This is the best article I've read in a long time, mainly because I'm in the same boat.
No MMO these days seem to have depth, their communities suck and are generally over in a month or two.
I miss DAoC dearly, and had put it down to getting old(er) but every game since WoW Cata has been shallow, boring or not even a MMORPG (Yeah I'm looking at you mister GW2 the super mario arcade game wannabe!).
DAoC may have been a grind, but you had the feeling of doing something special. Ah well, back to Peggle or something until ArcheAge gets here.
No trials. No tricks. No traps. No EU-RP server. NO THANKS!
I feel the same as the rest of you folks going insane trying to find an enjoyable mmo and I am beginning to think that they no longer exist, I am however excited about wildstar.
Yeah, I guess I feel quite exactly like that. I've tried out lots of MMOs, and me and one of my friends are still looking for that "one actually good" MMO. I don't even quite know what that MMO would be like, though. I guess I could maybe name three things that are wrong with most MMOs nowadays.
They're too easy. But I can understand that from the developers' perspective. They need to make it easy, so that everyone can play it. So that even idiots who don't get new gear or skills for 10 levels, or don't know how to dodge, can still beat monsters. While those who always have the best possible gear, know their combos, and have skill, take out everything in tiny amounts of time, and then solo monsters meant for a group of five, because that's the difficulty regular monsters should be at.
They feel like singleplayer games. What good is playing an MMO when you don't interact with other players? They could as well be NPCs who are running around shouting nonsense or helping you fight for 15 minutes, then leaving to never be seen again. Now, people laugh at me for playing and liking this, but Puzzle Pirates is the best example of how this is supposed to be done IMO. If you count out playing card games with others in taverns, all the playing was done in groups. You could literally not get anything done alone. Everything had to be done in groups of 7-159 people. Now, while you quite often couldn't know all of those people, they really had the feel of being people, not NPCs. You had to talk with them, tell them what they had to do, argue... And only when the majority of those people were working together, had you any chance of getting something done.
Burning through content too fast. Alternatively, more content. But more content usually means more work for the devs. I often find games where I don't even kill the first monster, and am already level 5. Or ones that have huge areas to explore, with detailed, unique monsters, and then you kill one of each, see a quarter of the land, and then move on, never returning to that one area. That of course means devs aren't pushing out new content nearly as fast as you're burning through it.
But even if a game didn't have any of those three problems, I doubt it would instantly be that "one actually good" MMO I'm looking for. Still, it'd be nice to find a game like that. (Still, if anyone knows a game that fills points 2 and (1 and/or 3), do tell me.) PvP games actually appeal to a wide-ish audience and eliminate problems 1 and 2 instantly. They can't be too easy, because if you're an average player, the average other player is just as strong as you, making for a difficult battle, win or lose, depending on whether you and they are above or below average. And it can't feel like a singleplayer game, since you are forced to ineract with others. Either fight them to death, or talk with them to co-ordinate your strategies to beat others. Sadly there's the issue of high-level groups roaming around, killing everyone at sight, making some frustrated, causing them to leave. And that keeps chopping off brances from a tree faster than it can grow them. No matter what magic you're using.
I am indeed in the same boat as you. I find my self trolling through the internetz looking for any upcomming beta's or releases I can try, just to satisfy my craving for a quality mmo, but sadly for about 2 years now I too have been homeless.
First mmo i've ever got into was Runescape when I was a kid, until later on i've moved on to other games and try them out, but some i could not get into. I was a poor kid unable to play most of the mmo games out there that require a subscription fee, my parents won't pay for it because they dislike being payed 15 bucks a month. I was unable to play the good games that was out that was awesome during the day.
Now in the modern world, after being layed-off of my first job for 5 months of working there, still struggling to get another job to move on to live, i finally was about to play certain games out there that requires a subscription fee or a certain amount of money. however there is a problem with todays games is that sometimes the game itself does not agree with me and my taste. i've been playing the new game called Defiance and sadly after doing repetitive quests out there, shooting up th same thing, the game gets harder and harder for me to solo and enjoy, and soon i've gave up on the game because of how hard it gotten for me, the weapons become weaker, and the fustruation causes me to quit the game.
I am mostly a solo-player, i don't usually play in groups unless i'm invited by people that i know of or part of my guild that i belong to. I enjoy questing alone so people don't rush me, reading the story to learn more about the game. If the game don't got an interesting story for me, then i just focus on trying to do the quests out there but i suffer from this feeling of repetitive quests that i dislike doing greatly. I dislike grinding monster to monster for xp, or to find a certain item, everytime i do this same quest, i feel bored out of my mind as i want to play for fun, not make it feel like it's work with hardly anything special. I dislike doing the same missions over and over just cause of that, and that's why i stop playing some games out there. World of Warcraft is an example of the reasons why i stop playing games that got repetitve quests called "dailies", where you sometimes get the same quest you just did the last 3 days ago, and you will do it again on the next day. After 2 - 3 weeks, i've stop doing dailies quest because it's no fun, it's feel like work as I am forced to do these quests to improve my reputation among the factions to unlock the gear i need to allow me to raid. In the end after withstanding the horrible grind, i've gone as far as i can until one day i've just had it with the boring system in the game, where the only thing that I can do in that game is either craft, PvP, Raid, and Quest.
After going though that, i've become a nomad again, trying to find a good game for me to stick to. A game that won't force me to do repetitive quests to unlock gear that is required me for me to raid a dungeon or a raid. Where there is plenty of things to do in the game besides just questing, getting gear, doing dungeon, and so on. I want a game that allows me to have a choice, a game that got lots of options for me to become, and i don't have to become a hero, i could become a trader, an architect, a hunter, and do grand things out there to help one another out. I want to turn a village into a city with a mighty castle and a beautiful architexture for all the buildings out there. I want to dig deep into the land, finding unknown gems that are not marked by other players, and saw new creatures that nobody else has seen before. I want to see a game that turns alive and see towns and villages, raided by intelligent AI that act human-ish, unable to exploit, and see other players find a challenge that is as smart as they are. There are many things i wish for to see in the online world of today, but sadly these wishes can hardly ever come true because developers these days are filled with greed, lack of knowledge, and lack the technology to do so.
We used to live in our own realm, a land of castles, they were windy and had few amenities, but did that bother us? It could take ages galloping around to reach a town, and you could bump into all sorts. As a lone knight you could right a few wrongs in the world, but you needed a fellowship to really make a difference. And this land, which you would die for was fought over by perfidious barons from far off realms. We ate beef of the bone a plenty and quaffed ale to wash it down.
Now we live in a rabbit warren, with little tunnels connecting use to the rest of our warren world. There are lots on amenities, why you scarcely have to leave your own burrow to play the game, and you certainly don’t have to talk to your rabbit neighbours. We eat our lettuce leaves and wonder what happened, how did we proud warriors become vegetarian care rabbits?
Do I compulsively seek out an experience that I can never capture again?
More relevant question is: If true; could you face it (the "never capture again" part) like an adult?
If not, denial is always an option. Someone else (faceless evil devs or SoullessCorp naturally) can be blamed, eternally.
And don't forget that next generation of players! Clearly, it's all their fault.
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.
When I stepped into my first 3-D "virtual world" 11 years ago, everything was new and amazing and incredible ! Oh, the delight and wonder of that first "go and kill 10 rats" quest....
However, 11 years on and 770,481 rats later (or crabs or Corellian butterflies or goblins or whatever), the magic has worn off somewhat. There's no mystery and excitement in the game mechanics anymore, we have all spent 1000's of hours doing basically the same things in a variety of games in a variety of genre's.
When you fired your first EVER fireball at a mob, it was glorious. But when you launch your first fireball at a mob in MMORPG #12, you'll probably notice one or more of the following:
the fireball spell effect in game #10 was more spectacular than this
this fireball does more damage than the one in game #7 at this character level, but here you're rooted while casting (game #11 had a really cool casting-on-the-move system)
in this game you don't have to watch your mana levels (like you had to in games #1 to 9), but there's a really irritating GCD which has a crippling effect on your DPS (in game #1 you probably didn't have a clue what GCD or DPS meant for at least the first month)
The main reason is, back then there were few MMOs now you have tons to choose from.
Nothing else is different with MMO that has changed, not dificulty nor solo nor else ruined MMO era, it's just so many of them who try to please one playstyle and nerf the other playstyle, that is untill someone will make a game that will be set for all play styles, like, pvp would have their own server, pve their own server, rp their own, and solo their own, each server would set to required dificulties.
Then everyone will have their own home to settle in.
This is just flat out false. The modern MMOs are significantly easier. They are much more solo oriented. They are much less guild oriented.
Yes, yes, MMOs are more solo easyer, but I am not tallking about that, I say, that MMO developers should give more options, so all players could choose what they want without any nerfs.
Game developers trying to keep evryone on the same server, wich in turn ruins all the fun for everyone, because you simply can't please everyone within the same community.
Take Tera for example, there are pve server and pve rp server, if you join rp server, it is not any different in dificulty, rp server npc's should be as dificult as dungeon npc's alone with loot, so people who want to rp would realy have to look for long term group, and also loot system in Tera is bad, I like how GW2 did with their loot system.
When I stepped into my first 3-D "virtual world" 11 years ago, everything was new and amazing and incredible ! Oh, the delight and wonder of that first "go and kill 10 rats" quest....
However, 11 years on and 770,481 rats later (or crabs or Corellian butterflies or goblins or whatever), the magic has worn off somewhat. There's no mystery and excitement in the game mechanics anymore, we have all spent 1000's of hours doing basically the same things in a variety of games in a variety of genre's.
When you fired your first EVER fireball at a mob, it was glorious. But when you launch your first fireball at a mob in MMORPG #12, you'll probably notice one or more of the following:
the fireball spell effect in game #10 was more spectacular than this
this fireball does more damage than the one in game #7 at this character level, but here you're rooted while casting (game #11 had a really cool casting-on-the-move system)
in this game you don't have to watch your mana levels (like you had to in games #1 to 9), but there's a really irritating GCD which has a crippling effect on your DPS (in game #1 you probably didn't have a clue what GCD or DPS meant for at least the first month)
This.
If you ask me we all deep down inside want to relive that initial feeling we had upon discovering MMO's and setting foot in them for the very first time. That first experience will always be the most magical and all the experiences with other mmo's to try and rekindle this feeling have just about done the opposite.
You can never go back to that first moment of amazement when you realised all the things possible in that one game and thus we will always crave that one experience that will beat that initial feeling while never quite getting there. Alas we are all doomed.
My feeling is that mmorpgs are a product, and products have lifecycles. However, mmorpgs, like real world corporations, have the option of "drinking from the fountain of youth" (prof. Norcio, Lynn U. MBA 645 Managing for Financial Performance).
I've spent nearly 10 years and over 1200 hours in Vendetta Online, and definitely do not regret the experience. It's partly because of the way the developers support their players, are open to feedback, and maintain a transparent business model.
Addiction is a serious enemy, but self-awareness is a powerful tool. Each person has to answer that question for him or herself, I think. I also lol'ed at Icewhite's post. Great stuff, man.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
You want to know why there is a different level of expectation between an MMO and a FPS (or any other genre for that matter)?
It's because the average MMO requires hundreds of hours of time to experience. An FPS you can roll through the single player in a matter of hours. I think the longest FPS I ever played was Halflife 2, not counting the added "chapters". The FPS also has the advantage of turn-on, turn-off multiplayer. Want to be a sniper? Grab a gun. Want to be a medic? Here's a kit. Then you play for a few hours and you can turn it off. Sure, there might be achievements, there might be a new rifle you can get for achieving a set number of kills, but there is no long lasting commitment. You probably play as well 50 hours in as you did at 5.
MMOs, on the other hand, reward time. You can't compete in almost every MMO as a newbie with or against another player who's dumped months of time into his character. On top of which you can't even experience all of the content in just a few days (at least you would hope not).
I have a feeling that most people who end up feeling like they just can't commit are really just burnt out. The idea of spending 100-200 hours casting the same spell or striking with some blunt instrument just to get to the maximum level is exhausting. Plus, the way that most of the "hardcore" MMOers out there approach their game of choice is to gorge themselves on them in just one to two weeks upon release. It's like "Spaghetti? I love Spaghetti! Let me eat Spaghetti for two weeks straight!" until the inevitable "Man, I am so done eating spaghetti. I wish I had something else to eat." That might not be so obvious on your first MMO, but come the fifth or tenth, you shouldn't be so naive.
Face facts. We are our own worst enemies. At least it's just MMOs and not cars. Cars are expensive.
I have a command center too and i have that annoying void in my life that can only be filled with an mmorpg. Reality punches really hard this days, specially when we are so eager to scape from it. Times have changed and we seek out that spark that life has bedeaf us with a computer. Its sad.
Well I agree that todays MMORPG's are lacking a lot of what we got in the good old MMORPG's like Meridian 59, Ultima Online and Asheron's Call to mention a few of my past MMO's
I have fond memories of all the guessing I had to do to solve some of the quests, one actually had to use the little grey ones up in ones head back then.
And the complex crafting systems that had so many layers hidden away with recipies that you could only get by share luck. Sometimes you were the only to poses the recipe. That made me feel important to the shard I played on, and that you could actually influence the econimics in the game with your crafted items.
But I am also really happy to see all the MMO's on the market to chose from. Since it is my favorite genre. There is so many MMO's to explore and enjoy for a brief moment. Because most of them cant keep my interest for more then a few months to a maximum of a year. I always end up with a feeling that todays MMO's are a slimmed version and a mashed up MMO based on some of the past MMO's I have played. They just taken some of the best parts and fine tuned them to fit in there own creation. But in the end they end up with a diluted and boring MMO with no longterm goal. Atleast that is how I feel. Though I will always play MMO's and keep looking for a MMO that I will enjoy for a good while(that will say more then 9 years).
Some other MMO's that sparked my eager to explore and experience the wonders of that world were Neocron Onlline, Dark Age of Camelot, Vanilla WoW, Rift, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online.
Today I have turned into a MMO tourist in search for that perfect MMO to have in my life as a long time companion.
So what do I have to look forward to then? well at least for me these MMO's have caught my attention.
I am also in the same boat as you. I have become that MMORPG vagrant once I devoured every piece of World of Warcraft there was, now constantly searching for that same mystifying experience. But as mentioned, much of the allure is gone. After being a long term MMO veteran, starting a new one is quite dull.
I started towards MMO's with a combination of Oblivion and Diablo 2. The great customization options in fantasy worlds, one with great story, the other with action combat, but I sought after a persistent, massive open world and I found that in WoW. When I first started however I was completely new to the genre and had to figure out the progression paths myself: talent trees, questing, PvP, holy trinity, auction houses, raiding, arenas. Just the immensity of the experience at first is great. But once you master all of those aspects and look to other MMOs you realize that that's all there is.
In trying numerous other F2P, B2P and subscription MMO's from indie studios and AAA studio alike I've found two things: a) what it is that I look for in a game and b) that MMO's all just try to emulate the same experience but just focus on one or two aspects (Guild Wars 2 with dynamic events/no raiding, SWTOR with full cutscenes in questing, TERA with full action combat. I could go on but that's all those games are, otherwise just the same old formula with different skins) that separate themselves from the others but then forget about the value of the others.
In the end what I am constantly searching for now is a game that a) Has an intricate, non-cliched, immersive story (Mass Effect), b) is Challenging throughout the entire experience (POE), c) has great customization (Vanilla/BC WoW with gear, TSW with lateral progression, POE with skill gems), d) has choices that matter (Mass Effect/SWTOR with story, POE with bandits, etc.) e) requires some sort of skill/dexterity (non-tab targetting), f) Is easy to find people to play with (PoE noticeboard, Dungeon Finder), g) has some serious production value (WoW), h) has some great teamplay mechanics (raiding/arenas) where you can mix and max compositions and some serious team work is involved rather than just faceroll.
As I've said, many games make some great advances in one or two of those areas but nothing comes close to that first experience which was WoW for me. Essentially my expectations in those areas started at zero and then WoW set the bar. Now I need a game that out does wow in the majority of those aspects or It just does not work for me.
i cant seem to find any mmo to play right now all the mmos that i would like to try or would play is either in cbt or the update that am waiting for is far away wat the fuck am i gonna play now mmos these days r total garbage
Definately feeling the same. I think some of it is the new MMO experience that all players feel with that first game. And yet I wonder how much of our eternal search is based on some of the shared design decisions made by almost all devs these days.
1. Games must be so easy that even the dumbest WOW player can reach max level and do everything the game has to offer...
2. Games must advance so quickly that hardcore players reach max level within the first week and wonder what game they will destroy next week...
3. There can be no downtime or need for groups because people might try to talk to one another...
4. There can't be a death penalty/risk or good players might feel justly rewarded and no one could rush through a dungeon without knowing what they are doing...
5. Uniqueness is our enemy since Johnny might complain how Bob's shiny fork is cooler than his spoon...
6. Even though we told you this was your world we can't let you make any changes to it because you are the fail...
7. Everything in the game must be researchable on fan sites or players might have to use the evil grey matter....besides statics are much cheaper than dynamics...
8. Our game must compete against all other MMOs inculding WOW by copying all 50 of their ideas except for this one other thing over here that is special...and unique...and so mind-blowingly awesome that players will stay enthralled with it for all of 2 days...but hey we got your money! woot! woot!...
Nice article. I'm in pretty much the same position, always living in hope that the next big mmo will be "the one", a new world that I can immerse myself in for the long term.
I think I'm getting too fickle in my old age though and I wonder if I'd even be capable of setting down in another mmo these days. Back in the early days of EQ / AC / AO etc, the market was so much smaller. If a game wasn't perfect, you'd pretty much just live with it. Hell, the imperfections were part of the fun sometimes. They gave the games character.
These days though, even the little imperfections or absences can be enough to turn people off and they jump to the next game, always with an eye on 'the next big thing' coming down the line in the hope that those missing gaps will be filled in.
That's pretty much been my situation for the last few years. Things just don't seem to live up to the potential I inevitably (and involuntarily) impose on them. Yet still I live in hope...
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
This is not really that difficult to understand. Most games after Wow chose to ignore what people loved of wow and tried to get the popular IP to push the playability/purchasability of the game. I submit that the F2P model is popular becuase the games were not good enough to draw people in, not because people refuse to pay. I can't be the only one wanting to support a good game...am i??
if people wanted to play single player rpg's there are those games out there. people make a choice when looking at an MMO. The reason wow/eq etc were successful is not because there were only a few mmo's to play..but that people chose an MMO over say the 1player rpg, or rts, etc. Give the MMO'er and MMO to play, and they'll play it.
Oh..and of course.. Galactically stupid development decisions.. i.e. DDO NOT being 3 or 3.5 ed and set in Forgotten Realms, and NOT open world..gooooood lorddddd.....aarrrghghhhh.../cry
Comments
This is the best article I've read in a long time, mainly because I'm in the same boat.
No MMO these days seem to have depth, their communities suck and are generally over in a month or two.
I miss DAoC dearly, and had put it down to getting old(er) but every game since WoW Cata has been shallow, boring or not even a MMORPG (Yeah I'm looking at you mister GW2 the super mario arcade game wannabe!).
DAoC may have been a grind, but you had the feeling of doing something special. Ah well, back to Peggle or something until ArcheAge gets here.
No trials. No tricks. No traps. No EU-RP server. NO THANKS!
...10% Benevolence, 90% Arrogance in my case!
Yeah, I guess I feel quite exactly like that. I've tried out lots of MMOs, and me and one of my friends are still looking for that "one actually good" MMO. I don't even quite know what that MMO would be like, though. I guess I could maybe name three things that are wrong with most MMOs nowadays.
First mmo i've ever got into was Runescape when I was a kid, until later on i've moved on to other games and try them out, but some i could not get into. I was a poor kid unable to play most of the mmo games out there that require a subscription fee, my parents won't pay for it because they dislike being payed 15 bucks a month. I was unable to play the good games that was out that was awesome during the day.
Now in the modern world, after being layed-off of my first job for 5 months of working there, still struggling to get another job to move on to live, i finally was about to play certain games out there that requires a subscription fee or a certain amount of money. however there is a problem with todays games is that sometimes the game itself does not agree with me and my taste. i've been playing the new game called Defiance and sadly after doing repetitive quests out there, shooting up th same thing, the game gets harder and harder for me to solo and enjoy, and soon i've gave up on the game because of how hard it gotten for me, the weapons become weaker, and the fustruation causes me to quit the game.
I am mostly a solo-player, i don't usually play in groups unless i'm invited by people that i know of or part of my guild that i belong to. I enjoy questing alone so people don't rush me, reading the story to learn more about the game. If the game don't got an interesting story for me, then i just focus on trying to do the quests out there but i suffer from this feeling of repetitive quests that i dislike doing greatly. I dislike grinding monster to monster for xp, or to find a certain item, everytime i do this same quest, i feel bored out of my mind as i want to play for fun, not make it feel like it's work with hardly anything special. I dislike doing the same missions over and over just cause of that, and that's why i stop playing some games out there. World of Warcraft is an example of the reasons why i stop playing games that got repetitve quests called "dailies", where you sometimes get the same quest you just did the last 3 days ago, and you will do it again on the next day. After 2 - 3 weeks, i've stop doing dailies quest because it's no fun, it's feel like work as I am forced to do these quests to improve my reputation among the factions to unlock the gear i need to allow me to raid. In the end after withstanding the horrible grind, i've gone as far as i can until one day i've just had it with the boring system in the game, where the only thing that I can do in that game is either craft, PvP, Raid, and Quest.
After going though that, i've become a nomad again, trying to find a good game for me to stick to. A game that won't force me to do repetitive quests to unlock gear that is required me for me to raid a dungeon or a raid. Where there is plenty of things to do in the game besides just questing, getting gear, doing dungeon, and so on. I want a game that allows me to have a choice, a game that got lots of options for me to become, and i don't have to become a hero, i could become a trader, an architect, a hunter, and do grand things out there to help one another out. I want to turn a village into a city with a mighty castle and a beautiful architexture for all the buildings out there. I want to dig deep into the land, finding unknown gems that are not marked by other players, and saw new creatures that nobody else has seen before. I want to see a game that turns alive and see towns and villages, raided by intelligent AI that act human-ish, unable to exploit, and see other players find a challenge that is as smart as they are. There are many things i wish for to see in the online world of today, but sadly these wishes can hardly ever come true because developers these days are filled with greed, lack of knowledge, and lack the technology to do so.
We used to live in our own realm, a land of castles, they were windy and had few amenities, but did that bother us? It could take ages galloping around to reach a town, and you could bump into all sorts. As a lone knight you could right a few wrongs in the world, but you needed a fellowship to really make a difference. And this land, which you would die for was fought over by perfidious barons from far off realms. We ate beef of the bone a plenty and quaffed ale to wash it down.
Now we live in a rabbit warren, with little tunnels connecting use to the rest of our warren world. There are lots on amenities, why you scarcely have to leave your own burrow to play the game, and you certainly don’t have to talk to your rabbit neighbours. We eat our lettuce leaves and wonder what happened, how did we proud warriors become vegetarian care rabbits?
Do I compulsively seek out an experience that I can never capture again?
More relevant question is: If true; could you face it (the "never capture again" part) like an adult?
If not, denial is always an option. Someone else (faceless evil devs or SoullessCorp naturally) can be blamed, eternally.
And don't forget that next generation of players! Clearly, it's all their fault.
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.
When I stepped into my first 3-D "virtual world" 11 years ago, everything was new and amazing and incredible ! Oh, the delight and wonder of that first "go and kill 10 rats" quest....
However, 11 years on and 770,481 rats later (or crabs or Corellian butterflies or goblins or whatever), the magic has worn off somewhat. There's no mystery and excitement in the game mechanics anymore, we have all spent 1000's of hours doing basically the same things in a variety of games in a variety of genre's.
When you fired your first EVER fireball at a mob, it was glorious. But when you launch your first fireball at a mob in MMORPG #12, you'll probably notice one or more of the following:
Yes, yes, MMOs are more solo easyer, but I am not tallking about that, I say, that MMO developers should give more options, so all players could choose what they want without any nerfs.
Game developers trying to keep evryone on the same server, wich in turn ruins all the fun for everyone, because you simply can't please everyone within the same community.
Take Tera for example, there are pve server and pve rp server, if you join rp server, it is not any different in dificulty, rp server npc's should be as dificult as dungeon npc's alone with loot, so people who want to rp would realy have to look for long term group, and also loot system in Tera is bad, I like how GW2 did with their loot system.
This.
If you ask me we all deep down inside want to relive that initial feeling we had upon discovering MMO's and setting foot in them for the very first time. That first experience will always be the most magical and all the experiences with other mmo's to try and rekindle this feeling have just about done the opposite.
You can never go back to that first moment of amazement when you realised all the things possible in that one game and thus we will always crave that one experience that will beat that initial feeling while never quite getting there. Alas we are all doomed.
I've spent nearly 10 years and over 1200 hours in Vendetta Online, and definitely do not regret the experience. It's partly because of the way the developers support their players, are open to feedback, and maintain a transparent business model.
Addiction is a serious enemy, but self-awareness is a powerful tool. Each person has to answer that question for him or herself, I think. I also lol'ed at Icewhite's post. Great stuff, man.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
You want to know why there is a different level of expectation between an MMO and a FPS (or any other genre for that matter)?
It's because the average MMO requires hundreds of hours of time to experience. An FPS you can roll through the single player in a matter of hours. I think the longest FPS I ever played was Halflife 2, not counting the added "chapters". The FPS also has the advantage of turn-on, turn-off multiplayer. Want to be a sniper? Grab a gun. Want to be a medic? Here's a kit. Then you play for a few hours and you can turn it off. Sure, there might be achievements, there might be a new rifle you can get for achieving a set number of kills, but there is no long lasting commitment. You probably play as well 50 hours in as you did at 5.
MMOs, on the other hand, reward time. You can't compete in almost every MMO as a newbie with or against another player who's dumped months of time into his character. On top of which you can't even experience all of the content in just a few days (at least you would hope not).
I have a feeling that most people who end up feeling like they just can't commit are really just burnt out. The idea of spending 100-200 hours casting the same spell or striking with some blunt instrument just to get to the maximum level is exhausting. Plus, the way that most of the "hardcore" MMOers out there approach their game of choice is to gorge themselves on them in just one to two weeks upon release. It's like "Spaghetti? I love Spaghetti! Let me eat Spaghetti for two weeks straight!" until the inevitable "Man, I am so done eating spaghetti. I wish I had something else to eat." That might not be so obvious on your first MMO, but come the fifth or tenth, you shouldn't be so naive.
Face facts. We are our own worst enemies. At least it's just MMOs and not cars. Cars are expensive.
Well I agree that todays MMORPG's are lacking a lot of what we got in the good old MMORPG's like Meridian 59, Ultima Online and Asheron's Call to mention a few of my past MMO's
I have fond memories of all the guessing I had to do to solve some of the quests, one actually had to use the little grey ones up in ones head back then.
And the complex crafting systems that had so many layers hidden away with recipies that you could only get by share luck. Sometimes you were the only to poses the recipe. That made me feel important to the shard I played on, and that you could actually influence the econimics in the game with your crafted items.
But I am also really happy to see all the MMO's on the market to chose from. Since it is my favorite genre. There is so many MMO's to explore and enjoy for a brief moment. Because most of them cant keep my interest for more then a few months to a maximum of a year. I always end up with a feeling that todays MMO's are a slimmed version and a mashed up MMO based on some of the past MMO's I have played. They just taken some of the best parts and fine tuned them to fit in there own creation. But in the end they end up with a diluted and boring MMO with no longterm goal. Atleast that is how I feel. Though I will always play MMO's and keep looking for a MMO that I will enjoy for a good while(that will say more then 9 years).
Some other MMO's that sparked my eager to explore and experience the wonders of that world were Neocron Onlline, Dark Age of Camelot, Vanilla WoW, Rift, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online.
Today I have turned into a MMO tourist in search for that perfect MMO to have in my life as a long time companion.
So what do I have to look forward to then? well at least for me these MMO's have caught my attention.
I am also in the same boat as you. I have become that MMORPG vagrant once I devoured every piece of World of Warcraft there was, now constantly searching for that same mystifying experience. But as mentioned, much of the allure is gone. After being a long term MMO veteran, starting a new one is quite dull.
I started towards MMO's with a combination of Oblivion and Diablo 2. The great customization options in fantasy worlds, one with great story, the other with action combat, but I sought after a persistent, massive open world and I found that in WoW. When I first started however I was completely new to the genre and had to figure out the progression paths myself: talent trees, questing, PvP, holy trinity, auction houses, raiding, arenas. Just the immensity of the experience at first is great. But once you master all of those aspects and look to other MMOs you realize that that's all there is.
In trying numerous other F2P, B2P and subscription MMO's from indie studios and AAA studio alike I've found two things: a) what it is that I look for in a game and b) that MMO's all just try to emulate the same experience but just focus on one or two aspects (Guild Wars 2 with dynamic events/no raiding, SWTOR with full cutscenes in questing, TERA with full action combat. I could go on but that's all those games are, otherwise just the same old formula with different skins) that separate themselves from the others but then forget about the value of the others.
In the end what I am constantly searching for now is a game that a) Has an intricate, non-cliched, immersive story (Mass Effect), b) is Challenging throughout the entire experience (POE), c) has great customization (Vanilla/BC WoW with gear, TSW with lateral progression, POE with skill gems), d) has choices that matter (Mass Effect/SWTOR with story, POE with bandits, etc.) e) requires some sort of skill/dexterity (non-tab targetting), f) Is easy to find people to play with (PoE noticeboard, Dungeon Finder), g) has some serious production value (WoW), h) has some great teamplay mechanics (raiding/arenas) where you can mix and max compositions and some serious team work is involved rather than just faceroll.
As I've said, many games make some great advances in one or two of those areas but nothing comes close to that first experience which was WoW for me. Essentially my expectations in those areas started at zero and then WoW set the bar. Now I need a game that out does wow in the majority of those aspects or It just does not work for me.
Definately feeling the same. I think some of it is the new MMO experience that all players feel with that first game. And yet I wonder how much of our eternal search is based on some of the shared design decisions made by almost all devs these days.
1. Games must be so easy that even the dumbest WOW player can reach max level and do everything the game has to offer...
2. Games must advance so quickly that hardcore players reach max level within the first week and wonder what game they will destroy next week...
3. There can be no downtime or need for groups because people might try to talk to one another...
4. There can't be a death penalty/risk or good players might feel justly rewarded and no one could rush through a dungeon without knowing what they are doing...
5. Uniqueness is our enemy since Johnny might complain how Bob's shiny fork is cooler than his spoon...
6. Even though we told you this was your world we can't let you make any changes to it because you are the fail...
7. Everything in the game must be researchable on fan sites or players might have to use the evil grey matter....besides statics are much cheaper than dynamics...
8. Our game must compete against all other MMOs inculding WOW by copying all 50 of their ideas except for this one other thing over here that is special...and unique...and so mind-blowingly awesome that players will stay enthralled with it for all of 2 days...but hey we got your money! woot! woot!...
Adam
have you tried EVE Online? it really isn't like the impressions you get from reading the forums.
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
I think I'm getting too fickle in my old age though and I wonder if I'd even be capable of setting down in another mmo these days. Back in the early days of EQ / AC / AO etc, the market was so much smaller. If a game wasn't perfect, you'd pretty much just live with it. Hell, the imperfections were part of the fun sometimes. They gave the games character.
These days though, even the little imperfections or absences can be enough to turn people off and they jump to the next game, always with an eye on 'the next big thing' coming down the line in the hope that those missing gaps will be filled in.
That's pretty much been my situation for the last few years. Things just don't seem to live up to the potential I inevitably (and involuntarily) impose on them. Yet still I live in hope...
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
This is not really that difficult to understand. Most games after Wow chose to ignore what people loved of wow and tried to get the popular IP to push the playability/purchasability of the game. I submit that the F2P model is popular becuase the games were not good enough to draw people in, not because people refuse to pay. I can't be the only one wanting to support a good game...am i??
if people wanted to play single player rpg's there are those games out there. people make a choice when looking at an MMO. The reason wow/eq etc were successful is not because there were only a few mmo's to play..but that people chose an MMO over say the 1player rpg, or rts, etc. Give the MMO'er and MMO to play, and they'll play it.