SWG had the Corvette, I know for a fact that EQ had giant raid bosses, DAOC had endgame... this seems like an uninformed journalist, honestly. WoW did not invent endgame. WoW made it accessible to those who weren't hardcore enough for it (IE: Everyone) in previous titles.
Wha? No. WoW's endgame is far more alienating than most end game. It's end game is pretty much the same as EverQuests, and that is, bad.
DAoC's end game was balanced so well that anyone could jump into any raid, actually contribute something, and have a shot at the loot, without being in an "epic raider guild". And then there was RvR..
I agree to a large extent with the premise of this article. I have been playing MMOs for long hours for many years now and yet raiding has NEVER been my thing. I poked my nose into it and what I saw was long waits for everyone to show up, followed by people judging you harshly on your gear and spec. If anything was less than absolutely perfect you could expect ridicule and possibly being booted from the raid. Once you make it past that you can expect long hours of tension filled dungeon crawling while you sweat over your damage output numbers. If something goes wrong during the raid, and it often does, you can expect arguing, yelling, and a lot of cussing from people with the maturity level of a ten year old. What is your reward for all of this work? More of the same. This is fun to people? Not only that, but many guilds seriously have so many requirements that it becomes like a job. A couple of my real life friends would even cancel get-togethers because their guild needed them for a raid and they would get in trouble if they missed it. That is just ridiculous.
For me, the fun has always been leveling up alts and PVPing. Unfortunately, there just aren't any games out there that are end game PVP focused and give you enough to do. WoW comes close except when you reach end game you can no longer advance on your own and are forced to look for partners for arena who aren't too noobish and not too rabidly hardcore. With rated battlegrounds I thought I would finally be able to get into end game PVP, except that isn't what happened. What actually happened is that only large guilds can bring enough people to get into the BGs. If you belong to smaller guilds you either can't get in or you have to run with a PUG group which will be slaughtered and quickly disband. I even heard that guilds were charging solo players to be able to join their rated battleground groups. I feel that for pvp to be doable I should be able to advance on my own if I am willing to put in the work and not have to rely on the kindness or cruelty of others in order to take part.
I am still waiting for the MMO to arrive that will fit my needs. DAoC was the first and the last MMO to perfectly blend PVE and PVP in a way that worked perfectly for my tastes.
Currently playing: Rift Played: SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot World of Warcraft, AoC
Preach it, sister. Endgame usually signals THE END OF THE GAME for me too. WoW soured me on the whole concept. The journey there is always more enjoyable and always more memorable, and it's also where I make any in-game friends. It never seems to happen after capping since everyone is far too concerned with progressing than actually enjoying themselves.
I think that reinforces the idea that themeparks are more endgame oriented.
In my understanding, WoW didn't invent endgame. It simply placed more emphasis on it. Level to cap then run endgame activities until the next expansion. With expansions every two years, there's not much else to do except endgame or rolling alts.
I think the popularity of quest-based advancement really cemented endgame as a necessity for developers, in so far as vertical-advancement themeparks are concerned.
Just adding the mobs and terrain isn't necessarily a major issue. Current engines like the Hero Engine are capable of adding and altering landscape on the fly, which radically reduces the amount of time it takes to increase landmass. Mobiles that share models can have their numbers tweaked and dropped into that landscape very quickly. Add a month or two of QA testing, and ouila! There's another 50 or 100 levels worth of stuff to do.
Now, adding quests to move characters 50 or 100 levels? Months and months and months and months of writing, testing the pathing, testing object transfers, testing rewards, etc. It exponentially increases the amount of labor necessary.
As an example, Asheron's Call, back before it had quest advancement, changed the level cap from 126 to 275 with a single expansion (and, keep in mind, just getting to 126 could easily take more than a year). You just couldn't do that with a quest-based model. Each level requires more quests than the last by nature of the scaling design (in which each level takes longer than the last), but the quests require the same amount of time to write and test. As a result, each level requires more and more labor from the development team. In the end, repeatable content was really the only rational alternative once quests became the new standard.
Seems that mostry people here never played DAoC: excellent and funny endgame. A lot of fun on frontiers, killing hibs and migs.
Isn't DaoC mostly about PVP though? I personally don't consider that endgame as most games, like WoW, you can do it as you level and it doesn't change through the levels except by giving you different objectives or new maps. Not saying there aren't people who only PVP at endgame, just that most MMORPGs are either built with a PVP endgame in mind or a PVE endgame in mind. Like comparing Darkfall to WoW. Both have PVE, both have PVP but you and I both know which gamer caters to who.
So DaoC would be in the Darkfall column while this article talks more about PVE endgame in games like WoW and Lotro.
Excellent article, I think the only way to break "WoW design syndrom" in upcoming MMOs is pointing out that we don't want more of what WoW's done already!
I stopped WoW after a month or 2 of Burning Crusade and never have even once considered playing again. I logged on a new character after being inactive for 2 months, did 3 quests then said to myself "Wait... why am I doing this? I've already done this, and the end-goal is just not interesting." I deleted the character, then unsubbed the same day I re-subbed and uninstalled. That was my last WoW experience.
For me, RPGs (MMOs or not) are about customization of character. And I don't mean equipment. Skills, feats, talents, perks, proficiencies, I can't get enough. I am obsessed with choosing my own path and, above all else, making sure I'm not set up like the majority of players. Endgame-style games ruing that for me in two ways: First, you end up looking like EVERY OTHER PERSON in the best case scenario because of the evil that we call "Set bonuses" and "Tiers". Secondly, the elitist "Hardcore" (Hardcore Sociopaths I imagine) guilds won't take you unless your set up in a stupid Optimized way they want you to be.
Basically, Endgame, to me, means rolling a new character. Once I stop leveling (And by that I mean progressing my character outside of "loot"), I stop playing. Period. The only games with an interesting endgame are system like WAR, where you have your seperate PvP rank to work on that gives you more talent points and new skills. We need more stuff like that, and including PvE rewards.
-------------------------------- -Been there, done that: Xsyon, WoW, EVE, Maplestory, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, FF11, Rift -Currently playing: Not MMOs -Wants to check out: SWTOR, Dark Millennium
OP you are actually very wrong. SWG had Endgame, DAoC had endgame and so did EQ. You better go read up and we used that term then as well. I remember we would raid the Corvette or Death Watch Bunker... I can go on all day but I think you are just too much a rookie to the MMO genre so you made this assumption on your own without asking true old school vets from all of these games. I have played em all and don't know of any without some form of endgame. I have used that term since DAoC...
He's talking Pre-instances. Before the corvette and half assed dwb.
Well, this is exactly what I'm thinking about current endgame trend. I really miss Lineage II, that game was utter grindy (which is bad), but it offered fun as long as you had people with lvl range simmilar to yours. Many people used to cry that it took 1 year to hit cap- so what? For most people there was something to do, something to achieve, it was almost impossible to hit cap- I'm not refering to level, it was more about gear (overenchanted weapons, armors and epic jewels), there was multiple ways of getting them, and beside getting character levels, it wasn't really based on grinding- more about building your reputation inside your guild and doing profitable stuff.
The journey was fun, evolving your character was fun and the feeling that you can always become more powerful was great- despite many flaws, game kept me entertained for 6 years. Once I launched Aion, I couldn't stand grind- even if it was much faster than in L2, it was boring, exhausting (pressing same combo every mob) and monotonous, there was no pvp at all- I can't compare dumb gankfests to a pvp. After I asked friends, how endgame looks like, there were like "you will farm instances all the time"- it made me quit before lvl 30.
It should be about journey, not destination. If you think otherwise, go back to single player games please.
It's because MMOs aren't virtual social worlds anymore, they're a collection of minigames with rewards being dumped on you to convince you to keep going. And most MMOs are feature lite nowadays, lacking things that were standard in MMOs from the 90s.
I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play (Edit:) theme-park MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve. Questing is essentially a single player non challenging gameplay. Why would I want to do that in an MMO, where the storytelling is super-boring and any outcomes irrelevant? If I want that kind of experience, I'll fire some awesome single player RPG where the storytelling, quests and progress are actually entertaining and the results affect the world with truly epic proportions.
Cooperative PVE is the thing I expect (and require) from my MMOs, as mentioned above, bland irrelevant and in vast majority single player quests are concepts better served elsewhere ( we will see how Bioware will solve this dilemma). Only in MMOs can you experience cooperative group play that requires constant cooperation of the whole group to overcome fights with interesting mechanics. I'm going to focus on WOW here, because it best illustrates the endgame concept and is my game of choice. All my characters in WOW except the 1st one were leveled up almost purely from running dungeons (and since the XP change sometimes via PVP). And those dungeons and raids are what keeps me subscribed to WOW (belive me, I tried many many other MMOs), because I haven't seen those kinds of instances anywhere else (DDO and LOTRO was kinda nice, but WOW still wins by huge margin) . Every clone outh there replicates the super-boring quest and world part and utterly fails to make interesting dungeons with interesting boss fights.
For the PVP folk, it's different in every game, many are PVP oriented with RVR etc, where obviously level cap levels the playing field. In WOW you have battlegrounds and arenas, which are valid end-game options, this time what shines is the balance, again group cooperation (as opposed to mindless zerg in many games), and super fluid combat.
From my rant you may think that I'm some kind of WOW fanboy, while in fact that is not true. I realize the game has many flaws and I would love to start playing something something different. I tried DDO, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, COX, Aion, Vanguard and plenthora of lesser MMOs, but none of them retained my interest exactly because they lacked good dungeon content (or equivalent coordinated PVE experience) and solid end game content based on that.
*This post does not include sandboxes, as was said by mrcalhou above, there the whole game is endgame, especially because there is no set goal and player actions affect environment. Sadly the current crop does not interest due to lack of quality or game mechanics I can't stomach. Still waiting for "EVE with twitch combat" kind of game.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion +plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO . Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
I agree completely. In SWG allot of time I just wondered around. I liked how sometimes when wondering in distant places i ran into sum people who had a tent build up and I went over there and we chatted for hours. Or when I was doing something and the music(especially on Tatoine, the Force theme) started to play, i stopped and just listened to the music. Today its just rush to the Endgame, get the best gear...
I especially hate if the Endgame is mostly just about grinding for best gear.
I like how in SWG crafting was a huge feature(hell it was a profession on its own, in most games you have a combat class and crafting class in one char). You could recognize a player just by looking at his clothes. I remember that on my server(as far as I'm aware and remember) I was the only one with white shoes, there were white boots, but only I had white shoes.
Played: SWG-FFXI-EQ2-Aion
Anticipated in order of Hype: ArcheAge GW2 TERA SWTOR
Not enough info, but looks promising: Blade & Soul
I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve. Questing is essentially a single player non challenging gameplay. Why would I want to do that in an MMO, where the storytelling is super-boring and any outcomes irrelevant? If I want that kind of experience, I'll fire some awesome single player RPG where the storytelling, quests and progress are actually entertaining and the results affect the world with truly epic proportions.
Cooperative PVE is the thing I expect (and require) from my MMOs, as mentioned above, bland irrelevant and in vast majority single player quests are concepts better served elsewhere ( we will see how Bioware will solve this dilemma). Only in MMOs can you experience cooperative group play that requires constant cooperation of the whole group to overcome fights with interesting mechanics. I'm going to focus on WOW here, because it best illustrates the endgame concept and is my game of choice. All my characters in WOW except the 1st one were leveled up almost purely from running dungeons (and since the XP change sometimes via PVP). And those dungeons and raids are what keeps me subscribed to WOW (belive me, I tried many many other MMOs), because I haven't seen those kinds of instances anywhere else (DDO and LOTRO was kinda nice, but WOW still wins by huge margin) . Every clone outh there replicates the super-boring quest and world part and utterly fails to make interesting dungeons with interesting boss fights.
For the PVP folk, it's different in every game, many are PVP oriented with RVR etc, where obviously level cap levels the playing field. In WOW you have battlegrounds and arenas, which are valid end-game options, this time what shines is the balance, again group cooperation (as opposed to mindless zerg in many games), and super fluid combat.
From my rant you may think that I'm some kind of WOW fanboy, while in fact that is not true. I realize the game has many flaws and I would love to start playing something something different. I tried DDO, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, COX, Aion, Vanguard and plenthora of lesser MMOs, but none of them retained my interest exactly because they lacked good dungeon content (or equivalent coordinated PVE experience) and solid end game content based on that.
*This post does not include sandboxes, as was said by mrcalhou above, there the whole game is endgame, especially because there is no set goal and player actions affect environment. Sadly the current crop does not interest due to lack of quality or game mechanics I can't stomach. Still waiting for "EVE with twitch combat" kind of game.
Because the concept of endgame has never been a required 'feature' for an MMO. Several pre-WoW MMOs did not even have a solid level cap, let alone a concept of endgame.
Again, endgame is not a requirement for an MMO. The current industry trend is to throw in a level cap and endgame simply because the eleven and a half million pound gorilla in the room has it.
I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve.
I would respectfully disagree with you. The mmoRPG concept was created for social interaction and freedom within a role playing environment. The genre took a turn for a more palatable and easy to assimilate format of linnear level progression akin to a console adventure game but multiplayer on a massive scale. Both are valid formats but the fans of the original premis of the genre are under served right now.
I think this highlights a fundamental difference in the fanbase of these games predicated on what games they cut their teeth on. And with such vocal dissention from the OG's about the current state of things you would hope some one would be able to step up to the plate. Who knows - maybe TITAN is a sandbox? Maybe EA will ressurect UO2/UO:X?
Because the concept of endgame has never been a required 'feature' for an MMO. Several pre-WoW MMOs did not even have a solid level cap, let alone a concept of endgame.
Again, endgame is not a requirement for an MMO. The current industry trend is to throw in a level cap and endgame simply because the eleven and a half million pound gorilla in the room has it.
The truth is MMOs before WOW were either sandbox (which as I said my post is not about and I wholly agree that MMOs should be more sandboxy virtual worlds) or very bluntly put they were so grindy that people din't manage to reach the cap by the time the paradigm changed and WOW arrived.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion +plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO . Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve.
I would respectfully disagree with you. The mmoRPG concept was created for social interaction and freedom within a role playing environment. The genre took a turn for a more palatable and easy to assimilate format of linnear level progression akin to a console adventure game but multiplayer on a massive scale. Both are valid formats but the fans of the original premis of the genre are under served right now.
I think this highlights a fundamental difference in the fanbase of these games predicated on what games they cut their teeth on. And with such vocal dissention from the OG's about the current state of things you would hope some one would be able to step up to the plate. Who knows - maybe TITAN is a sandbox? Maybe EA will ressurect UO2/UO:X?
I realize and agree with this, maybe I should have rather said "why do you even play theme-park MMOs". Sanboxes are a different kind of beast altogether and nothing would please me more than high quality sandbox MMO (that doesn't have EVE's combat system).
However as far as theme-park MMOs go, I feel the end game concept is valid and the MMO factor is best realized in it for the reasons I already stated in my post.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion +plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO . Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
OP you are actually very wrong. SWG had Endgame, DAoC had endgame and so did EQ. You better go read up and we used that term then as well. I remember we would raid the Corvette or Death Watch Bunker... I can go on all day but I think you are just too much a rookie to the MMO genre so you made this assumption on your own without asking true old school vets from all of these games. I have played em all and don't know of any without some form of endgame. I have used that term since DAoC...
Whether or not her examples are valid is irrelevant, her overall point is still very valid and right on target.
Because the concept of endgame has never been a required 'feature' for an MMO. Several pre-WoW MMOs did not even have a solid level cap, let alone a concept of endgame.
Again, endgame is not a requirement for an MMO. The current industry trend is to throw in a level cap and endgame simply because the eleven and a half million pound gorilla in the room has it.
The truth is MMOs before WOW were either sandbox (which as I said my post is not about and I wholly agree that MMOs should be more sandboxy virtual worlds) or very bluntly put they were so grindy that people din't manage to reach the cap by the time the paradigm changed and WOW arrived.
Because the concept of endgame has never been a required 'feature' for an MMO. Several pre-WoW MMOs did not even have a solid level cap, let alone a concept of endgame.
Again, endgame is not a requirement for an MMO. The current industry trend is to throw in a level cap and endgame simply because the eleven and a half million pound gorilla in the room has it.
The truth is MMOs before WOW were either sandbox (which as I said my post is not about and I wholly agree that MMOs should be more sandboxy virtual worlds) or very bluntly put they were so grindy that people din't manage to reach the cap by the time the paradigm changed and WOW arrived.
This doesn't change that there was no endgame. In both examples as well, the power curve of players was much flatter. Meaning, being several levels lower than another player did not necessarily make you useless when compared to a higher level player. Sure you were better if you were higher level, but being lower didn't lock you out of being able to meaningfully assist higher level players, or in the case ofa crafter, from producing items that were still needed by higher level players.
WoW's endgame is a cycle of zero sum progression. Every single content patch, the previous top level gear becomes laughably easy to obtain through zerging heroic dugneons. No matter how much effort and time you sink into getting the best gear for your character in WoW today, it's pretty much gueranteed that next major content patch when the next tier of raid is released, most of that same gear will be ridiculously easy to obtain, and a tier after that will be completely useless.
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather play an MMO with the old system where it takes years to max out. At least with those systems, being high level actually means something since it's not suddenly made irrelevant next content patch, and you also don't feel useless if you're not max level.
You mean the game with end game consisting of RVR PVP?
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion +plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO . Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play (Edit:) theme-park MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve. Questing is essentially a single player non challenging gameplay. Why would I want to do that in an MMO, where the storytelling is super-boring and any outcomes irrelevant? If I want that kind of experience, I'll fire some awesome single player RPG where the storytelling, quests and progress are actually entertaining and the results affect the world with truly epic proportions.
Cooperative PVE is the thing I expect (and require) from my MMOs, as mentioned above, bland irrelevant and in vast majority single player quests are concepts better served elsewhere ( we will see how Bioware will solve this dilemma). Only in MMOs can you experience cooperative group play that requires constant cooperation of the whole group to overcome fights with interesting mechanics. I'm going to focus on WOW here, because it best illustrates the endgame concept and is my game of choice. All my characters in WOW except the 1st one were leveled up almost purely from running dungeons (and since the XP change sometimes via PVP). And those dungeons and raids are what keeps me subscribed to WOW (belive me, I tried many many other MMOs), because I haven't seen those kinds of instances anywhere else (DDO and LOTRO was kinda nice, but WOW still wins by huge margin) . Every clone outh there replicates the super-boring quest and world part and utterly fails to make interesting dungeons with interesting boss fights.
For the PVP folk, it's different in every game, many are PVP oriented with RVR etc, where obviously level cap levels the playing field. In WOW you have battlegrounds and arenas, which are valid end-game options, this time what shines is the balance, again group cooperation (as opposed to mindless zerg in many games), and super fluid combat.
From my rant you may think that I'm some kind of WOW fanboy, while in fact that is not true. I realize the game has many flaws and I would love to start playing something something different. I tried DDO, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, COX, Aion, Vanguard and plenthora of lesser MMOs, but none of them retained my interest exactly because they lacked good dungeon content (or equivalent coordinated PVE experience) and solid end game content based on that.
*This post does not include sandboxes, as was said by mrcalhou above, there the whole game is endgame, especially because there is no set goal and player actions affect environment. Sadly the current crop does not interest due to lack of quality or game mechanics I can't stomach. Still waiting for "EVE with twitch combat" kind of game.
Negative, DAOC was a theme park styled MMO with and end game no less however it played very differently than the modern MMO's of today.
There is no law that says a theme park MMO's end game has to consist of dungeon raiding and gear grinds, that's a notion ground into most gamers heads today because they don't realize there really were and can still be alternatives, and who knows, they actually might enjoy a change.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Seems that mostry people here never played DAoC: excellent and funny endgame. A lot of fun on frontiers, killing hibs and migs.
Isn't DaoC mostly about PVP though? I personally don't consider that endgame as most games, like WoW, you can do it as you level and it doesn't change through the levels except by giving you different objectives or new maps. Not saying there aren't people who only PVP at endgame, just that most MMORPGs are either built with a PVP endgame in mind or a PVE endgame in mind. Like comparing Darkfall to WoW. Both have PVE, both have PVP but you and I both know which gamer caters to who.
So DaoC would be in the Darkfall column while this article talks more about PVE endgame in games like WoW and Lotro.
Not only is that not remotely close to how PvP works in the majority of real MMOs (it seems you've never played a game with worthwhile PvP if you're talking about maps and objectives) but DAoC wasn't purely a PvP title. It had some of the best raiding to be found in the MMO sphere, and still does. The encounters and raids in DAoC are far beyond anything I've seen in WoW's little 8 main "raids". 200 man dragon raids were something epic to see.
DAoC is a great example of a game that is properly designed to balance crafting, PvP, and PvE all in one without diminishing the value of any of them. The PvP was the standout feature of course because at that point no one had managed to do PvP on that scale (and still haven't, except for maybe Darkfall) but there was raiding for those who enjoyed it and the PvP didn't mess with the PvE players.
And yes, PvP is the best kind of end game, because it's constant generated by PLAYERS therefore, constantly changing and almost always fresh and interesting. If you think PvP only consists of those weird FPS like CTF rounds in WoW... you need to look up some other MMOs :P
Negative, DAOC was a theme park styled MMO with and end game no less however it played very differently than the modern MMO's of today.
There is no law that says a theme park MMO's end game has to consist of dungeon raiding and gear grinds, that's a notion ground into most gamers heads today because they don't realize there really were and can still be alternatives, and who knows, they actually might enjoy a change.
Most people think that themepark means WoW clone. This is not the case, sadly most refuse to believe it.
Endgame is such a horrible concept. I always hated the term. There should be no endgame. The MMO market is lost to all the cookie cutter games. To be honest I dont think it will recover anytime soon. It is much easier to pump out cookie cutter rapid application development mmo's where the expected shelf life is no more than 6 months and then claim its a success.
You mean the game with end game consisting of RVR PVP?
The point was that it wasn't a sandbox game nor was it so grindy that "no one ever reached the level cap". And no, the end game consisted of crafting, raiding, RvR, or collecting. It was a well made MMO that actually balanced different play styles into of being a one trick pony forcing the devs to desperately raise the level cap and churn out new "content" like most WoW clones. It's hard to believe in this day and age, I know.
Comments
Wha? No. WoW's endgame is far more alienating than most end game. It's end game is pretty much the same as EverQuests, and that is, bad.
DAoC's end game was balanced so well that anyone could jump into any raid, actually contribute something, and have a shot at the loot, without being in an "epic raider guild". And then there was RvR..
Darkfall Travelogues!
I agree to a large extent with the premise of this article. I have been playing MMOs for long hours for many years now and yet raiding has NEVER been my thing. I poked my nose into it and what I saw was long waits for everyone to show up, followed by people judging you harshly on your gear and spec. If anything was less than absolutely perfect you could expect ridicule and possibly being booted from the raid. Once you make it past that you can expect long hours of tension filled dungeon crawling while you sweat over your damage output numbers. If something goes wrong during the raid, and it often does, you can expect arguing, yelling, and a lot of cussing from people with the maturity level of a ten year old. What is your reward for all of this work? More of the same. This is fun to people? Not only that, but many guilds seriously have so many requirements that it becomes like a job. A couple of my real life friends would even cancel get-togethers because their guild needed them for a raid and they would get in trouble if they missed it. That is just ridiculous.
For me, the fun has always been leveling up alts and PVPing. Unfortunately, there just aren't any games out there that are end game PVP focused and give you enough to do. WoW comes close except when you reach end game you can no longer advance on your own and are forced to look for partners for arena who aren't too noobish and not too rabidly hardcore. With rated battlegrounds I thought I would finally be able to get into end game PVP, except that isn't what happened. What actually happened is that only large guilds can bring enough people to get into the BGs. If you belong to smaller guilds you either can't get in or you have to run with a PUG group which will be slaughtered and quickly disband. I even heard that guilds were charging solo players to be able to join their rated battleground groups. I feel that for pvp to be doable I should be able to advance on my own if I am willing to put in the work and not have to rely on the kindness or cruelty of others in order to take part.
I am still waiting for the MMO to arrive that will fit my needs. DAoC was the first and the last MMO to perfectly blend PVE and PVP in a way that worked perfectly for my tastes.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
Preach it, sister. Endgame usually signals THE END OF THE GAME for me too. WoW soured me on the whole concept. The journey there is always more enjoyable and always more memorable, and it's also where I make any in-game friends. It never seems to happen after capping since everyone is far too concerned with progressing than actually enjoying themselves.
I hope I hear Endgame's death knell sounding.
I think the popularity of quest-based advancement really cemented endgame as a necessity for developers, in so far as vertical-advancement themeparks are concerned.
Just adding the mobs and terrain isn't necessarily a major issue. Current engines like the Hero Engine are capable of adding and altering landscape on the fly, which radically reduces the amount of time it takes to increase landmass. Mobiles that share models can have their numbers tweaked and dropped into that landscape very quickly. Add a month or two of QA testing, and ouila! There's another 50 or 100 levels worth of stuff to do.
Now, adding quests to move characters 50 or 100 levels? Months and months and months and months of writing, testing the pathing, testing object transfers, testing rewards, etc. It exponentially increases the amount of labor necessary.
As an example, Asheron's Call, back before it had quest advancement, changed the level cap from 126 to 275 with a single expansion (and, keep in mind, just getting to 126 could easily take more than a year). You just couldn't do that with a quest-based model. Each level requires more quests than the last by nature of the scaling design (in which each level takes longer than the last), but the quests require the same amount of time to write and test. As a result, each level requires more and more labor from the development team. In the end, repeatable content was really the only rational alternative once quests became the new standard.
Seems that mostry people here never played DAoC: excellent and funny endgame. A lot of fun on frontiers, killing hibs and migs.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
Isn't DaoC mostly about PVP though? I personally don't consider that endgame as most games, like WoW, you can do it as you level and it doesn't change through the levels except by giving you different objectives or new maps. Not saying there aren't people who only PVP at endgame, just that most MMORPGs are either built with a PVP endgame in mind or a PVE endgame in mind. Like comparing Darkfall to WoW. Both have PVE, both have PVP but you and I both know which gamer caters to who.
So DaoC would be in the Darkfall column while this article talks more about PVE endgame in games like WoW and Lotro.
Excellent article, I think the only way to break "WoW design syndrom" in upcoming MMOs is pointing out that we don't want more of what WoW's done already!
I stopped WoW after a month or 2 of Burning Crusade and never have even once considered playing again. I logged on a new character after being inactive for 2 months, did 3 quests then said to myself "Wait... why am I doing this? I've already done this, and the end-goal is just not interesting." I deleted the character, then unsubbed the same day I re-subbed and uninstalled. That was my last WoW experience.
For me, RPGs (MMOs or not) are about customization of character. And I don't mean equipment. Skills, feats, talents, perks, proficiencies, I can't get enough. I am obsessed with choosing my own path and, above all else, making sure I'm not set up like the majority of players. Endgame-style games ruing that for me in two ways: First, you end up looking like EVERY OTHER PERSON in the best case scenario because of the evil that we call "Set bonuses" and "Tiers". Secondly, the elitist "Hardcore" (Hardcore Sociopaths I imagine) guilds won't take you unless your set up in a stupid Optimized way they want you to be.
Basically, Endgame, to me, means rolling a new character. Once I stop leveling (And by that I mean progressing my character outside of "loot"), I stop playing. Period. The only games with an interesting endgame are system like WAR, where you have your seperate PvP rank to work on that gives you more talent points and new skills. We need more stuff like that, and including PvE rewards.
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-Been there, done that: Xsyon, WoW, EVE, Maplestory, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, FF11, Rift
-Currently playing: Not MMOs
-Wants to check out: SWTOR, Dark Millennium
He's talking Pre-instances. Before the corvette and half assed dwb.
Well, this is exactly what I'm thinking about current endgame trend. I really miss Lineage II, that game was utter grindy (which is bad), but it offered fun as long as you had people with lvl range simmilar to yours. Many people used to cry that it took 1 year to hit cap- so what? For most people there was something to do, something to achieve, it was almost impossible to hit cap- I'm not refering to level, it was more about gear (overenchanted weapons, armors and epic jewels), there was multiple ways of getting them, and beside getting character levels, it wasn't really based on grinding- more about building your reputation inside your guild and doing profitable stuff.
The journey was fun, evolving your character was fun and the feeling that you can always become more powerful was great- despite many flaws, game kept me entertained for 6 years. Once I launched Aion, I couldn't stand grind- even if it was much faster than in L2, it was boring, exhausting (pressing same combo every mob) and monotonous, there was no pvp at all- I can't compare dumb gankfests to a pvp. After I asked friends, how endgame looks like, there were like "you will farm instances all the time"- it made me quit before lvl 30.
It should be about journey, not destination. If you think otherwise, go back to single player games please.
Exactly
The mere notion of an "end" is the issue
I can't believe so many people are in blind agreement. If you don't like end game and dungeons do not interest you, why do you even play (Edit:) theme-park MMOs? From PVE perspective, dungeons and in particular engame raids are THE concepts around which MMOs revolve. Questing is essentially a single player non challenging gameplay. Why would I want to do that in an MMO, where the storytelling is super-boring and any outcomes irrelevant? If I want that kind of experience, I'll fire some awesome single player RPG where the storytelling, quests and progress are actually entertaining and the results affect the world with truly epic proportions.
Cooperative PVE is the thing I expect (and require) from my MMOs, as mentioned above, bland irrelevant and in vast majority single player quests are concepts better served elsewhere ( we will see how Bioware will solve this dilemma). Only in MMOs can you experience cooperative group play that requires constant cooperation of the whole group to overcome fights with interesting mechanics. I'm going to focus on WOW here, because it best illustrates the endgame concept and is my game of choice. All my characters in WOW except the 1st one were leveled up almost purely from running dungeons (and since the XP change sometimes via PVP). And those dungeons and raids are what keeps me subscribed to WOW (belive me, I tried many many other MMOs), because I haven't seen those kinds of instances anywhere else (DDO and LOTRO was kinda nice, but WOW still wins by huge margin) . Every clone outh there replicates the super-boring quest and world part and utterly fails to make interesting dungeons with interesting boss fights.
For the PVP folk, it's different in every game, many are PVP oriented with RVR etc, where obviously level cap levels the playing field. In WOW you have battlegrounds and arenas, which are valid end-game options, this time what shines is the balance, again group cooperation (as opposed to mindless zerg in many games), and super fluid combat.
From my rant you may think that I'm some kind of WOW fanboy, while in fact that is not true. I realize the game has many flaws and I would love to start playing something something different. I tried DDO, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, COX, Aion, Vanguard and plenthora of lesser MMOs, but none of them retained my interest exactly because they lacked good dungeon content (or equivalent coordinated PVE experience) and solid end game content based on that.
*This post does not include sandboxes, as was said by mrcalhou above, there the whole game is endgame, especially because there is no set goal and player actions affect environment. Sadly the current crop does not interest due to lack of quality or game mechanics I can't stomach. Still waiting for "EVE with twitch combat" kind of game.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion
+plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO
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Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
I agree completely. In SWG allot of time I just wondered around. I liked how sometimes when wondering in distant places i ran into sum people who had a tent build up and I went over there and we chatted for hours. Or when I was doing something and the music(especially on Tatoine, the Force theme) started to play, i stopped and just listened to the music. Today its just rush to the Endgame, get the best gear...
I especially hate if the Endgame is mostly just about grinding for best gear.
I like how in SWG crafting was a huge feature(hell it was a profession on its own, in most games you have a combat class and crafting class in one char). You could recognize a player just by looking at his clothes. I remember that on my server(as far as I'm aware and remember) I was the only one with white shoes, there were white boots, but only I had white shoes.
Played: SWG-FFXI-EQ2-Aion
Anticipated in order of Hype:
ArcheAge
GW2
TERA
SWTOR
Not enough info, but looks promising:
Blade & Soul
Because the concept of endgame has never been a required 'feature' for an MMO. Several pre-WoW MMOs did not even have a solid level cap, let alone a concept of endgame.
Again, endgame is not a requirement for an MMO. The current industry trend is to throw in a level cap and endgame simply because the eleven and a half million pound gorilla in the room has it.
I would respectfully disagree with you. The mmoRPG concept was created for social interaction and freedom within a role playing environment. The genre took a turn for a more palatable and easy to assimilate format of linnear level progression akin to a console adventure game but multiplayer on a massive scale. Both are valid formats but the fans of the original premis of the genre are under served right now.
I think this highlights a fundamental difference in the fanbase of these games predicated on what games they cut their teeth on. And with such vocal dissention from the OG's about the current state of things you would hope some one would be able to step up to the plate. Who knows - maybe TITAN is a sandbox? Maybe EA will ressurect UO2/UO:X?
The truth is MMOs before WOW were either sandbox (which as I said my post is not about and I wholly agree that MMOs should be more sandboxy virtual worlds) or very bluntly put they were so grindy that people din't manage to reach the cap by the time the paradigm changed and WOW arrived.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion
+plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO
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Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
I realize and agree with this, maybe I should have rather said "why do you even play theme-park MMOs". Sanboxes are a different kind of beast altogether and nothing would please me more than high quality sandbox MMO (that doesn't have EVE's combat system).
However as far as theme-park MMOs go, I feel the end game concept is valid and the MMO factor is best realized in it for the reasons I already stated in my post.
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion
+plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO
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Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
Whether or not her examples are valid is irrelevant, her overall point is still very valid and right on target.
Ever heard of a game called Dark Age of Camelot?
This doesn't change that there was no endgame. In both examples as well, the power curve of players was much flatter. Meaning, being several levels lower than another player did not necessarily make you useless when compared to a higher level player. Sure you were better if you were higher level, but being lower didn't lock you out of being able to meaningfully assist higher level players, or in the case ofa crafter, from producing items that were still needed by higher level players.
WoW's endgame is a cycle of zero sum progression. Every single content patch, the previous top level gear becomes laughably easy to obtain through zerging heroic dugneons. No matter how much effort and time you sink into getting the best gear for your character in WoW today, it's pretty much gueranteed that next major content patch when the next tier of raid is released, most of that same gear will be ridiculously easy to obtain, and a tier after that will be completely useless.
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather play an MMO with the old system where it takes years to max out. At least with those systems, being high level actually means something since it's not suddenly made irrelevant next content patch, and you also don't feel useless if you're not max level.
You mean the game with end game consisting of RVR PVP?
Subscribtions: EVE, SWTOR WOW, WAR, DDO, VG, AOC, COV, FFXI, GW, RFO, Aion
+plenty of F2P, betas, trials
Female Dwarf player: WOW, VG, WAR, DDO
.
Due to the recent economic crisis and spending cuts the light at the end of the tunnel was turned off. Sincerely, God.
Negative, DAOC was a theme park styled MMO with and end game no less however it played very differently than the modern MMO's of today.
There is no law that says a theme park MMO's end game has to consist of dungeon raiding and gear grinds, that's a notion ground into most gamers heads today because they don't realize there really were and can still be alternatives, and who knows, they actually might enjoy a change.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Not only is that not remotely close to how PvP works in the majority of real MMOs (it seems you've never played a game with worthwhile PvP if you're talking about maps and objectives) but DAoC wasn't purely a PvP title. It had some of the best raiding to be found in the MMO sphere, and still does. The encounters and raids in DAoC are far beyond anything I've seen in WoW's little 8 main "raids". 200 man dragon raids were something epic to see.
DAoC is a great example of a game that is properly designed to balance crafting, PvP, and PvE all in one without diminishing the value of any of them. The PvP was the standout feature of course because at that point no one had managed to do PvP on that scale (and still haven't, except for maybe Darkfall) but there was raiding for those who enjoyed it and the PvP didn't mess with the PvE players.
And yes, PvP is the best kind of end game, because it's constant generated by PLAYERS therefore, constantly changing and almost always fresh and interesting. If you think PvP only consists of those weird FPS like CTF rounds in WoW... you need to look up some other MMOs :P
Most people think that themepark means WoW clone. This is not the case, sadly most refuse to believe it.
Endgame is such a horrible concept. I always hated the term. There should be no endgame. The MMO market is lost to all the cookie cutter games. To be honest I dont think it will recover anytime soon. It is much easier to pump out cookie cutter rapid application development mmo's where the expected shelf life is no more than 6 months and then claim its a success.
The point was that it wasn't a sandbox game nor was it so grindy that "no one ever reached the level cap". And no, the end game consisted of crafting, raiding, RvR, or collecting. It was a well made MMO that actually balanced different play styles into of being a one trick pony forcing the devs to desperately raise the level cap and churn out new "content" like most WoW clones. It's hard to believe in this day and age, I know.