you can play Darkfall or Mortal Online (i havent tried that one yet still) and maybe Dawntide or somethin?
Mortal Online is a joke, Dawntide isn't out, and Darkfall isn't for everyone. Why should we be forced to play indie games developed by underfunded developers?
In any case, I ask, once again, for people like you to STOP PRETENDING EVERQUEST WAS THE ONLY STYLE OF MMO BEFORE WOW, WHEN IN REALITY IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST FLAWED OF THE EARLY MMOS.
lol I dont care how much you guys liked it, i never did. I played EQ for around 4 years just because a couple of my real life buddies played and we hung out all the time. That game is hell im sure i could write a book on how horrible it is. lol
Yes the cool part is not having things handed to you, no its not cool not even having the slightest clue what to do to progress in a game. No matter what, you do not play video games with the intention of not progressing in some manner be it battle, crafting, or exploring and whatever. We play to progress. I could go on but i got bored of my own thinking. I wanna go play some Assassins Creed i got from onlive.com for $12.50. =p
Anyways you can play Darkfall or Mortal Online (i havent tried that one yet still) and maybe Dawntide or somethin?
Mortal Online is a joke, Dawntide isn't out, and Darkfall isn't for everyone. Why should we be forced to play indie games developed by underfunded developers?
In any case, I ask, once again, for people like you to STOP PRETENDING EVERQUEST WAS THE ONLY STYLE OF MMO BEFORE WOW, WHEN IN REALITY IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST FLAWED OF THE EARLY MMOS.
You mean the most successful? Funny how people here like to equate success with "flawed".
lol I dont care how much you guys liked it, i never did. I played EQ for around 4 years just because a couple of my real life buddies played and we hung out all the time. That game is hell im sure i could write a book on how horrible it is. lol
Yes the cool part is not having things handed to you, no its not cool not even having the slightest clue what to do to progress in a game. No matter what, you do not play video games with the intention of not progressing in some manner be it battle, crafting, or exploring and whatever. We play to progress. I could go on but i got bored of my own thinking. I wanna go play some Assassins Creed i got from onlive.com for $12.50. =p
Anyways you can play Darkfall or Mortal Online (i havent tried that one yet still) and maybe Dawntide or somethin?
Mortal Online is a joke, Dawntide isn't out, and Darkfall isn't for everyone. Why should we be forced to play indie games developed by underfunded developers?
In any case, I ask, once again, for people like you to STOP PRETENDING EVERQUEST WAS THE ONLY STYLE OF MMO BEFORE WOW, WHEN IN REALITY IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST FLAWED OF THE EARLY MMOS.
You mean the most successful? Funny how people here like to equate success with "flawed".
It's design was very flawed. For all of its depth and immersion the grind was a bit too harsh and unncessary, and it's one track focus on PvE made camping mobs and spawns necessary. It was the first of its kind in 3D, but it did have flaws for that reason, its sub par crafting for one. EQ was improved upon and that design fixed by DAoC. But I guess because it was more popular it miust have been right!
Actually Lord Of The Rings Online is pretty damn cool for that style game, same old gameplay but its big and explorative and what have ye. Im impressed its only gotten better even while becoming free.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. Join me on TwitchFacebook Twitter
I think players today forget one of the biggest parts of MMOs, community. MMOs are what WE, the players, make them to be. Yes we don't have access to the source code to change things how we like it. However, we do have the option to team up to do single player quests, the option to hang out and talk, the option to do other things than just level grind. I think in todays world everyone wants everything right away. In doing this, people just level, level, level and forget about everything else. Community is the reason MMOs blew up in the early years. Now you can log in, and noone will even say a word to you (except for a few older MMO players). I have over 100 friends on MSN and my contact list on my e-mail that I've played with in MMOs. We became close friends due to MMOs, and I've even met alot of them irl. The one thing I notice is that almost all of them have been friends with me for longer than 5 years. I'm blaming it on the community, but I don't know if that's it or not. It just seems that people today in MMOs aren't as friendly or outgoing as they used to be.
Everyone just seems to be addicted to the level grind.
I think players today forget one of the biggest parts of MMOs, community. MMOs are what WE, the players, make them to be. Yes we don't have access to the source code to change things how we like it. However, we do have the option to team up to do single player quests
Yes, and in an ideal world communism works to. But this is not an ideal world. Players need incentives to do things. If your game targets a type of player that doesn't care about socialising, no amount of "good will" will make them socialize.
Actually Lord Of The Rings Online is pretty damn cool for that style game, same old gameplay but its big and explorative and what have ye. Im impressed its only gotten better even while becoming free.
Free is the only way I'd ever play LotRO again. The WoW gameplay just got too sickening. If the world really was free to explore that'd be one thing, but every zone just has a slightly harder version of the same boars and wolves I've been fighting since the Shire, and any cool cave I find that I try to go in locks me out saying "YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT QUEST TO ENTER!"
Yeah, those were the bad days. Taking MONTHs to get ONE weapon? That is more like a job than entertainment.
And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
It is not even hard or challenging. How hard it is to click on a NPC and read the same line again and again? Today's method is much better. No nonsence and you don't have to click on every NPCs if you don't want to.
Yeah, because who would ever want to quest for the legendary sword Excalibur when you could just grab Uber_Sword_01 then five minutes later upgrade it to Uber_Sword_2 then another five minutes later find Uber_Sword_3? I mean, that's so much better, quests are just stupid if you have to invest any actual time in them. New toys every five minutes, please!
Having to talk to NPC after NPC just to find Bob the Hermit who is actually a wizard living simultaneously on two planes of existence? Hell no! Talk to NPC_01 and he's full of wonderful information, as is NPC_02, and NPC_03, everyone is so wise and all powerful around here. Even the serving wench offers a quest to pour five jugs of ale for Uber_Sword_4. That's so much better, talking to NPC's that are there just to heighten immersion is stupid, every NPC should be useful.
I mean, seriously, it's really hard and challenging to click on the NPC with a flashing neon sign over his head for fast rewards. The old method was just dumb. I can be praised and rewarded wherever I go in modern MMO's. I feel so special. Everyone loves me and gives me new toys. I will keep playing these games because I'm a reject in life and sparkly shiny toys and NPC's telling me I'm awesome makes me feel so much better.
Obviously people have a hard time accepting the fact that this whole genre has become close to a joke. I also had my moments 10 years ago when mmo's were closer to 'dreams come true' than they are today. The obvious problem is wow and there is no turning back , even other types of games have been dumbed down for a long time.
There used to be much more open ended, open pvp games with little restrictions and more depth 10 years ago than today. The tide has turned and p2p games are dead since a while , we now have to play f2p crap with premium options in watered down clones. There is little hope even in swtor and such with rail shooting in space and such.
This type of game keeps getting worst every day , it got taken over by carebears and solo oriented players who have no idea how to use teamwork or basic roleplaying. The game devs are bending over to the demands of people who want to play single player experiences in an online world. That's like having sex with a blow up doll.
I remember Neocron when you would need 4 hackers (3 layers + hacknet) and 25 fighters to have a small chance of controlling an outpost in the wastelands, not counting the tradeskillers waiting back for poking, repairing, recycling, researching, constructing and modding. Now those were the days, but the game died in 2006 and it's on life support since , basically an abandonware. The game had it's flaws but mostly technical.
There was also ww2online, but the devs destroyed squads to implement a high command system and implemented tons of casual oriented gameplay features that killed the game in the long run, as it was simply a hardcore simulator mmo that tried to appeal to everyone way too much.
The market for niche games is getting smaller everyday, people dont want to create dream worlds and universes anymore, they want your cash real quick by trying to appeal to everyone at the same time and cloning the worst mmo ever created , wow.
I have not found a good mmo since 5 years, i keep searching but lost hope in the long run. Thankfully i spend more time on other dreams like making a legacy out of my audio visual work and gaining knowledge by reading and educating myself. They say all good things must come to an end sometimes to make these things valuable, nostalgia can be bitter.
I was always a twitch player, i just prefer twitch to pnc in this genre. I have always been an honest gamer, never cheated, duped, hacked, exploited , macroed or botted. I think those types of players also destroyed the whole gaming aspect to a certain point. It's not just carebears and solo oriented players that caused all this but all those people who dont play games like they are supposed to be played.
I hope one day i can find my home like Neocron back in 2001 (there was player appartments back then, with sandbox elements and people could visit each other, you could place stuff anywhere you wanted as well ). Neocron has been my best experience and when i look at today's games , they just dont have half the features those decade old mmo's have , they are worst in all aspects except graphics. Even Black Prophecy feels like a big farce to me.
I understand the frustration that i read often around here from people that come from UO, EQ, AC, SB, etc but we all know that era is over since a while , i guess we lived something good compared to what is experienced today. The very repressive nature of such websites never helped, with ego fueled powertripping moderators to money making gimmicks, those people never helped but make things worst. I hope each and everyone of you can find a happy place to game sooner or later, as i think most hardcore mmo players have been let down by the industry since a while. Until then, have fun folks!
You know.. I was with you until you started name calling with the childish "carebear" crap and tried to blame everything on the PvE'rs. Grow up. You are a great example of why games have moved away from the type of PvP you love. Because your behavior is nasty.
They current corporate ownerships and investors hardly know anything about what the community wants and just think about $$ and thats it (whats their job really).
But after the current "employers/employees" vanish - the new generation of staff and ownership from this generation and last generation will filter through and start creating the mmos that we as youngsters always dreamed of when WoW was dominating the mainstream of MMOs.
Think of it this way.
Billy was 15 when he played everquest/ultima - he enjoyed the complexity of the games that were there.
Billy now is 22 and studying game development and management - this being 7 years later WoW has come through and has dumbed down the MMO industry to moreso a casual environment.
Billy continuing to do his studies - now 28 (2010) he is finishing his studies and is a employee in a gaming company making MMOs - but as its 2010, games are still being dumbed down and him being a employee (lower ranked) he dosnt have a big say in the development process.
5-10 years later Billy is in his mid to late 30s and starting to have a say over the development process of MMOs and the games that the company is creating as the other higher employees either retired and or got higher/moved on.
What im saying is that we - as gamers who have had our dreams shattered by the casual input will change the outcome into another new generation of MMOs that we when we were younger wanted and knew what others wanted aswell can actually have a overall say on what will come through.
Yeah, those were the bad days. Taking MONTHs to get ONE weapon? That is more like a job than entertainment.
And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
It is not even hard or challenging. How hard it is to click on a NPC and read the same line again and again? Today's method is much better. No nonsence and you don't have to click on every NPCs if you don't want to.
Yeah, because who would ever want to quest for the legendary sword Excalibur when you could just grab Uber_Sword_01 then five minutes later upgrade it to Uber_Sword_2 then another five minutes later find Uber_Sword_3? I mean, that's so much better, quests are just stupid if you have to invest any actual time in them. New toys every five minutes, please!
Having to talk to NPC after NPC just to find Bob the Hermit who is actually a wizard living simultaneously on two planes of existence? Hell no! Talk to NPC_01 and he's full of wonderful information, as is NPC_02, and NPC_03, everyone is so wise and all powerful around here. Even the serving wench offers a quest to pour five jugs of ale for Uber_Sword_4. That's so much better, talking to NPC's that are there just to heighten immersion is stupid, every NPC should be useful.
I mean, seriously, it's really hard and challenging to click on the NPC with a flashing neon sign over his head for fast rewards. The old method was just dumb. I can be praised and rewarded wherever I go in modern MMO's. I feel so special. Everyone loves me and gives me new toys. I will keep playing these games because I'm a reject in life and sparkly shiny toys and NPC's telling me I'm awesome makes me feel so much better.
/sarcasm
It really is a question of how 'meaningfull' getting Excalibur is over getting Uber_Sword_3. If getting Excalibur requires you to camp the same bunch of mobs for days then to many players it is less meaningful than doing a 'kill 10 rats quest'. Repeating the same virtual actions over and over for days is kinda pathetic on its own and doing it just to get a virtual sword does not help matters.
The NPC thing is primarily about immersion. To me talking to every NPC in town is way mroe immersion breaking than seing a sign pointing to the NPC who has a quest for me. I can't really justify why my character would pester everyone in town and not get his face beaten in. However, it is easy for me to imagine that the big exclamation mark is just the NPC mentioning to me that he/she wants to talk to me. It's nto perfect but it's better than the old way. If a more immersive method is developed, I am all for it.
Holy christ! I didn't expect the Community to be that honest when I look at the numbers.
But I can only add: Yes, from dreams to nightmare.
I tend to remind one sentence "In life, when you grow older, you always will think things in the past were better than they are now."
Actually these words would keep me from saying "Yeah, things were better in the old days" but..
IT IS NOT! MMOs got more worse. MMOs were cool and challenging nieche in the first place. With lots of Details! And now? Casual shit all the way. I can't even say sorry for being rude - it's fact.
corporate greed ruined some mmo's. I think using the term casual is confuzing in general, there are many 'casuals' who are happy to play a game in the way it was intended but at a lower pace, perfect and fits in with the immersive worlds mmorg's strive for. Then there is the large influx of players that cant get their head arround the fact they are joining a community and a shared world - they want the world to revolve around their wants, and they just dont get the only way this can happen is to dumb down to the lowest common denominator. Still there is a big gap in the market for a sandbox immersive game, so when that does come maybe we will have homes for both types of player - bet your bottom dollar those players I refer to will bleet and complain.
I think we should define a new category of player: Full player ->Casual player->Simple player.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Yeah, those were the bad days. Taking MONTHs to get ONE weapon? That is more like a job than entertainment.
And having to talk to a lot of NPCs to just find the right one is BAD design .. reading 1000 times "hi i am xxx, i have NOTHING important to say" is just boring and lazy design to fill up play-time.
It is not even hard or challenging. How hard it is to click on a NPC and read the same line again and again? Today's method is much better. No nonsence and you don't have to click on every NPCs if you don't want to.
Yeah, because who would ever want to quest for the legendary sword Excalibur when you could just grab Uber_Sword_01 then five minutes later upgrade it to Uber_Sword_2 then another five minutes later find Uber_Sword_3? I mean, that's so much better, quests are just stupid if you have to invest any actual time in them. New toys every five minutes, please!
Having to talk to NPC after NPC just to find Bob the Hermit who is actually a wizard living simultaneously on two planes of existence? Hell no! Talk to NPC_01 and he's full of wonderful information, as is NPC_02, and NPC_03, everyone is so wise and all powerful around here. Even the serving wench offers a quest to pour five jugs of ale for Uber_Sword_4. That's so much better, talking to NPC's that are there just to heighten immersion is stupid, every NPC should be useful.
I mean, seriously, it's really hard and challenging to click on the NPC with a flashing neon sign over his head for fast rewards. The old method was just dumb. I can be praised and rewarded wherever I go in modern MMO's. I feel so special. Everyone loves me and gives me new toys. I will keep playing these games because I'm a reject in life and sparkly shiny toys and NPC's telling me I'm awesome makes me feel so much better.
/sarcasm
While you intend to be sarcastic, that is exactly how the world works. And who says i can't name my uber_sword_01 excalibur? Heck, you finished a whole SP game in a week. There is no reason why you need MONTHS to get a single item in a MMO.
And you seriously think that it is 5 min for today's MMOs? You need a reality check. You need to grind WEEKS (or raid) in WOW to get epics. At least the new dungeons just released this week remedy that a bit. Now you can get some in days. So much better.
You need only a couple hours to gain epix from new content in wow, your confusing the ease at which items can be gained with the ability to win something on a roll. There is nothing rewarding or satisfying about the route through which you get that item, Unless you are only interested in bragging about some meaningless graphic that everyone else gets just as easily. Surely if the bosses were hard and took several weeks then that would be rewarding for all concerned.
I would be interested to know why the people that complain about not having time to sink into more difficult raids dont just use the instance lock/save system to carry over instances until they can complete it? is that not the best of both worlds that blizzard tried to achieve (to their credit)?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
You need only a couple hours to gain epix from new content in wow, your confusing the ease at which items can be gained with the ability to win something on a roll. There is nothing rewarding or satisfying about the route through which you get that item, Unless you are only interested in bragging about some meaningless graphic that everyone else gets just as easily. Surely if the bosses were hard and took several weeks then that would be rewarding for all concerned.
I would be interested to know why the people that complain about not having time to sink into more difficult raids dont just use the instance lock/save system to carry over instances until they can complete it? is that not the best of both worlds that blizzard tried to achieve (to their credit)?
People really have a difficult time to come to term with the fact that epics are only meant to be tools used to complete content. Instead they consider them to be some sort of meaningfull assurance of their own adequacy. They allow themselves to fall into this materialistic trap and lose sight of the actual game.
You need only a couple hours to gain epix from new content in wow, your confusing the ease at which items can be gained with the ability to win something on a roll. There is nothing rewarding or satisfying about the route through which you get that item, Unless you are only interested in bragging about some meaningless graphic that everyone else gets just as easily. Surely if the bosses were hard and took several weeks then that would be rewarding for all concerned.
I would be interested to know why the people that complain about not having time to sink into more difficult raids dont just use the instance lock/save system to carry over instances until they can complete it? is that not the best of both worlds that blizzard tried to achieve (to their credit)?
I would argue that whether you spent 2 hours raiding to get an epic sword in game A, or farmed the same mobs for a month straight in game B to get an epic sword; neither case is rewarding, but the issue is entirely subjective. Either way it's the same concept, the only change is the amount of time put in, but people seem to associate time put in as some sort of guage for personal achievement. In both cases, you are sitting behind a computer, pushing buttons. The issue is which game you decide to subscribe to, and that again depends on the individual, IE personal preferences, lifestyle, commitments, etc etc etc.
I think your right in a way about farming, but in a good game you do not need to compare grinding for an item and raiding for an item, they are different activities - a good game offers both so peeps can choose what they want to do. I would argue that for a new instance if everyone is getting items within the first few hours then the difficuly bar is way way too low, and as a result it meansthat the new content has almost instantly becomes a farm in itself. ie boss is on 'farm' to 'gear up' as soon as possible is standard fare in wow. Wow has mutated the raiding content from immersive dungeons and encounters requiring long term community/guild planning and practicing into farming with a much higher drop rate.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Hate to say it, but it's the casual gamers with a sense of entitlement that's ruined the genre.
They don't want their games to be immersive, complex, and require some measure of effort to accomplish goals. They want everything to be instant gratification with as little time, effort, downtime, and consequences as possible.
I remember a time when playing an MMO meant being part of a community on an online virtual world that you were apart of. Today it's more synonymous with playing a massive multiplayer online single player game on rails.
I dont even think its just the gamers. Theres a whole generation of young people who have grown used to instantaneous stimulation.
It's a video game. Christ, not a college degree.
It's not exactly like Pac-Man, Asteroids, or Pong made you work to see any content you couldn't see from the moment you put your first coin in. Games, as we originally knew them, were simply time wasters with the possibility of a high score as any sort of gratification for effort.
I'm sure this has long since been pointed out... but Pac-Man, Asteroids and Pong were not MMORPGs, nor were they massive, immersive worlds.
"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
" Games, as we originally knew them, were simply time wasters with the possibility of a high score as any sort of gratification for effort."
And people didnt complain and whine about how difficult the games were either, they just picked another game to play. Now replace 'high-score' with 'epix loot' and what we have is casual players (some not all) demanding high scores with no effort - see how ludicrous it is?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Oh I don't agree with that. I'm perfectly willing to put the effort. Too bad for games wacking a mob for hours upon hours, or running the same raid over and over isn't effort.
Just a waste of my entertainment time. If something in this games was challenging than that would be effort. However MMO's have never been about challenge, just time.
Venge
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
I disagree, i think it would just be easier if I didnt have to target them and they just died as I entered the zone.
lol I dont care how much you guys liked it, i never did. I played EQ for around 4 years just because a couple of my real life buddies played and we hung out all the time. That game is hell im sure i could write a book on how horrible it is. lol
Yes the cool part is not having things handed to you, no its not cool not even having the slightest clue what to do to progress in a game. No matter what, you do not play video games with the intention of not progressing in some manner be it battle, crafting, or exploring and whatever. We play to progress. I could go on but i got bored of my own thinking. I wanna go play some Assassins Creed i got from onlive.com for $12.50. =p
Anyways you can play Darkfall or Mortal Online (i havent tried that one yet still) and maybe Dawntide or somethin?
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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???
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
If you think the genre started with EQ you may believe there is no difference between casual friendly and instant gradification but I am here to tell you there is a significant difference between the two. UO was very casual friendly but it was not instant gradification friendly. If you only have a half an hour to play you could get on do a little something log off and feel like you progressed. EQ killed the idea of playing a mmo for fun. OMFG this is serious business we must have the perfect group, with all the classes built perfectly so we can sit in one spot and grid mobs for days just trying to get that 1 level.
Mortal Online is a joke, Dawntide isn't out, and Darkfall isn't for everyone. Why should we be forced to play indie games developed by underfunded developers?
In any case, I ask, once again, for people like you to STOP PRETENDING EVERQUEST WAS THE ONLY STYLE OF MMO BEFORE WOW, WHEN IN REALITY IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST FLAWED OF THE EARLY MMOS.
You mean the most successful? Funny how people here like to equate success with "flawed".
It's design was very flawed. For all of its depth and immersion the grind was a bit too harsh and unncessary, and it's one track focus on PvE made camping mobs and spawns necessary. It was the first of its kind in 3D, but it did have flaws for that reason, its sub par crafting for one. EQ was improved upon and that design fixed by DAoC. But I guess because it was more popular it miust have been right!
Actually Lord Of The Rings Online is pretty damn cool for that style game, same old gameplay but its big and explorative and what have ye. Im impressed its only gotten better even while becoming free.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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I think players today forget one of the biggest parts of MMOs, community. MMOs are what WE, the players, make them to be. Yes we don't have access to the source code to change things how we like it. However, we do have the option to team up to do single player quests, the option to hang out and talk, the option to do other things than just level grind. I think in todays world everyone wants everything right away. In doing this, people just level, level, level and forget about everything else. Community is the reason MMOs blew up in the early years. Now you can log in, and noone will even say a word to you (except for a few older MMO players). I have over 100 friends on MSN and my contact list on my e-mail that I've played with in MMOs. We became close friends due to MMOs, and I've even met alot of them irl. The one thing I notice is that almost all of them have been friends with me for longer than 5 years. I'm blaming it on the community, but I don't know if that's it or not. It just seems that people today in MMOs aren't as friendly or outgoing as they used to be.
Everyone just seems to be addicted to the level grind.
Yes, and in an ideal world communism works to. But this is not an ideal world. Players need incentives to do things. If your game targets a type of player that doesn't care about socialising, no amount of "good will" will make them socialize.
Free is the only way I'd ever play LotRO again. The WoW gameplay just got too sickening. If the world really was free to explore that'd be one thing, but every zone just has a slightly harder version of the same boars and wolves I've been fighting since the Shire, and any cool cave I find that I try to go in locks me out saying "YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT QUEST TO ENTER!"
Yeah, because who would ever want to quest for the legendary sword Excalibur when you could just grab Uber_Sword_01 then five minutes later upgrade it to Uber_Sword_2 then another five minutes later find Uber_Sword_3? I mean, that's so much better, quests are just stupid if you have to invest any actual time in them. New toys every five minutes, please!
Having to talk to NPC after NPC just to find Bob the Hermit who is actually a wizard living simultaneously on two planes of existence? Hell no! Talk to NPC_01 and he's full of wonderful information, as is NPC_02, and NPC_03, everyone is so wise and all powerful around here. Even the serving wench offers a quest to pour five jugs of ale for Uber_Sword_4. That's so much better, talking to NPC's that are there just to heighten immersion is stupid, every NPC should be useful.
I mean, seriously, it's really hard and challenging to click on the NPC with a flashing neon sign over his head for fast rewards. The old method was just dumb. I can be praised and rewarded wherever I go in modern MMO's. I feel so special. Everyone loves me and gives me new toys. I will keep playing these games because I'm a reject in life and sparkly shiny toys and NPC's telling me I'm awesome makes me feel so much better.
/sarcasm
You know.. I was with you until you started name calling with the childish "carebear" crap and tried to blame everything on the PvE'rs. Grow up. You are a great example of why games have moved away from the type of PvP you love. Because your behavior is nasty.
I say this usually but things will change.
I see it this way -
They current corporate ownerships and investors hardly know anything about what the community wants and just think about $$ and thats it (whats their job really).
But after the current "employers/employees" vanish - the new generation of staff and ownership from this generation and last generation will filter through and start creating the mmos that we as youngsters always dreamed of when WoW was dominating the mainstream of MMOs.
Think of it this way.
Billy was 15 when he played everquest/ultima - he enjoyed the complexity of the games that were there.
Billy now is 22 and studying game development and management - this being 7 years later WoW has come through and has dumbed down the MMO industry to moreso a casual environment.
Billy continuing to do his studies - now 28 (2010) he is finishing his studies and is a employee in a gaming company making MMOs - but as its 2010, games are still being dumbed down and him being a employee (lower ranked) he dosnt have a big say in the development process.
5-10 years later Billy is in his mid to late 30s and starting to have a say over the development process of MMOs and the games that the company is creating as the other higher employees either retired and or got higher/moved on.
What im saying is that we - as gamers who have had our dreams shattered by the casual input will change the outcome into another new generation of MMOs that we when we were younger wanted and knew what others wanted aswell can actually have a overall say on what will come through.
It really is a question of how 'meaningfull' getting Excalibur is over getting Uber_Sword_3. If getting Excalibur requires you to camp the same bunch of mobs for days then to many players it is less meaningful than doing a 'kill 10 rats quest'. Repeating the same virtual actions over and over for days is kinda pathetic on its own and doing it just to get a virtual sword does not help matters.
The NPC thing is primarily about immersion. To me talking to every NPC in town is way mroe immersion breaking than seing a sign pointing to the NPC who has a quest for me. I can't really justify why my character would pester everyone in town and not get his face beaten in. However, it is easy for me to imagine that the big exclamation mark is just the NPC mentioning to me that he/she wants to talk to me. It's nto perfect but it's better than the old way. If a more immersive method is developed, I am all for it.
Holy christ! I didn't expect the Community to be that honest when I look at the numbers.
But I can only add: Yes, from dreams to nightmare.
I tend to remind one sentence "In life, when you grow older, you always will think things in the past were better than they are now."
Actually these words would keep me from saying "Yeah, things were better in the old days" but..
IT IS NOT! MMOs got more worse. MMOs were cool and challenging nieche in the first place. With lots of Details! And now? Casual shit all the way. I can't even say sorry for being rude - it's fact.
Casual ruins everything.
corporate greed ruined some mmo's. I think using the term casual is confuzing in general, there are many 'casuals' who are happy to play a game in the way it was intended but at a lower pace, perfect and fits in with the immersive worlds mmorg's strive for. Then there is the large influx of players that cant get their head arround the fact they are joining a community and a shared world - they want the world to revolve around their wants, and they just dont get the only way this can happen is to dumb down to the lowest common denominator. Still there is a big gap in the market for a sandbox immersive game, so when that does come maybe we will have homes for both types of player - bet your bottom dollar those players I refer to will bleet and complain.
I think we should define a new category of player: Full player ->Casual player->Simple player.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
While you intend to be sarcastic, that is exactly how the world works. And who says i can't name my uber_sword_01 excalibur? Heck, you finished a whole SP game in a week. There is no reason why you need MONTHS to get a single item in a MMO.
And you seriously think that it is 5 min for today's MMOs? You need a reality check. You need to grind WEEKS (or raid) in WOW to get epics. At least the new dungeons just released this week remedy that a bit. Now you can get some in days. So much better.
You need only a couple hours to gain epix from new content in wow, your confusing the ease at which items can be gained with the ability to win something on a roll. There is nothing rewarding or satisfying about the route through which you get that item, Unless you are only interested in bragging about some meaningless graphic that everyone else gets just as easily. Surely if the bosses were hard and took several weeks then that would be rewarding for all concerned.
I would be interested to know why the people that complain about not having time to sink into more difficult raids dont just use the instance lock/save system to carry over instances until they can complete it? is that not the best of both worlds that blizzard tried to achieve (to their credit)?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
People really have a difficult time to come to term with the fact that epics are only meant to be tools used to complete content. Instead they consider them to be some sort of meaningfull assurance of their own adequacy. They allow themselves to fall into this materialistic trap and lose sight of the actual game.
I would argue that whether you spent 2 hours raiding to get an epic sword in game A, or farmed the same mobs for a month straight in game B to get an epic sword; neither case is rewarding, but the issue is entirely subjective. Either way it's the same concept, the only change is the amount of time put in, but people seem to associate time put in as some sort of guage for personal achievement. In both cases, you are sitting behind a computer, pushing buttons. The issue is which game you decide to subscribe to, and that again depends on the individual, IE personal preferences, lifestyle, commitments, etc etc etc.
I think your right in a way about farming, but in a good game you do not need to compare grinding for an item and raiding for an item, they are different activities - a good game offers both so peeps can choose what they want to do. I would argue that for a new instance if everyone is getting items within the first few hours then the difficuly bar is way way too low, and as a result it meansthat the new content has almost instantly becomes a farm in itself. ie boss is on 'farm' to 'gear up' as soon as possible is standard fare in wow. Wow has mutated the raiding content from immersive dungeons and encounters requiring long term community/guild planning and practicing into farming with a much higher drop rate.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I'm sure this has long since been pointed out... but Pac-Man, Asteroids and Pong were not MMORPGs, nor were they massive, immersive worlds.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
" Games, as we originally knew them, were simply time wasters with the possibility of a high score as any sort of gratification for effort."
And people didnt complain and whine about how difficult the games were either, they just picked another game to play. Now replace 'high-score' with 'epix loot' and what we have is casual players (some not all) demanding high scores with no effort - see how ludicrous it is?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Oh I don't agree with that. I'm perfectly willing to put the effort. Too bad for games wacking a mob for hours upon hours, or running the same raid over and over isn't effort.
Just a waste of my entertainment time. If something in this games was challenging than that would be effort. However MMO's have never been about challenge, just time.
Venge