Back in the original Call of Duty days, if there were asshats, or cheaters or racists, the way people dealt with them was to kick them off the server. Worked pretty well.
Not an MMO. Would never work in one, because players don't run the servers, and the AAA MMO has never been made where it would be in the developers interest to let the players run the servers.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Minecraft is not an MMO. Minecraft is not a combat-based game. Minecraft does not have built-in public chat channels. Minecraft is not quest-driven. There is no endgame in Minecraft. Do I have to go on?
It's insanely popular. Profitable, and people play it longer than an mmorpg. It's accessible to all play styles and all ages on pretty much all platforms. Like MOBA's.
Why is it instantly an unsolvable problem? There is no compromise or solution, and that's it.
Don't look at "how" minecraft solved this problem, just dismiss it even though it's more of an mmo than most current AAA titles. It makes money too. It would make a lot more as an mmo, if you don't ruin the experience.
500 people on a player ran and player policed server would be better than official servers of 2000 people with all cool options turned off.
Minecraft attracts an entirely different type of player than MMOs do, they are different games and, like it or not, they have different problems. The solutions on Mincraft simply do not work on MMOs, sorry.
Originally posted by QuirhidSelf-policing has never worked and likely never will.
It only works when the majority are decent people with realistic expectations and agree on how things should be run. That's just not the case in most games.
Yup. If there are no systems in place to prevent acting like an @sshat, most people will act like @sshats. The idea that people can police themselves seems like a good one, because it happens in the real world. Even the Wild West had relatively few murders compared to a modern day city because people had to police themselves, but in an MMORPG the environment just isn't the same. People really just aren't trained to police themselves without all the social queues and real consequences* that exist in the real world.
* Real vs Virtual, not Real as in Harsh.
Back in the original Call of Duty days, if there were asshats, or cheaters or racists, the way people dealt with them was to kick them off the server. Worked pretty well.
And that's great if you have the power to do it, but when you have no power (as is the case in most MMOs), or you are not in the majority (as is the case in most MMOs), then kicking people off servers really isn't a solution.
Originally posted by QuirhidSelf-policing has never worked and likely never will.
It only works when the majority are decent people with realistic expectations and agree on how things should be run. That's just not the case in most games.
Yup. If there are no systems in place to prevent acting like an @sshat, most people will act like @sshats. The idea that people can police themselves seems like a good one, because it happens in the real world. Even the Wild West had relatively few murders compared to a modern day city because people had to police themselves, but in an MMORPG the environment just isn't the same. People really just aren't trained to police themselves without all the social queues and real consequences* that exist in the real world.
* Real vs Virtual, not Real as in Harsh.
Back in the original Call of Duty days, if there were asshats, or cheaters or racists, the way people dealt with them was to kick them off the server. Worked pretty well.
And that's great if you have the power to do it, but when you have no power (as is the case in most MMOs), or you are not in the majority (as is the case in most MMOs), then kicking people off servers really isn't a solution.
The solution would be giving that power to the players somehow. Let me guess, it can never work ?
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Originally posted by QuirhidSelf-policing has never worked and likely never will.
It only works when the majority are decent people with realistic expectations and agree on how things should be run. That's just not the case in most games.
Yup. If there are no systems in place to prevent acting like an @sshat, most people will act like @sshats. The idea that people can police themselves seems like a good one, because it happens in the real world. Even the Wild West had relatively few murders compared to a modern day city because people had to police themselves, but in an MMORPG the environment just isn't the same. People really just aren't trained to police themselves without all the social queues and real consequences* that exist in the real world.
* Real vs Virtual, not Real as in Harsh.
Back in the original Call of Duty days, if there were asshats, or cheaters or racists, the way people dealt with them was to kick them off the server. Worked pretty well.
And that's great if you have the power to do it, but when you have no power (as is the case in most MMOs), or you are not in the majority (as is the case in most MMOs), then kicking people off servers really isn't a solution.
The solution would be giving that power to the players somehow. Let me guess, it can never work ?
I don't think you need the power to kick players off the server, you just need the power to "harm" them for doing what they do. "Harm" meaning give them a real loss in the game, a loss that makes them think maybe it's not worth it. By doing so, you also cripple their ability to do more, so it's not really only forcing them to stop as much as taking away their ability to continue effectively.
To me, there's game play in that. The game can not only give decent players recourse, but add the game play of acting that out. Turing abusive and negative players into "content".
Well, on topic I find it funny that you aren't excited for EQN, since in terms of the list of things in the OP you were asking why you couldn't do, it at least claims to be providing most of them. And your closing about switching to straight console gaming is a little odd, since consoles offer even less of what you say you are after than pc games do.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
"I have been trying to pin point the problem for over a year now. I think there is three major problems 1) Myself: MMO's and Online RPG's have become somewhat 'I've done this before feeling. 2) The games are now designed to sell boxes, and pressured by developers and not build to be a long term game (6 months+) 3) Games are no longer being designed uniquely and are instead sticking with already done content and methods AKA 'Cloning' ideas."
Whether you like the idea or not, a system that allows players to control "law" inside their game would certainly make a change to that which you find wrong with games today.
I didn't respond earlier to your post topic because I sensed that you really don't want change, like so many other gamers. You're bored with the sameness, but until you can accept something different (you and the many others) you'll never see anything else.
And that, my friend, is what's really wrong with MMOs.
"I have been trying to pin point the problem for over a year now. I think there is three major problems 1) Myself: MMO's and Online RPG's have become somewhat 'I've done this before feeling. 2) The games are now designed to sell boxes, and pressured by developers and not build to be a long term game (6 months+) 3) Games are no longer being designed uniquely and are instead sticking with already done content and methods AKA 'Cloning' ideas."
Whether you like the idea or not, a system that allows players to control "law" inside their game would certainly make a change to that which you find wrong with games today.
I didn't respond earlier to your post topic because I sensed that you really don't want change, like so many other gamers. You're bored with the sameness, but until you can accept something different (you and the many others) you'll never see anything else.
And that, my friend, is what's really wrong with MMOs.
And I pointed out that allowing the players to police the game only works if the majority of players, or the ones with the power, want the same things you want. If you have a minority view, as I seem to have, then having the players run the game won't get the desired results.
Well, on topic I find it funny that you aren't excited for EQN, since in terms of the list of things in the OP you were asking why you couldn't do, it at least claims to be providing most of them. And your closing about switching to straight console gaming is a little odd, since consoles offer even less of what you say you are after than pc games do.
I like what they claim EQN will be, but I'm not excited about it.
Warhammer Online's pitches made you want to play the game.
AOC promised a mature MMO with lots of content, true siege warfare and revolutionary combat
SWTOR promised a next gen MMO with an immersive storyline and lots of twists on the tried and true formula.
RIFT promised an expansion of the dynamic events and showed zonewide invasions where everyone went to an all out war
GW2 claimed their combat system would revolutionize things. Removing the holy trinity and all the traditional questhubs at the same time. Could anything be better?
FF14 promised not to suck this time
Wildstar promised.. I don't know what the fuck it promised anymore I fell asleep 8 levels into the beta as I was sent on killquest #25 in questhub #3.
I can't get excited anymore. Most of these games delivered on the one of two features that sounded exciting about it. All of them had something to love. But they all have something in common too. They lack reasons to stay. Lack of endgame, trivial content, boring questing, broken Pvp, nullifying 95% of the zones made as all the high levels are in 1 zone. They all failed. Not commercially, not critically either, but in my eyes, and many with me, they failed to deliver the promises they made pre-launch. They failed to live up to my hope.
And I'm through checking my inbox for beta keys. I'm through listening to podcasts and reading features for 6 months. So many disappointments, so many failures.
So yay, what's next. Elder Scrolls? Everquest Next? Can you really get excited AGAIN about an MMO that's not out after the previous 8 let you down?
Over time, the MMO game experience and 'progression' has drifted more and more toward a sort of auto-pilot process where you never really earn or feel anything because you are never at risk of losing anything. It's become a very flat experience.
The satisfaction of surviving dangerous situations and overcoming great odds cannot be experienced in a game system where nothing can truly go wrong.
There has to actually be meaningful reasons to want to avoid death, or it all becomes a routine, meaningless and uncontested accumulation of numbers since the actual gameplay in most MMO's is very basic and unexciting compared to other genre's. There has to be real danger to your character and items to compensate for this and keep you truly engaged.
Now, this paradigm shift toward no-risk MMO's occurred as a result of all the short-sighted people wailing about someone looting their body, instantly playing the victim, without realizing that they could put themselves on the other side of the coin in the future, and that this back-and-forth interplay is at the core of one hell of an entertaining online experience.
It took me awhile to come to these realizations after trying to figure out why I wasn't getting hooked on MMO's of the modern era like Rift, SWTOR, GW2 etc. It's because there is nothing to hook onto, there's just a shallow illusion and once you see past the illusion, there's no going back. It's up to developers to put the magic back in MMO's, and this will largely be dependent on their willingness to let go.
I've been gaming than most people on this site been alive. I have yet to see an mmorpg release that had the depth and freedom like Ultima Online, Everquest and the such. The last great mmorpg was Star Wars Galaxies for 4 months after it's original public release then the devs killed that title. Everything after that was just bland, cartoony and lame. Enter the F2P business model and companies discovered they make more cash on this type than the subscription base model.
Advancing further down the road and all you see being churned out are F2P themepark on rail games. What I mean by themepark on rails is everything is automated for you. A good example is the re-release of City of Steam:Arkadia, what it is called now. Just click on anything in the quest panel and it auto-navigates you to that point. Then you have the dailies and all the other glitter garbage. Yeah yeah there is a ton of examples I'm just saying.
Now I find myself looking for co-op games that can offer more than any mmorpg's out there since I given up almost on that genre. I'm not alone I've read countless post of gamers who feel the same and are fed up with the current garbage.
I have no answers or solutions to this issue other than I can only control what I play. No one can make everyone else quit playing these games or play some other mmorpg. Some people actually like these new type of games but to each their own.
I know for a fact one guy in City of Steam blew $1400 in cash just to get to the top in City of Steam...$1400! No I don't play that game, I tried it, they changed it for the worse and I quit. I tried to give it a chance since the game market is stale but I couldn't take it. $1400 can buy one hell of a gaming PC and this guy blew it all on this game hence pay to win.
Now enter all this early access BS going on especially in Steam and the market gets worse. All these 8-bit graphic games being churned out WTF! I believe in moving forward not backwards. We are talking about 1980's graphics and people are eating it up. That time has come and gone and is a disgrace to the new computer hardware.
I go out and buy a $300 and up graphic's card to play an 8-bit piece of !@#$....REALLY?????
Ok sorry got carried away started ranting. I'm just sick of the gaming market right now.
The last great mmorpg was Star Wars Galaxies for 4 months after it's original public release then the devs killed that title.
You mean when the devs fixed the own all creature handler profession by not allowing them to have three alpha mobs under their control at once?
Yea that plugging of a major exploit was such a terrible blow to game play...
Most players wouldn't know how to design a game if their life depended on it.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Everytime I get a bit nostalgic about "oldschool" MMO, I read this page .
"Not to say that my basic thoughts about these games hasn't changed drastically since running IPY. As a player, you do think you're always right, and you simply can't see why you wouldn't be. I did that for years, I know all about it. But when you're responsible for the game, you have to take everyone into consideration and do your best to do things for the better of the game, and all of the players in it. Not just for each individual group who thinks they're right. Because they're all right in their own way, but in the end it's the game that needs to be worried about first and foremost.
One thing I have definitely changed my tune on is free for all PKing and uncurbed griefing. I will admit that there was a time that I believed there should be no checks and balances put in place to punish these players or keep them in line. The other players would police their world.
Well, unfortunately it simply doesn't work out like that. Especially on IPY where such things were so rampant.
And the actions themselves weren't a problem. It was always how it was done. At such a frequency, at such a rate, and in such an uncaring style. A lot of these people truly did not care about the game. A lot of these people truly were, even admittedly, out to hurt the game as much as they could. If they didn't like a change, or didn't like something that happened - it's time to ruin the game for everyone else. A selfish attitude fit for the tantrums of a five year old, but it's what happens nonetheless. Basically, as the person running the game, you're being blackmailed into making the shitheads happy at every turn, or they'll do a bunch of really fucked up shit to spite you and your game for the fact that you're paying attention to another child.. I mean, uhm, player. This obviously cannot happen. Neither can you have people abusing every freedom they've given (and often times going out of the game to meet their terribly sad needs in this respect) every time something doesn't go their way, nor can you find yourself pandering to the rusty side of the coin at every turn for fear of the malicious actions they'll pull if you don't.
The simple solution?
Don't attract these players. Make the game completely unappealing to them.
That's what creates a lot of the games you see today that you have no interest in playing. It's not people being stupid carebears - it's people not wanting to put up with the crap that people like the people who played IPY bring to the table. Your actions bring this upon yourselves, and you cause your own misery. Every time.
Do you honestly think that player freedoms are removed or simply not included in a game because people are "faggots"? Not by a long shot. It's because you are.
There, I said it. It's because you are.
I've seen entire guilds comprised of nothing but people who wanted to do as much damage to everyone and everything around them as possible. They wanted to destroy the game. That was their goal. It was the only game that'd ALLOW them to do this, so why were they doing it?
I can't get excited anymore. Most of these games delivered on the one of two features that sounded exciting about it. All of them had something to love. But they all have something in common too. They lack reasons to stay. Lack of endgame, trivial content, boring questing, broken Pvp, nullifying 95% of the zones made as all the high levels are in 1 zone. They all failed. Not commercially, not critically either, but in my eyes, and many with me, they failed to deliver the promises they made pre-launch. They failed to live up to my hope.
And I'm through checking my inbox for beta keys. I'm through listening to podcasts and reading features for 6 months. So many disappointments, so many failures.
So yay, what's next. Elder Scrolls? Everquest Next? Can you really get excited AGAIN about an MMO that's not out after the previous 8 let you down?
Maybe the problem isn't that the games lack reasons to stay. Maybe the problem is people expecting a reason to stay. When did it become so important to find a single game that is so all-consuming that you never stop playing it? What is so bad about enjoying the content you like in a game until you've completed all of that content, and then going and doing something else with your time? There doesn't need to be "one game to rule them all."
I have never been let down by a MMO, because I've never gone into one with the expectation that it will be my go-to priority for all my free time for the next decade. If I get as many hours of enjoyment out of a game as I've spent dollars on it, I feel like I am doing pretty well, and I can't think of any MMO that has failed that test. Though I can think of some single player games that have. (I'm looking at you, Diablo 3)
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
"I have been trying to pin point the problem for over a year now. I think there is three major problems 1) Myself: MMO's and Online RPG's have become somewhat 'I've done this before feeling. 2) The games are now designed to sell boxes, and pressured by developers and not build to be a long term game (6 months+) 3) Games are no longer being designed uniquely and are instead sticking with already done content and methods AKA 'Cloning' ideas."
Whether you like the idea or not, a system that allows players to control "law" inside their game would certainly make a change to that which you find wrong with games today.
I didn't respond earlier to your post topic because I sensed that you really don't want change, like so many other gamers. You're bored with the sameness, but until you can accept something different (you and the many others) you'll never see anything else.
And that, my friend, is what's really wrong with MMOs.
And I pointed out that allowing the players to police the game only works if the majority of players, or the ones with the power, want the same things you want. If you have a minority view, as I seem to have, then having the players run the game won't get the desired results.
But you're not letting the players run the game. What you are doing is giving them the power to enforce the game you want to produce.
Your point about the majority of players being on the same page as you (the developer) is spot on though. But I can also twist that from the point of pre-release and say that you are attracting a majority of players who want the same thing you want in your game.
We already had the wide open PvP. We already had the total lack of meaningful PvP (as in: to the game world and not meaningful just for a ladder of points and badges. Meaningful in the same way to the world as wide open PvP is, it matters, it counts, etc.).
We had both in multiple versions.
1) The first, players were driven away en mass. Exactly because they had no recourse and were stuck being victims.
2) The second, players are tired of. And the lack of meaning in the game world is why, I strongly believe. The meaning is gone because those sorts of games (Themeparks) are not worlds, they are directed experiences. They aren't even games, you are designed to "win". And in effect there's nothing else you can do other than to not play.
Like I said, until gamers are willing to accept something different, they will be stuck with more of the same.
I played Ultima Online and a slew of others around that time, but spent most of it in Everquest and World of Warcraft.
Ultima Online was a frustrating game, but that's part of what go you emotionally involved in it. You banded together with others to survive being killed by PvPers and to learn different things you could do in the world. There was so much you could do and little of it was explained to you. It was frustrating dying and losing all the stuff you spent hours to get. That's probably what pushed me to Everquest in the first place.
Everquest was pretty much a clone of tabletop D&D 2nd edition without quests and a dungeon master. It had a lot of the same spells, races, classes, and skills. Some things were different, but it's probably as close as you will find. It is pretty clear it was made by people who loved D&D games/books at the time. I loved everything about the game. D&D 2nd edition is probably my favorite ruleset. I loved how spells had long durations. You could levitate, heal, cast illusion spells to turn into different races and disguise yourself to enter other races home towns. There were spells to make you move faster, turn into wolves, and do many other things. It was a great time just running around the world and exploring different places and listening to what other people were saying and watching what other people were doing. Eventually I started to look at the game as just getting to the max level and having the best gear. It was no longer about the exploration and adventure. The grind burned me out and is why I left. I should have never played the game in that manner. I should have just taken my time and enjoyed the journey more. Thats what led me to Warcraft and the start of the downfall of MMORPGs.
World of Warcraft was great for me after years of playing Everquest. There were quest all over the place and leveling up was easy solo with any class. I had a lot of fun there at first, but after a year or two of playing I started to realize that the game had it's own grind and was more and more lacking in a lot of ways. The new grind was doing generic quests over and again. Basically you would go from one quest hub to another completing quests to level up. This is the supposed content that is so much fun. Unfortunately pretty much anyone could follow the quests once they added the GPS tracking system to the game. After that most MMOs and even single player games followed suit. Now every game has it's own set of generic quests and GPS tracking system. There are no puzzles to solve. There is no room for player imagination. You are just strung along like a mindless zombie. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until it was too late.
Now every game is the same. You have quest hubs and sometimes random quests. Most of them are fairly easy to complete. There is no longer any exploration. It has been completely removed form games with GPS and maps. Sometimes you don't realize what you had when you were playing those old games until it is to late. You are stuck in a world of generic theme park games that are all free to play and aimed at getting you to spend as much money as possible. The sad thing is making these generic quests to string people along actually cost a lot of time and money. Between that, voice acting, adding a GPS system, etc. there is no time to worry about making a virtual world.
I played Ultima Online and a slew of others around that time, but spent most of it in Everquest and World of Warcraft.
Ultima Online was a frustrating game, but that's part of what go you emotionally involved in it. You banded together with others to survive being killed by PvPers and to learn different things you could do in the world. There was so much you could do and little of it was explained to you. It was frustrating dying and losing all the stuff you spent hours to get. That's probably what pushed me to Everquest in the first place.
Everquest was pretty much a clone of tabletop D&D 2nd edition without quests and a dungeon master. It had a lot of the same spells, races, classes, and skills. Some things were different, but it's probably as close as you will find. It is pretty clear it was made by people who loved D&D games/books at the time. I loved everything about the game. D&D 2nd edition is probably my favorite ruleset. I loved how spells had long durations. You could levitate, heal, cast illusion spells to turn into different races and disguise yourself to enter other races home towns. There were spells to make you move faster, turn into wolves, and do many other things. It was a great time just running around the world and exploring different places and listening to what other people were saying and watching what other people were doing. Eventually I started to look at the game as just getting to the max level and having the best gear. It was no longer about the exploration and adventure. The grind burned me out and is why I left. I should have never played the game in that manner. I should have just taken my time and enjoyed the journey more. Thats what led me to Warcraft and the start of the downfall of MMORPGs.
World of Warcraft was great for me after years of playing Everquest. There were quest all over the place and leveling up was easy solo with any class. I had a lot of fun there at first, but after a year or two of playing I started to realize that the game had it's own grind and was more and more lacking in a lot of ways. The new grind was doing generic quests over and again. Basically you would go from one quest hub to another completing quests to level up. This is the supposed content that is so much fun. Unfortunately pretty much anyone could follow the quests once they added the GPS tracking system to the game. After that most MMOs and even single player games followed suit. Now every game has it's own set of generic quests and GPS tracking system. There are no puzzles to solve. There is no room for player imagination. You are just strung along like a mindless zombie. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until it was too late.
Now every game is the same. You have quest hubs and sometimes random quests. Most of them are fairly easy to complete. There is no longer any exploration. It has been completely removed form games with GPS and maps. Sometimes you don't realize what you had when you were playing those old games until it is to late. You are stuck in a world of generic theme park games that are all free to play and aimed at getting you to spend as much money as possible. The sad thing is making these generic quests to string people along actually cost a lot of time and money. Between that, voice acting, adding a GPS system, etc. there is no time to worry about making a virtual world.
Take off the rose colored glasses. I enjoyed EverQuest too, but what you are essentially praising it for here is not having features. We explored largely because, for the most part, killing and exploring were the only activities in the game, and the exploring was often more interesting. Not because it was some epic, well designed exploration system, but because the combat was, well, boring. Let's face it, WoW didn't beat the competition at the time because it did anything exceptionally well. It beat the competition because there was specific stuff to do. People could log in, and actually experience content, rather than wander around aimlessly hoping to bump into something interesting. The content was well below the quality level of most single player RPGs, but in the online space the mere fact that it was there was unprecedented.
Vanilla EverQuest provided a great setting, and cool classes and races. Unfortunately, it stopped there. You are right that it largely emulated D&D, but the thing that makes or breaks a D&D experience is the quality of the Dungeon Master, whether in the form of an actual person acting live in that role, or developed content to experience. And it didn't give us one.
You're correct that now most MMOs are structurally very similar. But that is not, in and of itself, a criticism. As long as the structure does an efficient job of presenting the content, it doesn't technically need to change. It is possible for a "theme park" to provide a fantastic experience. Not the same kind of fantastic experience that a sandbox would provide, of course, but still great. Quests are not bad, if while completing them you have fun. Voice acting is not bad, if the dialogue is well written. Easy is not bad, if it means in five hours you get to experience five hours of content, rather than repeating the same hour five times in order to finish it once.
Even if one agreed with all your criticisms, your doom and gloom is premature. TSW is out right now, and has lots of puzzles. EverQuest Next and Wildstar, if they live up to even half of the developer promises, should thoroughly scratch your exploration itch.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I played Ultima Online and a slew of others around that time, but spent most of it in Everquest and World of Warcraft.
Ultima Online was a frustrating game, but that's part of what go you emotionally involved in it. You banded together with others to survive being killed by PvPers and to learn different things you could do in the world. There was so much you could do and little of it was explained to you. It was frustrating dying and losing all the stuff you spent hours to get. That's probably what pushed me to Everquest in the first place.
Everquest was pretty much a clone of tabletop D&D 2nd edition without quests and a dungeon master. It had a lot of the same spells, races, classes, and skills. Some things were different, but it's probably as close as you will find. It is pretty clear it was made by people who loved D&D games/books at the time. I loved everything about the game. D&D 2nd edition is probably my favorite ruleset. I loved how spells had long durations. You could levitate, heal, cast illusion spells to turn into different races and disguise yourself to enter other races home towns. There were spells to make you move faster, turn into wolves, and do many other things. It was a great time just running around the world and exploring different places and listening to what other people were saying and watching what other people were doing. Eventually I started to look at the game as just getting to the max level and having the best gear. It was no longer about the exploration and adventure. The grind burned me out and is why I left. I should have never played the game in that manner. I should have just taken my time and enjoyed the journey more. Thats what led me to Warcraft and the start of the downfall of MMORPGs.
World of Warcraft was great for me after years of playing Everquest. There were quest all over the place and leveling up was easy solo with any class. I had a lot of fun there at first, but after a year or two of playing I started to realize that the game had it's own grind and was more and more lacking in a lot of ways. The new grind was doing generic quests over and again. Basically you would go from one quest hub to another completing quests to level up. This is the supposed content that is so much fun. Unfortunately pretty much anyone could follow the quests once they added the GPS tracking system to the game. After that most MMOs and even single player games followed suit. Now every game has it's own set of generic quests and GPS tracking system. There are no puzzles to solve. There is no room for player imagination. You are just strung along like a mindless zombie. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until it was too late.
Now every game is the same. You have quest hubs and sometimes random quests. Most of them are fairly easy to complete. There is no longer any exploration. It has been completely removed form games with GPS and maps. Sometimes you don't realize what you had when you were playing those old games until it is to late. You are stuck in a world of generic theme park games that are all free to play and aimed at getting you to spend as much money as possible. The sad thing is making these generic quests to string people along actually cost a lot of time and money. Between that, voice acting, adding a GPS system, etc. there is no time to worry about making a virtual world.
Take off the rose colored glasses. I enjoyed EverQuest too, but what you are essentially praising it for here is not having features. We explored largely because, for the most part, killing and exploring were the only activities in the game, and the exploring was often more interesting. Not because it was some epic, well designed exploration system, but because the combat was, well, boring. Let's face it, WoW didn't beat the competition at the time because it did anything exceptionally well. It beat the competition because there was specific stuff to do. People could log in, and actually experience content, rather than wander around aimlessly hoping to bump into something interesting. The content was well below the quality level of most single player RPGs, but in the online space the mere fact that it was there was unprecedented.
Vanilla EverQuest provided a great setting, and cool classes and races. Unfortunately, it stopped there. You are right that it largely emulated D&D, but the thing that makes or breaks a D&D experience is the quality of the Dungeon Master, whether in the form of an actual person acting live in that role, or developed content to experience. And it didn't give us one.
You're correct that now most MMOs are structurally very similar. But that is not, in and of itself, a criticism. As long as the structure does an efficient job of presenting the content, it doesn't technically need to change. It is possible for a "theme park" to provide a fantastic experience. Not the same kind of fantastic experience that a sandbox would provide, of course, but still great. Quests are not bad, if while completing them you have fun. Voice acting is not bad, if the dialogue is well written. Easy is not bad, if it means in five hours you get to experience five hours of content, rather than repeating the same hour five times in order to finish it once.
Even if one agreed with all your criticisms, your doom and gloom is premature. TSW is out right now, and has lots of puzzles. EverQuest Next and Wildstar, if they live up to even half of the developer promises, should thoroughly scratch your exploration itch.
I have to disagree with you. For instance I went back and played Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Legend of Zelda for Nintendo recently and still enjoyed all of those games. In fact I'd say they were better than many of the games today that have much better graphics.
You say EQ didn't have much to do, but I disagree. It's crafting system was more complex than most you see today. The Zones were setup with no clear path so exploring was a lot of fun. There were underwater dungeons, dungeons with lava, dungeons of slippery ice. Many of them were far more complex than anything you see today.
The main problem I see with MMOs now are they are very shallow single player experiences. You can get the same experience from a single player game like Skyrim, but it's a lot better. Even in Single player games the dialogue/story gets dull after a while. Do you really need more than a few GM directed events in a MMO to have fun? Can't you create you own stories that are better than whatever the devs are likely to come up with? I know when I was exploring the early MMOs I usually had an idea in my head of what was going on and what I was trying to roleplay. I didn't need a developer to tell me a story, show me where to go, or tell me what to do. IMO it was a lot better that way.
QUOTE: "Well, on topic I find it funny that you aren't excited for EQN, since in terms of the list of things in the OP you were asking why you couldn't do, it at least claims to be providing most of them. And your closing about switching to straight console gaming is a little odd, since consoles offer even less of what you say you are after than pc games do."
1) EQN appears to be more in line with GW2 and non traditional mechanics and horizontal gameplay. It may be good! But I really think its going to try to be cute and revoultionary like GW2 but really provide a dumbed down rewardless experience. Once again, I will try it before I completely condemn it.
2) Like mentioned CONSOLE games are just like MMOs NOW! They're linear, single player but guess what. Skyrim is way better than the crap we're getting, we're getting crappier skyrims with some online functions. I own a PS4, why? Because Diablo 3 was funner on console, and actually BETTER, I think MMOs will take a huge hit to the face if ESO and Diablo 3, etc keep improving for consoles, because PC and MMO experience isnt good enough to justify not using my PS4 now.
I have to disagree with you. For instance I went back and played Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Legend of Zelda for Nintendo recently and still enjoyed all of those games. In fact I'd say they were better than many of the games today that have much better graphics.
You say EQ didn't have much to do, but I disagree. It's crafting system was more complex than most you see today. The Zones were setup with no clear path so exploring was a lot of fun. There were underwater dungeons, dungeons with lava, dungeons of slippery ice. Many of them were far more complex than anything you see today.
The main problem I see with MMOs now are they are very shallow single player experiences. You can get the same experience from a single player game like Skyrim, but it's a lot better. Even in Single player games the dialogue/story gets dull after a while. Do you really need more than a few GM directed events in a MMO to have fun? Can't you create you own stories that are better than whatever the devs are likely to come up with? I know when I was exploring the early MMOs I usually had an idea in my head of what was going on and what I was trying to roleplay. I didn't need a developer to tell me a story, show me where to go, or tell me what to do. IMO it was a lot better that way.
It's extremely difficult to judge games you actually played when they first came out. It's impossible to know what you would think of them without the benefit of the nostalgia attached to your memories of when you first played them. I would play the original Zelda before almost any of the sequels, but if I had never played any Zelda game at all, and started playing it in 2013, I doubt I would last half an hour.
I am actually in the minority who would disagree with you about Skyrim. I don't think MMOs are trying to be an online Skyrim, I think Skyrim was trying to be an offline MMO. If you are paying attention to the narrative, you see that there is essentially no connection between any of the quest chains. Every quest line in that game could have been written by a different team that had zero knowledge of the work being done by any of the other teams. It's not one singleplayer game that takes a couple hundred hours to finish, it's a collection of different single player games using the same engine, no one of which takes any longer than twenty hours to finish, most of them far, far less than that. There are also what, two choices that actually branch the narrative at all, in the entire game? As an RPG, it's a sad joke. Even if a couple of the quest chains have fun stories.
Mini-rant over, but my point is that, in my opinion, the best stories are ones where the content is professionally developed, but the player has enough choice to *feel* like his actions are driving the narrative, even if they aren't. The problem with the narrative in most Bethesda games, and most MMOs, is that the player is nothing but a collection of stats slashing his/her way through NPCs to earn the next chunk of canned narrative that can only play out one way. Kill kill kill, cutscene (or text box). Rinse, repeat. Nary a choice in sight.
On the other hand, there are two problems with "player created" narrative. One is that the presentation quality just isn't there. A narrative which exists solely in chat channels and players' heads is never going to attain the polish level of professionally developed content. The other problem is that most players absolutely suck at creating a story that isn't complete crap.
I have hopes for the storybricks system in EQN. Fingers crossed.
Originally posted by Spector88
QUOTE: "Well, on topic I find it funny that you aren't excited for EQN, since in terms of the list of things in the OP you were asking why you couldn't do, it at least claims to be providing most of them. And your closing about switching to straight console gaming is a little odd, since consoles offer even less of what you say you are after than pc games do."
1) EQN appears to be more in line with GW2 and non traditional mechanics and horizontal gameplay. It may be good! But I really think its going to try to be cute and revoultionary like GW2 but really provide a dumbed down rewardless experience. Once again, I will try it before I completely condemn it.
2) Like mentioned CONSOLE games are just like MMOs NOW! They're linear, single player but guess what. Skyrim is way better than the crap we're getting, we're getting crappier skyrims with some online functions. I own a PS4, why? Because Diablo 3 was funner on console, and actually BETTER, I think MMOs will take a huge hit to the face if ESO and Diablo 3, etc keep improving for consoles, because PC and MMO experience isnt good enough to justify not using my PS4 now.
See above for my thoughts on Skyrim. As for Diablo 3, it would be hard for it not to be better, considering the PC version was an abyssmal pile of crap. But it was so bad there, I'm not even going to give the console version a chance.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Comments
Not an MMO. Would never work in one, because players don't run the servers, and the AAA MMO has never been made where it would be in the developers interest to let the players run the servers.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Minecraft attracts an entirely different type of player than MMOs do, they are different games and, like it or not, they have different problems. The solutions on Mincraft simply do not work on MMOs, sorry.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
And that's great if you have the power to do it, but when you have no power (as is the case in most MMOs), or you are not in the majority (as is the case in most MMOs), then kicking people off servers really isn't a solution.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
The solution would be giving that power to the players somehow. Let me guess, it can never work ?
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
I don't think you need the power to kick players off the server, you just need the power to "harm" them for doing what they do. "Harm" meaning give them a real loss in the game, a loss that makes them think maybe it's not worth it. By doing so, you also cripple their ability to do more, so it's not really only forcing them to stop as much as taking away their ability to continue effectively.
To me, there's game play in that. The game can not only give decent players recourse, but add the game play of acting that out. Turing abusive and negative players into "content".
Once upon a time....
how did we get to self policing? on topic people
Herding cats, man. Herding cats.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well, on topic I find it funny that you aren't excited for EQN, since in terms of the list of things in the OP you were asking why you couldn't do, it at least claims to be providing most of them. And your closing about switching to straight console gaming is a little odd, since consoles offer even less of what you say you are after than pc games do.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
To quote you from your OP:
"I have been trying to pin point the problem for over a year now. I think there is three major problems 1) Myself: MMO's and Online RPG's have become somewhat 'I've done this before feeling. 2) The games are now designed to sell boxes, and pressured by developers and not build to be a long term game (6 months+) 3) Games are no longer being designed uniquely and are instead sticking with already done content and methods AKA 'Cloning' ideas."
Whether you like the idea or not, a system that allows players to control "law" inside their game would certainly make a change to that which you find wrong with games today.
I didn't respond earlier to your post topic because I sensed that you really don't want change, like so many other gamers. You're bored with the sameness, but until you can accept something different (you and the many others) you'll never see anything else.
And that, my friend, is what's really wrong with MMOs.
Once upon a time....
And I pointed out that allowing the players to police the game only works if the majority of players, or the ones with the power, want the same things you want. If you have a minority view, as I seem to have, then having the players run the game won't get the desired results.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I like what they claim EQN will be, but I'm not excited about it.
Warhammer Online's pitches made you want to play the game.
AOC promised a mature MMO with lots of content, true siege warfare and revolutionary combat
SWTOR promised a next gen MMO with an immersive storyline and lots of twists on the tried and true formula.
RIFT promised an expansion of the dynamic events and showed zonewide invasions where everyone went to an all out war
GW2 claimed their combat system would revolutionize things. Removing the holy trinity and all the traditional questhubs at the same time. Could anything be better?
FF14 promised not to suck this time
Wildstar promised.. I don't know what the fuck it promised anymore I fell asleep 8 levels into the beta as I was sent on killquest #25 in questhub #3.
I can't get excited anymore. Most of these games delivered on the one of two features that sounded exciting about it. All of them had something to love. But they all have something in common too. They lack reasons to stay. Lack of endgame, trivial content, boring questing, broken Pvp, nullifying 95% of the zones made as all the high levels are in 1 zone. They all failed. Not commercially, not critically either, but in my eyes, and many with me, they failed to deliver the promises they made pre-launch. They failed to live up to my hope.
And I'm through checking my inbox for beta keys. I'm through listening to podcasts and reading features for 6 months. So many disappointments, so many failures.
So yay, what's next. Elder Scrolls? Everquest Next? Can you really get excited AGAIN about an MMO that's not out after the previous 8 let you down?
Over time, the MMO game experience and 'progression' has drifted more and more toward a sort of auto-pilot process where you never really earn or feel anything because you are never at risk of losing anything. It's become a very flat experience.
The satisfaction of surviving dangerous situations and overcoming great odds cannot be experienced in a game system where nothing can truly go wrong.
There has to actually be meaningful reasons to want to avoid death, or it all becomes a routine, meaningless and uncontested accumulation of numbers since the actual gameplay in most MMO's is very basic and unexciting compared to other genre's. There has to be real danger to your character and items to compensate for this and keep you truly engaged.
Now, this paradigm shift toward no-risk MMO's occurred as a result of all the short-sighted people wailing about someone looting their body, instantly playing the victim, without realizing that they could put themselves on the other side of the coin in the future, and that this back-and-forth interplay is at the core of one hell of an entertaining online experience.
It took me awhile to come to these realizations after trying to figure out why I wasn't getting hooked on MMO's of the modern era like Rift, SWTOR, GW2 etc. It's because there is nothing to hook onto, there's just a shallow illusion and once you see past the illusion, there's no going back. It's up to developers to put the magic back in MMO's, and this will largely be dependent on their willingness to let go.
@Spector88, I'm with you 100%
I've been gaming than most people on this site been alive. I have yet to see an mmorpg release that had the depth and freedom like Ultima Online, Everquest and the such. The last great mmorpg was Star Wars Galaxies for 4 months after it's original public release then the devs killed that title. Everything after that was just bland, cartoony and lame. Enter the F2P business model and companies discovered they make more cash on this type than the subscription base model.
Advancing further down the road and all you see being churned out are F2P themepark on rail games. What I mean by themepark on rails is everything is automated for you. A good example is the re-release of City of Steam:Arkadia, what it is called now. Just click on anything in the quest panel and it auto-navigates you to that point. Then you have the dailies and all the other glitter garbage. Yeah yeah there is a ton of examples I'm just saying.
Now I find myself looking for co-op games that can offer more than any mmorpg's out there since I given up almost on that genre. I'm not alone I've read countless post of gamers who feel the same and are fed up with the current garbage.
I have no answers or solutions to this issue other than I can only control what I play. No one can make everyone else quit playing these games or play some other mmorpg. Some people actually like these new type of games but to each their own.
I know for a fact one guy in City of Steam blew $1400 in cash just to get to the top in City of Steam...$1400! No I don't play that game, I tried it, they changed it for the worse and I quit. I tried to give it a chance since the game market is stale but I couldn't take it. $1400 can buy one hell of a gaming PC and this guy blew it all on this game hence pay to win.
Now enter all this early access BS going on especially in Steam and the market gets worse. All these 8-bit graphic games being churned out WTF! I believe in moving forward not backwards. We are talking about 1980's graphics and people are eating it up. That time has come and gone and is a disgrace to the new computer hardware.
I go out and buy a $300 and up graphic's card to play an 8-bit piece of !@#$....REALLY?????
Ok sorry got carried away started ranting. I'm just sick of the gaming market right now.
You mean when the devs fixed the own all creature handler profession by not allowing them to have three alpha mobs under their control at once?
Yea that plugging of a major exploit was such a terrible blow to game play...
Most players wouldn't know how to design a game if their life depended on it.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Everytime I get a bit nostalgic about "oldschool" MMO, I read this page .
"Not to say that my basic thoughts about these games hasn't changed drastically since running IPY. As a player, you do think you're always right, and you simply can't see why you wouldn't be. I did that for years, I know all about it. But when you're responsible for the game, you have to take everyone into consideration and do your best to do things for the better of the game, and all of the players in it. Not just for each individual group who thinks they're right. Because they're all right in their own way, but in the end it's the game that needs to be worried about first and foremost.
One thing I have definitely changed my tune on is free for all PKing and uncurbed griefing. I will admit that there was a time that I believed there should be no checks and balances put in place to punish these players or keep them in line. The other players would police their world.
Well, unfortunately it simply doesn't work out like that. Especially on IPY where such things were so rampant.
And the actions themselves weren't a problem. It was always how it was done. At such a frequency, at such a rate, and in such an uncaring style. A lot of these people truly did not care about the game. A lot of these people truly were, even admittedly, out to hurt the game as much as they could. If they didn't like a change, or didn't like something that happened - it's time to ruin the game for everyone else. A selfish attitude fit for the tantrums of a five year old, but it's what happens nonetheless. Basically, as the person running the game, you're being blackmailed into making the shitheads happy at every turn, or they'll do a bunch of really fucked up shit to spite you and your game for the fact that you're paying attention to another child.. I mean, uhm, player. This obviously cannot happen. Neither can you have people abusing every freedom they've given (and often times going out of the game to meet their terribly sad needs in this respect) every time something doesn't go their way, nor can you find yourself pandering to the rusty side of the coin at every turn for fear of the malicious actions they'll pull if you don't.
The simple solution?
Don't attract these players. Make the game completely unappealing to them.
That's what creates a lot of the games you see today that you have no interest in playing. It's not people being stupid carebears - it's people not wanting to put up with the crap that people like the people who played IPY bring to the table. Your actions bring this upon yourselves, and you cause your own misery. Every time.
Do you honestly think that player freedoms are removed or simply not included in a game because people are "faggots"? Not by a long shot. It's because you are.
There, I said it. It's because you are.
I've seen entire guilds comprised of nothing but people who wanted to do as much damage to everyone and everything around them as possible. They wanted to destroy the game. That was their goal. It was the only game that'd ALLOW them to do this, so why were they doing it?
Because they could.
There's a flaw in logic there somewhere."
Maybe the problem isn't that the games lack reasons to stay. Maybe the problem is people expecting a reason to stay. When did it become so important to find a single game that is so all-consuming that you never stop playing it? What is so bad about enjoying the content you like in a game until you've completed all of that content, and then going and doing something else with your time? There doesn't need to be "one game to rule them all."
I have never been let down by a MMO, because I've never gone into one with the expectation that it will be my go-to priority for all my free time for the next decade. If I get as many hours of enjoyment out of a game as I've spent dollars on it, I feel like I am doing pretty well, and I can't think of any MMO that has failed that test. Though I can think of some single player games that have. (I'm looking at you, Diablo 3)
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
But you're not letting the players run the game. What you are doing is giving them the power to enforce the game you want to produce.
Your point about the majority of players being on the same page as you (the developer) is spot on though. But I can also twist that from the point of pre-release and say that you are attracting a majority of players who want the same thing you want in your game.
We already had the wide open PvP. We already had the total lack of meaningful PvP (as in: to the game world and not meaningful just for a ladder of points and badges. Meaningful in the same way to the world as wide open PvP is, it matters, it counts, etc.).
We had both in multiple versions.
1) The first, players were driven away en mass. Exactly because they had no recourse and were stuck being victims.
2) The second, players are tired of. And the lack of meaning in the game world is why, I strongly believe. The meaning is gone because those sorts of games (Themeparks) are not worlds, they are directed experiences. They aren't even games, you are designed to "win". And in effect there's nothing else you can do other than to not play.
Like I said, until gamers are willing to accept something different, they will be stuck with more of the same.
Once upon a time....
I feel like I lost a life long hobby years ago.
I played Ultima Online and a slew of others around that time, but spent most of it in Everquest and World of Warcraft.
Ultima Online was a frustrating game, but that's part of what go you emotionally involved in it. You banded together with others to survive being killed by PvPers and to learn different things you could do in the world. There was so much you could do and little of it was explained to you. It was frustrating dying and losing all the stuff you spent hours to get. That's probably what pushed me to Everquest in the first place.
Everquest was pretty much a clone of tabletop D&D 2nd edition without quests and a dungeon master. It had a lot of the same spells, races, classes, and skills. Some things were different, but it's probably as close as you will find. It is pretty clear it was made by people who loved D&D games/books at the time. I loved everything about the game. D&D 2nd edition is probably my favorite ruleset. I loved how spells had long durations. You could levitate, heal, cast illusion spells to turn into different races and disguise yourself to enter other races home towns. There were spells to make you move faster, turn into wolves, and do many other things. It was a great time just running around the world and exploring different places and listening to what other people were saying and watching what other people were doing. Eventually I started to look at the game as just getting to the max level and having the best gear. It was no longer about the exploration and adventure. The grind burned me out and is why I left. I should have never played the game in that manner. I should have just taken my time and enjoyed the journey more. Thats what led me to Warcraft and the start of the downfall of MMORPGs.
World of Warcraft was great for me after years of playing Everquest. There were quest all over the place and leveling up was easy solo with any class. I had a lot of fun there at first, but after a year or two of playing I started to realize that the game had it's own grind and was more and more lacking in a lot of ways. The new grind was doing generic quests over and again. Basically you would go from one quest hub to another completing quests to level up. This is the supposed content that is so much fun. Unfortunately pretty much anyone could follow the quests once they added the GPS tracking system to the game. After that most MMOs and even single player games followed suit. Now every game has it's own set of generic quests and GPS tracking system. There are no puzzles to solve. There is no room for player imagination. You are just strung along like a mindless zombie. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until it was too late.
Now every game is the same. You have quest hubs and sometimes random quests. Most of them are fairly easy to complete. There is no longer any exploration. It has been completely removed form games with GPS and maps. Sometimes you don't realize what you had when you were playing those old games until it is to late. You are stuck in a world of generic theme park games that are all free to play and aimed at getting you to spend as much money as possible. The sad thing is making these generic quests to string people along actually cost a lot of time and money. Between that, voice acting, adding a GPS system, etc. there is no time to worry about making a virtual world.
Take off the rose colored glasses. I enjoyed EverQuest too, but what you are essentially praising it for here is not having features. We explored largely because, for the most part, killing and exploring were the only activities in the game, and the exploring was often more interesting. Not because it was some epic, well designed exploration system, but because the combat was, well, boring. Let's face it, WoW didn't beat the competition at the time because it did anything exceptionally well. It beat the competition because there was specific stuff to do. People could log in, and actually experience content, rather than wander around aimlessly hoping to bump into something interesting. The content was well below the quality level of most single player RPGs, but in the online space the mere fact that it was there was unprecedented.
Vanilla EverQuest provided a great setting, and cool classes and races. Unfortunately, it stopped there. You are right that it largely emulated D&D, but the thing that makes or breaks a D&D experience is the quality of the Dungeon Master, whether in the form of an actual person acting live in that role, or developed content to experience. And it didn't give us one.
You're correct that now most MMOs are structurally very similar. But that is not, in and of itself, a criticism. As long as the structure does an efficient job of presenting the content, it doesn't technically need to change. It is possible for a "theme park" to provide a fantastic experience. Not the same kind of fantastic experience that a sandbox would provide, of course, but still great. Quests are not bad, if while completing them you have fun. Voice acting is not bad, if the dialogue is well written. Easy is not bad, if it means in five hours you get to experience five hours of content, rather than repeating the same hour five times in order to finish it once.
Even if one agreed with all your criticisms, your doom and gloom is premature. TSW is out right now, and has lots of puzzles. EverQuest Next and Wildstar, if they live up to even half of the developer promises, should thoroughly scratch your exploration itch.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I have to disagree with you. For instance I went back and played Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Legend of Zelda for Nintendo recently and still enjoyed all of those games. In fact I'd say they were better than many of the games today that have much better graphics.
You say EQ didn't have much to do, but I disagree. It's crafting system was more complex than most you see today. The Zones were setup with no clear path so exploring was a lot of fun. There were underwater dungeons, dungeons with lava, dungeons of slippery ice. Many of them were far more complex than anything you see today.
The main problem I see with MMOs now are they are very shallow single player experiences. You can get the same experience from a single player game like Skyrim, but it's a lot better. Even in Single player games the dialogue/story gets dull after a while. Do you really need more than a few GM directed events in a MMO to have fun? Can't you create you own stories that are better than whatever the devs are likely to come up with? I know when I was exploring the early MMOs I usually had an idea in my head of what was going on and what I was trying to roleplay. I didn't need a developer to tell me a story, show me where to go, or tell me what to do. IMO it was a lot better that way.
QUOTE: "Well, on topic I find it funny that you aren't excited for EQN, since in terms of the list of things in the OP you were asking why you couldn't do, it at least claims to be providing most of them. And your closing about switching to straight console gaming is a little odd, since consoles offer even less of what you say you are after than pc games do."
1) EQN appears to be more in line with GW2 and non traditional mechanics and horizontal gameplay. It may be good! But I really think its going to try to be cute and revoultionary like GW2 but really provide a dumbed down rewardless experience. Once again, I will try it before I completely condemn it.
2) Like mentioned CONSOLE games are just like MMOs NOW! They're linear, single player but guess what. Skyrim is way better than the crap we're getting, we're getting crappier skyrims with some online functions. I own a PS4, why? Because Diablo 3 was funner on console, and actually BETTER, I think MMOs will take a huge hit to the face if ESO and Diablo 3, etc keep improving for consoles, because PC and MMO experience isnt good enough to justify not using my PS4 now.
Also like to note. I bought 20$ worth of mega milliosn tickets last night.
I was fully prepared to walk into Turbine Studios and buy Asheron's Call franchise rights. The MMO world would have changed had I won.
Sigh.
On the bright side, the more i drift away from MMO's, the more i focus on my music creation. It's a good trade.
Maybe i'm done with the obsession over these games. I still long for the days of the past, but such a thing isn't meant to last forever...
It's extremely difficult to judge games you actually played when they first came out. It's impossible to know what you would think of them without the benefit of the nostalgia attached to your memories of when you first played them. I would play the original Zelda before almost any of the sequels, but if I had never played any Zelda game at all, and started playing it in 2013, I doubt I would last half an hour.
I am actually in the minority who would disagree with you about Skyrim. I don't think MMOs are trying to be an online Skyrim, I think Skyrim was trying to be an offline MMO. If you are paying attention to the narrative, you see that there is essentially no connection between any of the quest chains. Every quest line in that game could have been written by a different team that had zero knowledge of the work being done by any of the other teams. It's not one singleplayer game that takes a couple hundred hours to finish, it's a collection of different single player games using the same engine, no one of which takes any longer than twenty hours to finish, most of them far, far less than that. There are also what, two choices that actually branch the narrative at all, in the entire game? As an RPG, it's a sad joke. Even if a couple of the quest chains have fun stories.
Mini-rant over, but my point is that, in my opinion, the best stories are ones where the content is professionally developed, but the player has enough choice to *feel* like his actions are driving the narrative, even if they aren't. The problem with the narrative in most Bethesda games, and most MMOs, is that the player is nothing but a collection of stats slashing his/her way through NPCs to earn the next chunk of canned narrative that can only play out one way. Kill kill kill, cutscene (or text box). Rinse, repeat. Nary a choice in sight.
On the other hand, there are two problems with "player created" narrative. One is that the presentation quality just isn't there. A narrative which exists solely in chat channels and players' heads is never going to attain the polish level of professionally developed content. The other problem is that most players absolutely suck at creating a story that isn't complete crap.
I have hopes for the storybricks system in EQN. Fingers crossed.
See above for my thoughts on Skyrim. As for Diablo 3, it would be hard for it not to be better, considering the PC version was an abyssmal pile of crap. But it was so bad there, I'm not even going to give the console version a chance.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.