Originally posted by Kyleran Nope, those days are pretty much gone, doubtful we'll ever see a title with forced grouping at it's core again.
And thank GOD for that. Any game that forces you into any activity is bad design.
most new mmo's forcing us to play solo,too ,with asocial peoples
Actually most new MMOS gives you a choice. Either solo or form parites to get better xp and loot. GW2 and TSW are perfect example where you can solo but grouping has more rewards.
What is wrong with having more options in terms of playing a game?
No they don't. Not in real.
You know what happens when I ask in a chat channel, whether someone wants so accompany me in my soloable quests?
"They can be done alone." from 100 people.
Allowing soloing, is NOT more options, because 99.9% WILL solo what they CAN solo, and if you seek company, good riddance, because you won't find any. Humans are basically seeking the path of the least resistance, and that is soloing. They will solo, even if they enjoy grouping more, because of the flaws of human nature.
So no, it is NOT more options, it de facto enforces soloing.
Lets chalk it up to personal experince shall we? i have been grouping up a lot in GW2 and TSW when i can afford the committment and solo when i can't. I have never found anyone not willign to group up only because it can be soloed. Well theer are lot of things that can be soloed but at the same time lot of things you can not.
Well, lucky you. *shrug*
Generally, with each new MMO I felt more alone. I recall how easy it was to meet new people in the old MMOs, because you NEEDED help. Necessity makes allies. If humans were totally self-reliant in RL, I guess they would simply die out, because way too few people are not egocentric. *shrug* Or you bring in RL friends, but none of mine plays MMOs, anbd guilds these days (sorry) are TEH SUXXOR.
yeah lucky me.
For all the people who want to solo there are many who want to group. thats is what i like in mdoern MMOS. Options, choices and freedom. So we can argue about this as long as you want i will never agree with you on this one.
For me a good design means where players have options and choice. We are not little kids who needs to be forced by Devs to show us how to enjoy or play the games in acertain way or method. Being adults we are capable of deciding for ourselves. Asking devs to take away freedom and force us into groups is going backward in MMO design not forward.
Let us say i meet you in game and i have to group with you because there is no option for solo play. I will do it not because i want to socialise willingly but because i have no other choice. The most honest socialising occurs when players choose it and not the devs.
For all the people who want to solo there are many who want to group. thats is what i like in mdoern MMOS. Options, choices and freedom. So we can argue about this as long as you want i will never agree with you on this one.
You don't have to agree.
Setting hubris aside, until a force-grouping game "scores" in a big way, the market won't be copying and replicating it.
Meanwhile, copying WoW has been, for a good while now, a given.
You, on the other hand, are faced with the necessity of "selling" forced-grouping to the 5 million+ gamers that entered the market with/after WoW. You know, a lot of console players? It won't be an easy sell.
When you couldn't "sell" the pretty theory even to all of the original EQ players....now about, what, 10% of the overall market at best? Better hurry, that number can only decrease as the players age themselves into gaming retirement.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Im not playing in groups anymore becouse of behavior other players im also not playing in guilds anymore it seems companys and you go to work forced to have TS and doing group events all day(GW2).
Luckly GW2 you can kill boss without grouping.
Im eather playing solo games(skyrim/morrowind)or solo GW2 and games like DayZ/WarZ.
Last game i realy did alot group/raid runs and love it was 2004 Asheron's Call 2.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
Originally posted by alexanys1982 Only WoW like games make billions of dollars, so thats what we will get forever. Thread over.
You need to correct that statement quite a bit.
Only WoW pulls the numbers they do. I would go as far as to say that FFXI is very close to the top of one of the most successful MMO's to date, revenue wise. They sustained 700k subscribers for over 8 years, where most games were close to 300k like EVE, or pulled a high number and bled them like an open wound a month later... (War, SWTOR, AOC,RIFT...etc).
So is there a market for games like FFXI? Absolutely, more so than games like WoW because WoW has already soaked up most of that playerbase.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
I played EQ1 for 4 years. I played Shadowbane for 2. I played WoW for 2 or 3 (plus multiple bans for abusing the boring leveling system)... I gave up on MMO's after WoW (once my friends stopped playing). Why? Because I was always grouped. Once I had to solo, which you do have to solo for the most part there is no choice. If solo is an option, people just solo because it's faster and more effecient than grouping.
When you try to form a group people tell you, "no, soloing is faster." If you grouped in WoW soloing was slower because EXP was dividied. I tested this . Hence I was forced to solo as in every MMO I have played thus far. I am forced to solo.
To this day I have yet to spend more than a few months on any MMO. Solo play has destroyed it for me. Having the option to solo has destroyed MMO's. Solo content should be boring and static to move people to be social.
Asocial people have no place in an MMO and WoW only brought them in to make money. Money is the reason why solo play is an option. Money is the only reason why 90% of the people in WoW have a home. You don't deserve the internet.
MMO's of today will never be as community intensive as games of old, because people will never have to worry about the MONEY not being there to make sure everyone has the easiest possible time playing the game to maximize profits earned. I am sure if Everquest realized how much greater it would have been had it had a quest system and solo play, it would have done the same thing. Why? Because they wanted to make money.
Solo play and the advocates of it destroy multiplayer games and make these games worse for everyone. Except the shareholders. They love you. They will always love you.
EDIT: Side note, I have played just about every MMO out there for varying times, in the above I listed three for simplicity. Also, GW2 is boring as hell because I am 33r and 26t and every time I log in and run 10 feet I just sigh and log out. SOLO PLAY IS BORING AND THERE IS NO REAL GROUP CONTENT! (that is readily available like EQ).
I solo to make things harder on myself, I get alot more enjoyment out of beating my head against a wall untill I can beat it by myself then I do finding a group so that we can complete it without to much issue. You are correct most gamers want to go with the path of least resistence, and current games have made themselves easier and easier to solo so that people can choose whether they want to solo or to group except in the end game where typically your forced to group( This I believe is a bad way to go, I shouldnt be forced to group in order to do the endgame stuff, it should just be amazingly hard to solo, which is the challange accepted by all soloers ). By no means is that everyone though, most of the soloers of old did it because it creates an extra challenge and its self gratifying when you complete a goal you've set for yourself without any assistance when you know the majority of the population could never even think about soloing what you've just done.
Starting with EQ and then into WoW where it blew up in popularity, themeparks have popped up left and right enforcing grouping in the late game and yet making it easier and easier to solo on the way to the late game, its a feature that has never made any sense to me, there should not be grouping forced at any point in gameplay, but at the same time soloing should not be for the masses. The real problem is just the lack of challenge anymore, Themeparks bank on players threadmilling their way to the end game, whether they group or solo it doesnt matter to them, eating up the content on the way, and then waiting for expansions for more content to eat, they have absolutely no regard for making a game with longevity and accual substance.
So is there a market for games like FFXI? Absolutely, more so than games like WoW because WoW has already soaked up most of that playerbase.
You might be right.
But someone has to be the first, bet the money on an unproven theory.
His boss is going to ask him "How are you planning on replacing all of those potential players you're ready to write off?"
I have a lot of sympathy for this theory, this is the sort of game I was "raised" in. But at the same time, I realise that gamers aren't good at business; their theories are based more on emotional reminiscing than fact-checked presentations backed by intensive consumer study and exit polling numbers.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I'm going to have to say that your best bet right now is EVE. It's the only viable choice at this point in time. Wait for World of Darkness, hopefully it turns out well, even though vampires and werewolves are lame...
Originally posted by Kuro1n EVE, otherwise I'd say just wait for other new games. Take some time off, it sounds like you are a bit burnt out, maybe try out some older games like Tibia or Ultima if you can stand the art etc.
You could always contribute to this like many others seem to have bought into his concept and then influence what they are doing to help build a space MMO http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
Be thankful that there exists dungeon crawling, raiding, PvPing and other forms of endgame that is suited to the group only. I pray the day that forced grouping comes to an end completely and the genre can grow like other gaming mediums. being required to group for endgame is just as obnoxious and stupid as being forced to group of the older MMO's.
What's obonoxious and stupid in my opinion is playing an MMO to solo, solo, solo, when there are so many single player games out there with gameplay that is superior to any MMO.
So then you make the leap and say "hmmm, if people are doing this, what is the benefit? Perhaps there is somethign they get out of it that single player games don't have?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
If all of these watered down, dumbed down, solotastic games keep hemoraging players within months of launch, we may just see one yet.
Yep. It is possible (certainly dubious) that's what the post-wow player base wants. It's certain that some of them do.
It's also possible that it wasn't ever universally popular with the pre-wow player base (in fact, we know that it wasn't).
I wonder if Ford Motor eber makes decisions about the 2014 car line based on what consumers enjoyed from the Model A's.
Wonder if Chevy ever said "ignore those post-baby boom noobs, we don't need their cash."
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Please read my previous post, cause your very wrong, Pre WoW MMOs such as UO, and SWG never forced grouping on anyone, yet there was still plenty of people who grouped and they were some two of the most social MMOs of the Genre.
Originally posted by Dalgor Please read my previous post, cause your very wrong, Pre WoW MMOs such as UO, and SWG never forced grouping on anyone, yet there was still plenty of people who grouped and they were some two of the most social MMOs of the Genre.
Who are you addressing?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Kyleran Nope, those days are pretty much gone, doubtful we'll ever see a title with forced grouping at it's core again.
This bothers me, it has since it was phrased. Forced grouping. It has so many negative connotations to it. It's like saying a single player game is forced soloing. MMO's, multiplayer games, are by their design meant to be played with 'multiple players', yet somehow the fact that this is somehow enforced has become a dirty idea, something rotten and out of place. It's a freakin' multiplayer game! If you buy a multiplayer game expecting to solo the entire content then something is seriously wrong with you.
This bothers me, it has since it was phrased. Forced grouping. It has so many negative connotations to it.
That's simply what the fans departing EQ called it. Name's kind of stuck ever since.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Forced grouping, was not a niche, it was the standard pre-WoW.
EVE
UO
SWG
There
CoH*
Project Entropia
A Tale in the Desert
Puzzle Pirates
Second Life
Asheron's Call
Revisionist history is neat.
*Thanks, Ice!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Chuckle. Be nice. Where's CoH and the Grinders (LineageI & II)? AO? AC?
Yuck, even just sticking with the games that made a fair (generously) splash, the list gets too big too quickly.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
For all the people who want to solo there are many who want to group. thats is what i like in mdoern MMOS. Options, choices and freedom. So we can argue about this as long as you want i will never agree with you on this one.
For me a good design means where players have options and choice. We are not little kids who needs to be forced by Devs to show us how to enjoy or play the games in acertain way or method. Being adults we are capable of deciding for ourselves. Asking devs to take away freedom and force us into groups is going backward in MMO design not forward.
Let us say i meet you in game and i have to group with you because there is no option for solo play. I will do it not because i want to socialise willingly but because i have no other choice. The most honest socialising occurs when players choose it and not the devs.
I don't think forced grouping exists, unless you count the Dungeon Finder tool in most games that just puts you into a group with other people....
Your liberal view of freedom is really just a water down game experienced with a bit of heroic welfare spread around to appease the Masses. Everyone wins, Everyone is the HERO just pay your money and show up and roll your face around on your keyboard.
The original MMOs design fostered grouping due the the extreme challenges that the players faced. Many of the challenges were very difficult to manage as a solo player and other were almost impossible to conqueor without a large group of people working together.
The biggest difference over the last serveral years is a design change to diminish the challeneges to cater to the market of players that have cash to spend but don't have the time, patience, think skills, etc.. Games are designed as anti challenge / anti competitive / adventurer's daycare centers where people can waste time playing their solo rpg and look around at other players in the sharded world / game lobby
The good news is that everything changes and after the last two years Themepark MMOs have jumped the shark, the major developers including SOE see the writting on the wall and are scrambling to change thier products to avoid the laughable failures of the "standard" MMOs. They played the greed card already, built falshy piles of crap and held their breath waiting for the magic six month sub numbers to make a tidly profit.
Now A.D.D has kicked in and you are lucky to keep your standard solo players subscribe for two months, $ 100,000,000+ games with tons of flash and glitz are falling apart weeks after launch with not enough box sales to keep things going. F2P is just a bandaid as the games go on life support...
Hopefully the MMO market will crash and burn then solo play mouth breathers crowd can stumble along to ruin another genre. Maybe MOBAs are next :P Then we can get back to the real MMO niche market that rises from the ashes, a nice small market of a couple million players with games that are based on Systems, Interdependance and alot less Themepark attractions. Just like the old days
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Forced grouping, was not a niche, it was the standard pre-WoW.
EVE
UO
SWG
There
CoH*
Project Entropia
A Tale in the Desert
Puzzle Pirates
Second Life
Asheron's Call
Revisionist history is neat.
*Thanks, Ice!
Bah, I'm referring to EQ1 and DAoC, which were THE games pre-WoW. And yes you did need to group to get anything serious accomplished in either of them.
These two games were McDonalds and Burger King and you listed a bunch of corner burger joints by comparison to show the exception as the rule.
And with that, I know I am getting bored when I start engaging in forum pvp. It is as big a waste of time as arguing politics or religion!
Time for me to take a break from gaming (and these forums). Happy gaming to all and I will see you in a few weeks
Exactly the answer I expected. See you in a few weeks.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
yeah lucky me.
For all the people who want to solo there are many who want to group. thats is what i like in mdoern MMOS. Options, choices and freedom. So we can argue about this as long as you want i will never agree with you on this one.
For me a good design means where players have options and choice. We are not little kids who needs to be forced by Devs to show us how to enjoy or play the games in acertain way or method. Being adults we are capable of deciding for ourselves. Asking devs to take away freedom and force us into groups is going backward in MMO design not forward.
Let us say i meet you in game and i have to group with you because there is no option for solo play. I will do it not because i want to socialise willingly but because i have no other choice. The most honest socialising occurs when players choose it and not the devs.
You don't have to agree.
Setting hubris aside, until a force-grouping game "scores" in a big way, the market won't be copying and replicating it.
Meanwhile, copying WoW has been, for a good while now, a given.
You, on the other hand, are faced with the necessity of "selling" forced-grouping to the 5 million+ gamers that entered the market with/after WoW. You know, a lot of console players? It won't be an easy sell.
When you couldn't "sell" the pretty theory even to all of the original EQ players....now about, what, 10% of the overall market at best? Better hurry, that number can only decrease as the players age themselves into gaming retirement.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Im not playing in groups anymore becouse of behavior other players im also not playing in guilds anymore it seems companys and you go to work forced to have TS and doing group events all day(GW2).
Luckly GW2 you can kill boss without grouping.
Im eather playing solo games(skyrim/morrowind)or solo GW2 and games like DayZ/WarZ.
Last game i realy did alot group/raid runs and love it was 2004 Asheron's Call 2.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
You need to correct that statement quite a bit.
Only WoW pulls the numbers they do. I would go as far as to say that FFXI is very close to the top of one of the most successful MMO's to date, revenue wise. They sustained 700k subscribers for over 8 years, where most games were close to 300k like EVE, or pulled a high number and bled them like an open wound a month later... (War, SWTOR, AOC,RIFT...etc).
So is there a market for games like FFXI? Absolutely, more so than games like WoW because WoW has already soaked up most of that playerbase.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
I played EQ1 for 4 years. I played Shadowbane for 2. I played WoW for 2 or 3 (plus multiple bans for abusing the boring leveling system)... I gave up on MMO's after WoW (once my friends stopped playing). Why? Because I was always grouped. Once I had to solo, which you do have to solo for the most part there is no choice. If solo is an option, people just solo because it's faster and more effecient than grouping.
When you try to form a group people tell you, "no, soloing is faster." If you grouped in WoW soloing was slower because EXP was dividied. I tested this
. Hence I was forced to solo as in every MMO I have played thus far. I am forced to solo.
To this day I have yet to spend more than a few months on any MMO. Solo play has destroyed it for me. Having the option to solo has destroyed MMO's. Solo content should be boring and static to move people to be social.
Asocial people have no place in an MMO and WoW only brought them in to make money. Money is the reason why solo play is an option. Money is the only reason why 90% of the people in WoW have a home. You don't deserve the internet.
MMO's of today will never be as community intensive as games of old, because people will never have to worry about the MONEY not being there to make sure everyone has the easiest possible time playing the game to maximize profits earned. I am sure if Everquest realized how much greater it would have been had it had a quest system and solo play, it would have done the same thing. Why? Because they wanted to make money.
Solo play and the advocates of it destroy multiplayer games and make these games worse for everyone. Except the shareholders. They love you. They will always love you.
EDIT: Side note, I have played just about every MMO out there for varying times, in the above I listed three for simplicity. Also, GW2 is boring as hell because I am 33r and 26t and every time I log in and run 10 feet I just sigh and log out. SOLO PLAY IS BORING AND THERE IS NO REAL GROUP CONTENT! (that is readily available like EQ).
I solo to make things harder on myself, I get alot more enjoyment out of beating my head against a wall untill I can beat it by myself then I do finding a group so that we can complete it without to much issue. You are correct most gamers want to go with the path of least resistence, and current games have made themselves easier and easier to solo so that people can choose whether they want to solo or to group except in the end game where typically your forced to group( This I believe is a bad way to go, I shouldnt be forced to group in order to do the endgame stuff, it should just be amazingly hard to solo, which is the challange accepted by all soloers ). By no means is that everyone though, most of the soloers of old did it because it creates an extra challenge and its self gratifying when you complete a goal you've set for yourself without any assistance when you know the majority of the population could never even think about soloing what you've just done.
Starting with EQ and then into WoW where it blew up in popularity, themeparks have popped up left and right enforcing grouping in the late game and yet making it easier and easier to solo on the way to the late game, its a feature that has never made any sense to me, there should not be grouping forced at any point in gameplay, but at the same time soloing should not be for the masses. The real problem is just the lack of challenge anymore, Themeparks bank on players threadmilling their way to the end game, whether they group or solo it doesnt matter to them, eating up the content on the way, and then waiting for expansions for more content to eat, they have absolutely no regard for making a game with longevity and accual substance.
This my friend is not Soloers fault.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
You might be right.
But someone has to be the first, bet the money on an unproven theory.
His boss is going to ask him "How are you planning on replacing all of those potential players you're ready to write off?"
I have a lot of sympathy for this theory, this is the sort of game I was "raised" in. But at the same time, I realise that gamers aren't good at business; their theories are based more on emotional reminiscing than fact-checked presentations backed by intensive consumer study and exit polling numbers.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
You could always contribute to this like many others seem to have bought into his concept and then influence what they are doing to help build a space MMO http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
Bandit
Asbo
So then you make the leap and say "hmmm, if people are doing this, what is the benefit? Perhaps there is somethign they get out of it that single player games don't have?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Yep. It is possible (certainly dubious) that's what the post-wow player base wants. It's certain that some of them do.
It's also possible that it wasn't ever universally popular with the pre-wow player base (in fact, we know that it wasn't).
I wonder if Ford Motor eber makes decisions about the 2014 car line based on what consumers enjoyed from the Model A's.
Wonder if Chevy ever said "ignore those post-baby boom noobs, we don't need their cash."
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Please read my previous post, cause your very wrong, Pre WoW MMOs such as UO, and SWG never forced grouping on anyone, yet there was still plenty of people who grouped and they were some two of the most social MMOs of the Genre.
Ment slowpoke68, sorry for not clarifying
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
Who are you addressing?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
http://wizardrythegame.com
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This bothers me, it has since it was phrased. Forced grouping. It has so many negative connotations to it. It's like saying a single player game is forced soloing. MMO's, multiplayer games, are by their design meant to be played with 'multiple players', yet somehow the fact that this is somehow enforced has become a dirty idea, something rotten and out of place. It's a freakin' multiplayer game! If you buy a multiplayer game expecting to solo the entire content then something is seriously wrong with you.
That's simply what the fans departing EQ called it. Name's kind of stuck ever since.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
EVE
UO
SWG
There
CoH*
Project Entropia
A Tale in the Desert
Puzzle Pirates
Second Life
Asheron's Call
Revisionist history is neat.
*Thanks, Ice!
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Chuckle. Be nice. Where's CoH and the Grinders (LineageI & II)? AO? AC?
Yuck, even just sticking with the games that made a fair (generously) splash, the list gets too big too quickly.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I don't think forced grouping exists, unless you count the Dungeon Finder tool in most games that just puts you into a group with other people....
Your liberal view of freedom is really just a water down game experienced with a bit of heroic welfare spread around to appease the Masses. Everyone wins, Everyone is the HERO just pay your money and show up and roll your face around on your keyboard.
The original MMOs design fostered grouping due the the extreme challenges that the players faced. Many of the challenges were very difficult to manage as a solo player and other were almost impossible to conqueor without a large group of people working together.
The biggest difference over the last serveral years is a design change to diminish the challeneges to cater to the market of players that have cash to spend but don't have the time, patience, think skills, etc.. Games are designed as anti challenge / anti competitive / adventurer's daycare centers where people can waste time playing their solo rpg and look around at other players in the sharded world / game lobby
The good news is that everything changes and after the last two years Themepark MMOs have jumped the shark, the major developers including SOE see the writting on the wall and are scrambling to change thier products to avoid the laughable failures of the "standard" MMOs. They played the greed card already, built falshy piles of crap and held their breath waiting for the magic six month sub numbers to make a tidly profit.
Now A.D.D has kicked in and you are lucky to keep your standard solo players subscribe for two months, $ 100,000,000+ games with tons of flash and glitz are falling apart weeks after launch with not enough box sales to keep things going. F2P is just a bandaid as the games go on life support...
Hopefully the MMO market will crash and burn then solo play mouth breathers crowd can stumble along to ruin another genre. Maybe MOBAs are next :P Then we can get back to the real MMO niche market that rises from the ashes, a nice small market of a couple million players with games that are based on Systems, Interdependance and alot less Themepark attractions. Just like the old days
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Add daoc and planetside to your list.
If we are making lists here please add Wakfu and Dofus as well
Exactly the answer I expected. See you in a few weeks.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre