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Do mmorpgs need to die? AKA MMORPG phoenix
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Sorry to burst your UO/Wow bubble but we don't need anymore games like that.
We need more Tanaka's to take form and be creative with game design.Outside of FFXI i have seen VERY few ideas i would want in my game.
I would like to see someone take the FFXI ideas and expand on them,there is an amazing game there waiting to happen.Add in physics,destructive surfaces animated textures and tweaks to FFXi and you have the best game ever.
We need levels if we continue to use them to feel like actual aging,you shouldn't be level 20 in one day.We need EVERY level to be full of content and depth,NOT end games.Heck there shouldn't be any mention of end game unless your player actually dies.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think big publishers need to get out of the MMO industry (i.e. EA and Activision). The quality of games were much better when the developers didn't have to worry about deadlines and meeting investor demands. When the games took a while to develop because they weren't funded or needed a loan or development team was smaller, those were the games I usually had the fondest memory of because you can tell the developers really wanted to create something special in their own vision.
That being said I think a lot of people misconstrue what it is to be a developer. I browse MMO forums a lot and constantly see posts like "Well V-Game Has This Feature, Why Can't We Have It?" and this makes me sad. The developers are creating a game they envisioned to give to the community. This is their work, their vision, their creativity. But not every game needs to have a "Dungeon Finder" or an all-encompassing "Auction House" and other features. These things are nice if they can fit in with the lore and the immersion of a game but if it feels out of place in a title it probably shouldn't be there.
Some of that probably makes people think "Well, if they want the players to make the money they need these things." Not true. The financial goal of a publisher is to rake in the cash. A true developer wants to make the cash but ultimately wants to create a game to their liking that people will enjoy. The genre got flooded by people who only cared about making money rather than making a game. It's kind of like writing a book. You have authors that put out tons of books to make money and are usually mediocre at best. But then you have some who just wanted to write their story and share it and those are the best books.
In a nutshell, though, all of this is purely my opinion and I don't wish to preach it as the word of the MMO gods. So take it as you will, just wanted to share.
Your logic is flawed. In the days of UO, Meridian 59, EQ etc companies were investing in something new with the hopes that it would catch on and light the way for a new genre. Which it did, now if the genre died off enough that companies started losing money and closing up it would be a much different story.
It wouldn't be an "ok everyone else is gone, what do you guys want in your MMO?" type of situation. It would be a "Ya, we decided with the decline in popularity and profitability of the MMO genre that it would not be in our best interest to continue developement."
I'd like to agree with you, but I can't, because I feel you've missed a very important point.
It's not just the games/genre that have changed, the players have too.
10-15 years is a long time, and people can change a LOT during that amount of time
A wife or husband, 1+ children, a new job with wider responsibilities are all external things that affect us.
Age changes us too, a person at 35 will generally have markedly different attitudes and values than they did at 20, or 25 because they have experienced more of life, and that experience changes us.
The new modern gamer is not the same an old gamer, thier expectations are not the same. They don't have the same 'patience' ....
This idiotic, noncontexual, argument is what needs to die.
You don't score any, 'cool', points stating something so blinkered that a mole could see through it.
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
Look this is entirely nonsensical. Are there some bad MMORPGs out there? Yes! But, you don't have to go and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many people are thoroughly enjoying the games they are playing(ie...World of Warcraft, Rift, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and many more great games out there). Killing the genre will not solve community issues; the fact is your types are just as hard to satisfy as the rest of us. You will only perpetuate an unending cycle. Find a game you like and create your own community. That is why WoW is so successful; it has so many people playing it everyone can find their group.Not everything lives up to ones first time; that is just reality. One of my favorite games of all time is Earthworm Jim. Now I have yet to play a game that excited me as much as that one did the first time I played it. I do not on the other hand think all gaming needs to die, so developers once again cater to my specific niche.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
lol earthworm jim wow that brings back some memories
i never said i want all gaming to die :O
This is why I am currently playing DF and Anarchy Online....
New games focus too much on graphics and cool your toon swinging an axe looks that actual content, difficulty, story and atmosphere.
It almost feels like some games (TSW Im looking at you) attempted to bring some old style back, but then resorted right back to quest grinding through a relatively linear path, easy and fast leveling, complete disregard for itemization and loot options (look to anarchy online and all the different armor that drops in that game....).
It's time for companies to stop putting money into constructing the candy when all they have is a rotten apple apply the candy to.
Look this is entirely nonsensical. Are there some bad MMORPGs out there? Yes! But, you don't have to go and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many people are thoroughly enjoying the games they are playing(ie...World of Warcraft, Rift, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and many more great games out there). Killing the genre will not solve community issues; the fact is your types are just as hard to satisfy as the rest of us. You will only perpetuate an unending cycle. Find a game you like and create your own community. That is why WoW is so successful; it has so many people playing it everyone can find their group. Not everything lives up to ones first time; that is just reality. One of my favorite games of all time is Earthworm Jim. Now I have yet to play a game that excited me as much as that one did the first time I played it. I do not on the other hand think all gaming needs to die, so developers once again cater to my specific niche.lol earthworm jim wow that brings back some memories
i never said i want all gaming to die :O
I understand that was not what you said; I was simply using it as an example. My main point is I hope you do eventually get the game you are looking for, but there are those of us who do like many of the current MMORPGs and do not want to see them die off."Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
I would not say thatthe genre needs to die. But it surelly seems like it needs Reboot.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Yeah, which is why so many new MMOs are thriving, right! And why we're calling 2D side scrolling beatumups MMOs now, right?
Right??!11?!
Oh wait, just about every AAA MMORPG in the last 7 years has nearly bankrupted the company that made them? Hmm...
And then we'd get people who make MMOs because they love MMOs making them, just like in the early days. Dark Age of Camelot was made with 30 devs and almost no budget. And it stands as one of the greatest MMOs of all time.
So long as we have people with experience and passion making the games, big publishers aren't needed. The only decent MMO that was made with a big publisher was SWG, and even that had heavy flaws. Maybe GW2.
Actually most of them are doing quite well. Populations to match the majority of old games, turning profits, releasing expansions, getting updates.
As with any industry there will be some that don't make it, and as there are more and more games there will be more companies that make it.
But most of the games released in the last 7 years are doing pretty good.
No. MMORPGs do not need to go back to the old days and lost all the progress of becoming better games.
If you feel these games are not for you, you can always quit and do somethign else. I am perfectly happy to play modern MMORPGs.
And they are not likely to die with 47+M MMO players in the US.
It is a good thing "hard to get the same feeling of EQ" .. it was boring, lots of camping & frustration. I am glad those days are over.
This is it exactly. That "buzzword" as you refered to it is also inherently associated with monthly fees. Those 5 little letters m.m.o.r.p.g yeilds developers 15$ a month alone. No business in their right mind will ever advertise their game as an Online RPG, because it wouldnt be near as easy to charge for it.
I couldnt care less what happenes to the mmoprg genre, all I want is to see some of the Pre-wow type of MMO's. Theres obviously a market for the single player onlie rpg (SPORPG) games, games like SWTOR and GW2 just proves that. They sell tons of box copies, but dammint I could teach a monkey to play those games, to me nothing is more repulsive than easy mode games.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
The current industry model needs to die where large development companies pump out templated games with little or no true rpg gaming ambition. Voting with you wallet will be the only way to get these crap games off the market. Companies jumping on the mmo bandwagon is ruining the genre.
The very fact many of these companies and games are failing proves the genre cannot support so many released mmos. There will be sub-genres and mmos of man types but good games will only ever come from companies backed by gaming passion and vision. The current mega-corp absorptions of smaller indi-developers has to stop. Those same mega-corps simply have to shrink themselves which luckily we are seeing. The audience will always be there but that same audience absolutely must vote with their wallets and voice their concerns.
What is happening in the industry is that the wants of the original mmorpg audience are being ignored. Attracting new players from other genres has been the focus of the developers. This has been a major failing for most companies. Mmorpgs require players who are willing to invest long periods of time in their game of choice. They play few games outside of it. New mmos grant ease of access and very easy progression which is counterintuitive to why players originally played rpg's. They played them because they were hard and took time and not because they were easy. Once mmos lost their connection to traditional rpgs the genre lost it's focus.
One example of this is actually with the classic rog game D&D. WotC bought TSR and the D&D franchise and continued a successful product with it's 3rd edition revisions. The company then did something extremely odd ... they completely reinvented the game with it's 4th edition and turned it into a tabletop strategy game in order to support it's miniature lines and possible licensing to video games with it's far more tactical rulesets. 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition (and d20 open licensed games) players were outraged. The forums turned into nothing more than min/max threads about how to build the pefect dps or tankers when it used to once be about lore, rp gaming experiences and general class building. Simply talking about rp elements, crafting and story was met with all the arguments and trolling you would normally see on mmo or even fps/strategy forums.
During this time a totally different company continued to publish their d20 open game license rulesets by the name of Pathfinder. This started to become so popular that WotC recently discovered that nearly the ENTIRE D&D fanbase which they once owned was now playing Pathfinder and that the core playerbase of 4th edition D&D was largely an entirely new audience (stragic gamers). WotC effectively lost their market share of a game that once dominated the rpg industry.
The result: WotC did an entire about face. They put out a new company mission statement that flat out apologized to their previous fans, admitted they screwed up and were now devoting their entire focus on a new edition (D&D Next ... sound familiar? There is also EQNext coming from SOE) without an edition number in order to re-envision and reinvent the brand name they lost touch of. They rebuilt their D&D website from the ground up focusing on the rp elements and experience of the game, re-published and packaged the 1st and 3rd edition D&D books and even put emphasis on teaching players how to play traditional rpgs once again through imagination and roleplay and less focus on hard rulesets.
Even Dragon/Dungeon magazines have been impacted as all new editions would focus on lore, existing published rules and monsters only (this was due in part to 2 issues being too many unbalanced, non-canon player material was being published and to generalize the magazines for all versions of D&D and move focus away from 4th edition). There is also nearly no direct link to 4th edition books. WotC is trying to remake history and wipe the existance of 4th edition out of the memories of their old core fanbase. They simply screwed up that badly.
What I see (and am seeing) is something similar starting in the mmo industry. Development companies are slowly waking up to fact they have been pumping out crap based on a model that has become completely detached from the genres original playerbase. The mmorpg genre is no longer a defined genre. It has been expanded and water down so much that few or no products focus on the original concepts that created mmorpgs to begin with. Few mmos have links to the rpg experience. They are collection of mechanics thrown together because an industry model tells developers they are needed. An actual virtual experience is no longer the goal. By virtual I do not mean visual. The core essence to traditional rpg play is creating a real world through imagination. That is the true essence of virtual world is ... complete and total immersion into a world you can effectively touch, smell and live in. In order to do this a player has to have complete control which can only be done through imagination. In mmos this means sandbox elements customized toward the vision that is the game. Templating a themepark where a player pays their fee to ride but has little or no impact on the world will never, ever be a true mmorpg. Ease of access and content devoured in hours or days instead of months or years can never be a true mmorpg.
What I hope to see is more companies failing and/or suddenly dropping upon their knees begging their playerbase forgiveness because of their lost ways. Hell if they are smart they will market it like SOE and make you think they are being revolutionary by making EQNext ... instead of actually hiding the fact they screwed up so badly over the years and lost sight of where they came from and who helped them get there.
I should add one thing as well: F2P model. There is great debate over this but I truly now believe that this is likely one of the greatest downfalls to rpg-style mmorpg games. We all know that many companies are converting their games to it and often see an increase in playerbase and income. What is now becoming apparent is that this is nothing more than a band-aid. It does little in the way of building community. Most f2p players are transient and do not invest the same amount of time as premium paying players who tend to have played the game much longer and contribute more time toward community building (ie. server events, guilds etc). A large portion of cash shop profit comes from newer players using it to accellerate their progression in order to catch up to players who earned their rewards through playtime and all the social benefits derived from this that can only be generated by time inventment. CS shortcuts hurt mmos in ways far greater than most are aware. Ease of game has hurt the genre more than anyone would have guessed. As implied earlier, todays mmos are no closer related to true virtual mmorpgs than FPS games are now. It's all about, "Give me my crap NOW so I can go out and kill with the best crap available!". Open ANY rpg book and that is pretty much the one thing they say you never, ever do or else the game is pointless. F2P is akin to metagaming which is the death of an rpg experience.
You stay sassy!
Haha, are you kidding me? DDO was dead on arrival for the first 4 years of its life until it went FTP. AoC bankrupted two of Funcom's partners and they merged servers almost right away. Aion was a complete flop in the west. Rift merged servers within months of launch. SWTOR was met with a resounding "hate to say we told you so". TSW is already in trouble. DCUO and STO both had horrible launches and only started to recover when they went FTP.
And I think it's pretty generous to claim that any of those games had the same growing population numbers old MMOs had. And even if it were true, is it really an acomplishment that a brand new MMO has less/equal sub numbers of games that came out when most people didn't have video cards in their PCs and were on dial up?
zerg difficulty just for the sake of being difficult, extremely long hours at doing anything meaningful and not getting rewarded for it so you have to run it ten thousand more times, having to listen to some snotnosed poor loser in his 30's living in his mom's basement because he spends too much money on multiboxing to actually move out, yell at you because he's got anger issues.....
Sorry, those don't represent the basics of mmo's for me or for majority of us.
My fondest memories were running dungeons, not for gear but for the story.
My fondest open world experiences were not spending hours doing dailies for rep but doing the open world quest chains that had alot of lore in them. (pre vo i know but still)
So saying that it was better when it was just starting out and they didn't really understand HOW they should make their games more fun for the players and often ignored people who A: weren't asking for handouts and B: should have had access to the lore in the first place isn't an accurate picture.
This is nothing but yet another thread from the dieing minority group known as the elitist jerks who spent all their days theorycrafting and with spreadsheets working out how best to raid so they could spend the other 9 hours out of their day wondering around PVP Zones or major cities so they could show off their fashion show. Nothing new imo.
EQ1 was anything but borning. Camping and grinding with a group was so much fun. I miss that. Today if you want to group you have to run dungeons, everything else is solo play.
Talk about boring.
Frustration? Yes dying sucked and that is a good thing, today this dying means nothing and is used as a quick port thing sucks.
Todays MMOs forgot about the Risk vs Reward.
Everquest had the Risk vs Reward down. The more risk you took, the more reward you got.
I wish the old days of MMORPGs would come back. If they did it would kill 60% of the population as they might have to use their brain to play a game for once in their lifes.
Games are about problem solving, always have been and always should be. No so much in today's MMO world, if you can follow directions, you can be successful in today's MMOs. No problem solving required which is what has been missing since WoW.
Sooner or Later
Remember the video game crash in the 80's? I'm not old enough to have experienced it completely but I have read the reasons for it and I think this genre is headed in the same direction..
Oversaturation..
The amount of MMORPG's has been increasing greatly while the demand for them are actually on the decline after the WoW boom. And seeing as other genre's are basically adopting the features that many of us look for in our mmorpg's, there will soon be no need for the genre to exist because it would have been blended across many..
I think a total crash of the genre would be a good thing and would force a total reboot that hopefully would spark the same creative freedom that existed in the mid to late 90's..
^^^ This
I played UO from day one and if you asked me to go back and play the "vanilla" game again, I'd tell you to drop dead. Same for EQ1.
Too many self-professed MMO vets still wearing those rose-colored glasses. Those games were not as great as we remember them. Really, they were not. The modern MMO is far superior, not only in graphics, but in gameplay.
Let the dead stay dead.