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Do you still get that feeling?
izzer
Member Posts: 9
Hi everyone !
Remember the first time you played a MMO? For me it was Anarchy Online and I played it by mistake..Well , I didn't play the game by mistake but I did not know what a MMO was at the time. It was about a year after I graduated High School. I came home from the store,I popped in the disc,installed it, and that was it. From that moment on I was hooked to MMOs
It was such an amazing feeling...to actually be in this virtual world with thousands of other people all interacting with one another. Starting in the good old backyards where all the noobs run around so overwelmed by everything.The ARK dropping in to ask you if you need anything , but you don't even know how to reply yet. My buddy and I actually thought the game was sending out some kind of subliminal signals because of how addicted we were to this game.We never felt anything like it. Something happened to me that day.. Wether it was a 'signal' or just the start of an addiction that I would never be able to totally kick.Like a crack head always going for that high that he got the first time he smoked it. I would always get this butterfly, excited feeling playing this game than anything I ever experienced playing a game. I think most of you know what I'm talking about.
So I played 'AO' for a few years,then went on to EQ2. Played that for a while and moved on to another game. But for some reason,buried deep in my mind ,was AO. Like an old cassette tape that you would tape over but you could still hear bits of that old song through the new one. Just to look back and think of all the fun times I had , that feeling is still there. It is wierd because I went back to it a few times over the years but never played it a lot. But whenever I think about it I still get that "tingly" feeling.
Now I ask you. Can you remember the first MMO you played? Do you still get that feeling? Still "addicted?"
Comments
Nope.
I've been playing mmorpg's on and off for more than a decade.
All of these games feel similar now, that feeling is gone.
Doesn't mean i cant have fun with them though.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
AO was my first MMO too. I remember my first hours in the game pretty well. First I asked whose pet the neat two headed dog was, only to be told it was a player. Then I tried to start a conversation with a crat's pet, only to be told of course, it wasn't a player!
I was utterly, gloriously confused. I paid the guy who introduced me to this digital crack back for his crimes a thousand times by asking him where this, that or the other was, and how do I kill it again? And what happened to my attacks, all the bars went away, and boy, did I get lost. I couldn't even set foot outside West Athens without getting hopelessly lost and trampled by those horrid little bulls.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
As much as everyone says, you can never get that same feeling that you got from your first MMO, I have to disagree big time on that idea.
I got THE feeling when I first played SWG.
Then I got an even better feeling when I played FFXI.
Had hints of it when EQ2 launched but something was off about that game at launch. Then it all came back when I played WoW 2 months later.
Didn't get that feeling with Lotro's launch, but I came back when Moria was introduced and boom, the feeling was there, just not quite as strong.
Didn't get that feeling with WAR or AoC or CO or STO or Aion.
Got a little bit of it with Rift, but it quickly fizzled out once I hit endgame.
Went back to EQ2 and had a small dosage of the feeling, but again..something is still off about that game, BUT it's ten times better now than it was at launch.
Vanguard gave me that feeling big time UNTIL I hit a leveling wall at about level 28+. Then I quickly lost interest.
Got to Beta test a certain game these past few weeks and the first week was a blast, and then the longevity of the game became so boring...I haven't logged back in since and canceled my Pre-order.
Currently I'm just bouncing around between Lotro, Rift, EQ2 and Vanguard waiting for GW2 or ArcheAge to bring back THAT feeling. Based on the videos alone, they have already showed me they might possibly correct the last few years of the genre.
No, come to think of it, that feeling has never come back, not that strong. Had glimmers of it on the underground tram in WoW (I always did wish the AO subways actually worked), but nothing close to AO. Flying mount? Sure, okay, neat, but nothing like a Yalm. Fallen Earth kind of started to give me that feeling, but the quest givers, funny dialogue or no, got in the way of that vast, strange world experience.
Edit: Earthrise did for a few days after I left the trainee area, because the game world was huge and gorgeous, and I really enjoyed wandering around in it, and Xsyon was great as my first ever MMO I could terraform in, but still, not quite as strong.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I do not blame the games for the loss of that "feeling" - I blame the players. I first noticed the change in the playerbase around the time that BC came out for WoW. Things had changed by that point - and - no game that I played for the first time after that was the same. This is not a WoW bashing comment in the least, because as I stated - I do not blame the games - I blame the players.
The people that participated in the MMO genre from the late 90's through around 2005/6 were a different crowd than those I've seen playing since around 2006/7. There was definitely some muddling between 2005/7 - but 2007 pretty much defined the point of no return for me - as far as what I thought of the MMO genre's playerbase. I became jaded, snarky, and at times outright hostile... most people I knew that had played MMOs, had already started to walk away at that time - I stubbornly stayed. Stubbornly? Stupidly? Well, stu-somethingly, eh?
That being said, there are games where I'm wowed by the worlds - the mechanics - etc. I come across games that could take me back to that feeling...
...then I run into another player.
There are some awesome games out there. Shame about the players.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Unfortunately no.
The first game got me so hooked, overwhelmed and immersed, i played it for month all on my own. It was the game that kept me playing.
Later all this went away and due to the repetition of all things ingame boredom set in. All that kept me playing was to socialise and hang out with friends in what could have been any given game. Been only playing for the friends since then, while the game itself became secondary.
Never got "it" back, with all the games i've tried.
Bolded are games I got 'The Feeling' List is in order of when I played the game.
UO
Runescape
SWG
JumpGate
PlanetSide
WOW
Warhammer
Aion
Not to say that the other games I didn't have fun, but my first games did not give me the feeling. Warhammers was very short lived however.
Actually I got the feeling with Runescape but I am too ashamed to bold it. I was young.
The point is, it isn't just the new feeling of being in an MMO for the first time. There is a lot more going on. I think it has to do with the feeling of being in a NEW WORLD, and recent MMOs, the world feels predictable since they follow WoWs road in a valley model to channel players through content.
I miss making connections with people, exploring, getting lost, finding something neat, running into something way over our level and just barely surviving, I miss that feeling of belonging.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
SWG gave me that feeling. Nothing has since. The key you mentioned is "virtual world". There are none now. The experience we have now is speed- gaming with a complete lack of depth or variety. They are basically FPS games wrapped in an MMO shell and that is why so many of us are bored to tears. They attract one kind of player, and as a result the experience is generally predictable and empty. One thing sandboxes are not, is predictable. In SWG, I may have logged in with a plan to accomplish something, but almost always some player/community driven activity came along and replaced it with more fun. One day it was war, or an epic hunt, another it might have been a party at a cantina, or a science/crafting expedition. There was something refreshing about having quests only account for a small part of SWG gameplay.
I see a lot of people here blaming the gamers for this, and saying we are just burned out. Those people have no idea what they are talking about, especially if they entered the genre with WoW and other theme park games. There is a growing market for, at the very least, a hybrid game that can start bringing some of the old MMORPG features back.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Thank you and well said. I just hope people read your post and realize THIS is the real issue facing the genre right now. It's trying to turn itself from a 5 star surf and turf restaurant with expensive but awesome food into a fast food joint to appeal to the masses. It's getting annoying. The "feeling" I got in the games I mentioned was having a massive world to go explore full of handcrafted landscapes, hidden eastereggs and bits of lore topped off with some amazing storylines and characters all while have a deep character progression system and combat that was fun and fluid(character feedback). But all of that takes dedication and caring hands to mold it piece by piece.
Remember? Sure, it was WoW towards the end of vanilla. Similar situation, my friends were bugging me and I didn't want to play. I signed up for the trial figuring they'd stop bugging me. I played non-stop for about 2 years. Addicting, overwhelming, incredibly optimistic about gaming? Yes.
Anymore? Not really. I've come to accept the game I enjoyed doesn't exist any longer.
I was going to say something similar in my post but spaced out. I agree 100%. I think there is a depth missing in the MMO's that a lot of us are missing.
Do you remember when games boasted how large their their world was in scaled miles? The other things developers boasted about their games? It is funny how much priorities have changed since WoW.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
No I still don't get that addicted feeling but truth be told I'm ok with that. To me its much like when I got my first car I was going any and everywhere there was to go because I was driving, freedom of the run and fun of teenage boys out raising hell but now that I'm older it's different when I have to work I don't always go hang out in the streets with friends til whatever time in the morning while saying "to hell with the consequences" heck I even have a much better vehicle now than I did then it hasn't mattered in the long run though the newness has worn off of the experience but I don't blame the auto industry for that.
Mabinogi gave me that feeling... then Nexon ruined it.
Smile
I remember being in awe of how awesome and fun the Ulduar raid was in WoW during the early part of the Wrath expansion cycle.
Well, except Flame Leviathon that whole thing was kind of dumb hah.
Haven't really felt anything since...
Rift tricked me into being excited for a while, but the feeling faded pretty quickly.
Really hoping TOR/GW2 bring back my love for this genre. I think though for me personally the "feeling" comes from the community I'm engaged with.
UO was a small, tight knit group of RL friends, WoW was first real big online community awesomeness (guild stuff/raiding) but never really got that same personal connection to guildies in Rift or WAR or anything else.
Pre-registered for all the TOR guild stuff, RL friends/family playing too, hopefully TOR brings back that community magic that is essential for my long-term enjoyment of a game.
When I think back about the scale of what SOE tried to accomplish at launch until NGE, I still have to give them massive amounts of credit. I think it was the most abitious MMO design ever created, and was ultimately their main problem. It was too much to manage, maintain and balance. However, I will take an overly ambitious game like SWG, along with the associated problems, over the boring drivel that passes for an MMORPG today.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Here's for hoping Archage does it!
Age of Conan was the last one to give me that feeling. City of Heroes at launch was my first and the first for the question to give me it, other than those two it just ain't been there.
The occasional game in between i enjoy straight off the bat but they've all been lacking something so far. Probably because they are all so similar. Sand box games never give it, likely because they tend to grow on me rather than grab me.
I honestly can't even recall what my first mmo was, I think it may have been some cheap 2d browser based one from quite a while back, my parents were effectively cavemen as a child, and took ages to get something above 56k dialup. Hence I was late to the mmo scene.
As for "the feeling" I've had it in a few games. Notably Planetside, Eve (back when it wasn't run by money grabbing suits), WAR (Beta, after launch I found it was crap.) and lastly perpetuum online. (Back when I rolled with a bunch of friends in beta.)
Absolutely nothing else has barely even appealed to me since, but I keep fruitlessly searching for a game that's actualy "good" these days. I do find them in the singleplayer area, but never in the mmo area, they are just too watered down nowdays.
To find an intelligent person in a PUG is not that rare, but to find a PUG made up of "all" intelligent people is one of the rarest phenomenons in the known universe.
You will never get that same feeling you got from your first MMO. Mine was GuildWars, which many would argue isnt a real MMO, and I was totally hooked. Realising for the first time that all those other names you see are actually other people is amazing....
I then got that same feeling when I moved onto WoW and realised that the whole world was open and not instanced like guildwars..
Since then I have never had "that feeling" sadly
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
I'd played a few MMOs before World of Warcraft, but World of Warcraft was that one that was just simply amazing. I started as a Night Elf, and Teldrassil was just so amazing to look at, it was just like being in a new world.
[Mod Edit]
lol I can't believe the mod editted the part where I said something about Blizzard selling out, I added a couple of curse words but cmon, you can't take the whole line out cause they DID sellout.
Yep, Ragnarok Online, very nice. Runescape too and AdventureQuest. Proper, free to play, 'first MMORPG' experience. Was so good, enjoyed the style of it quite a bit and got the neighbourhood involved so gaming was part of the daily discussion. Just great.
The point was already raised about it being the fault of the players that the games don't give off that great feeling anymore, but then that person I think went the completely wrong way with it.
I think we have grown and began to expect something new from our MMOs, and that's in no way a problem, just natural. What needs to happen is developers adapting to their maturing gamer base, and I mean maturing in terms of expecting something new in the market. Every business has to be flexible and be able to meet new demand and changes in consumer trends. If you don't, you just lose out.
A lot of us can say what we want, and most of it does translate to 'not what we currently have'. Developers and publishers need to take the risk of letting out new ideas. When we find a new kind of game we like, they can totally suck it dry for the next 10 years, and then we move on again. Hopefully to Virtual Reality by that time. Oh how I envy the gamer of the future. That time sink into a virtual world is going to end their lives so quickly.... and they won't even complain. I wouldn't.
First game when I got that feeling was FFXI. It was my first MMO (payed $100 for the PS2 version with the HDD) and loved every minute of it. My PS2 died little over a year later, and I decided to get me a gaming PC to try out some other MMO's. Trying nearly every big name MMO out, the only ones I got the similair experience from was Mabinogi, Anarchy Online, EVE, Glitch and FFXIV. Games that are typical go from quest hub to hub leave me feeling like I'm just playing through a single player RPG with a chat room attached. The games that do it different (sandbox or not, I'm not trying to turn it into a debate) leave me figuring out new things, giving a satisfaction the more standard games don't.
You know what's even worse? Most of us said when SWG started collapsing that the game was way ahead of its time. We had in mind that yeah, the game was to big forself and just needed some time for another developer to learn how to capitalize on the idea and its massive complex.
Yeah, they learned, alright...
Honestly, think about it. How come the indepth and complex games are the oldest? SWG, Van, EvE?
You have a really good point/example here.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"-Voltaire
Im not getting that feeling anymore .... i hope that GW2 will fix that