The problem with most games today is that they focus less on creating a virtual world and more about creating a roller coaster type experience.
Exactly my thoughts.
The only reason I've played WoW for so long is because I can sit down and play it, and if I don't have an alarm set or anybody around, I'll play for 50 hours straight lol. I want to get lost in the game I'm playing. I want to look over at a clock and say "Holy bungie cords batman! It's been 4 hours!?!?"
Only a few games have ever done this for me. Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Final Fantasy 11, World of Warcraft, and Rift. Of these games Rift was the shortest I played (from Beta to F2P). Others like Wow, I've been playing since launch, or Dark Age of Camelot, which I played for 8+ years or Neverwinter Nights for almost 6 years. All these games I could get lost in the lore, virtual world, and whether it was questing, raiding, or clearing out a relic keep, I could do it until I couldn't keep my eyelids open anymore lol.
Problem with MMORPGs is the Lead Designers who have no clue what an MMORPG should be like and usually their reference is World of Warcraft at best.
Lead Designers who should never consider creating an MMORPG and just probably best to stick to whatever genre they do best. Either that or we should create a new game genre (call it World Experience Game) when we finally would play an MMORPG.
Originally posted by UsualSuspect Now they're more single player than most single player games, which to me completely defeats the point of playing an online game in the first place.
Then don't treat them as such. Just enjoy them as solo game like what i do.
Problem with MMORPGs is the Lead Designers who have no clue what an MMORPG should be like and usually their reference is World of Warcraft at best.
Lead Designers who should never consider creating an MMORPG and just probably best to stick to whatever genre they do best. Either that or we should create a new game genre (call it World Experience Game) when we finally would play an MMORPG.
Just pretend the games are from another genre. Problem solved.
In my opinion there is no feature list that would solve my issues with games.
It is more about how the system as a whole works and how each part of the game system acts and, more importantly, interacts.
Looking at a game through the lens of good "features" and bad "features" isn't very useful from my perspective. The way developers sell games on feature lists and the way we buy them based on feature lists isn't something I consider good for the industry. Not that I claim to have any sort of instant fix to make all gamers happy.
What Ive gathered from this thread reading every ones replies all I see is everyone pretty much wants something different. I feel sorry for any dev company that tries to please everyone just on answers here alone. Me personally I think more mmorpgs would succeed much better if they just made the games of today much more community focused and driven. Build up a community and give them the tools to setup events and things to do with a lot of guild activites and I think we will see more people staying long term and much more forgiving towards dev teams.
I'd like better AI. Dynamic events in GW2 are a step better then escort quests in WoW. But we should be doing a lot more with AI then we are in MMOs. I'd like to see NPCs that we could actually talk to..
The current next step has been adding action combat and superior graphics to the WoW style mechanic. Its a step forward with regards to gameplay. But smarter AI could lead to interesting procedural content and interestring interactions with the NPCs. The ultimate goal of all MMOs is going to be something like the Holodeck. But it will be a slow process.
I am dismayed by how little progress AI has made since the EQ days. We have better graphics and better combat engines but basically its the still the same game.
Originally posted by UsualSuspect Now they're more single player than most single player games, which to me completely defeats the point of playing an online game in the first place.
Then don't treat them as such. Just enjoy them as solo game like what i do.
If they were enjoyable then maybe I would, but MMO's are so shallow in their gameplay compared to single player games that I can only last a few hours playing them solo before being bored to tears. Look at them. Select target, stand in front of target, press 12323123 until the target falls over. Repeat with a new target.
The only MMO I've enjoyed playing solo was The Secret World, but to be honest I can't explain why that was. It might have been the great characters and story that kept me interested, or the group instances at the end of each area that I played over and over again. Not sure, but it was fun for a while. Other MMO's? Uninstall after a few hours..
Originally posted by cronius77 What Ive gathered from this thread reading every ones replies all I see is everyone pretty much wants something different. I feel sorry for any dev company that tries to please everyone just on answers here alone. Me personally I think more mmorpgs would succeed much better if they just made the games of today much more community focused and driven. Build up a community and give them the tools to setup events and things to do with a lot of guild activites and I think we will see more people staying long term and much more forgiving towards dev teams.
I agree, the MMO genre needs to be community focused. I also think the first place we went wrong is making the leveling up process largely a solo endeavor. When the game requires grouping to gain experience / level / earn skills, people form groups to hang out and exp farm. People chat and get to know eachother, bonds form, people care about their reputation. Because if you are a jerk all the time no one will want to group with you and your game is over.
Currently games make it so easy to solo that even some group encounters are easily soloed by a few overpowered classes. They start being anti-social, why would I need to group with you scrubs when I can do this alone, it becomes about your epeen and what you can solo and what others cant as a bragging right. You end up in competition with your fellow players rather than working together to make the world a living breathing place. You end up with LFG tools and other automated processes for just anonymously joining groups being a jerk, looting everything then never have to see them again.
This is the root of the problem, as I think people will be much more invested in a game when they make friends and group with them all the time.
To add to the discussion, I do not think an MMO needs questing, battle grounds and instanced dungeons. Strictly speaking about PVE here so we can ignore battlegrounds.
1) Large Expansive world to explore with no fast travel or teleportation to trivialize the scope of the world (traveling to a new town should be an ordeal, newbies should band together in groups to make the trip from one town to the next.)
2) Open wold dungeons (not instanced) that anyone can go into, large enough to support several groups of players in various wings.
3) Meaningful choices and progression, not everyone of your class should be the same exact carbon copy of the rest, build in choices that make you different and provide a way to progress your character even after you reach the maximum level.
Personally it all comes down to content consumption vs content creation. We have got to the point in newer MMOs that the developers and designers allow you to level up so quickly (sometimes within days or a week). Then expect you to run the same 5 dungeons over and over and over again for 6 months while they make more content. Slow it the hell down, make it so getting to the 'end game' is not the goal. Let us enjoy the mid levels with lots of places to go and dungeons to explore.
I see a problem where if the leveling speed is too fast, people almost try and force themselves to grind to get it over with. Where as if it took months to level people don't feel like they have to grind they take there time and let the levels come when they come. They go out and do stuff at level 17, they form groups and try and kill that level 18 dungeon boss. They worry about getting dungeon gear for level 20 and complete the whole set unlike newer games where you leveled 10 times before you could get a full set and none of that gear has any meaning or worth to you anymore.
Games need to be hard, they need to force you to band together to progress faster, instead of expecting you to solo all the way to max level then decide you have to group now. Make grouping an integral part of the game which helps enforce social aspects, people care about their reputation because being a jerk will quickly lead to no one grouping with you.
Slowing things down makes for a more enjoyable community imho.
Agree! I remember in EQ trying to run across a zone solo that was higher level than my toon because I wanted to get to another town, took me 30 mins of dodging/hiding and sprinting to make it, I was actually afraid and it was a lot of fun. Not to mention if I would have died I would have had to make a corpse run and I would have lost hard earned exp.. Whoa!! Death mattered??? Yeah and sometimes it was tough!
EQ did a lot of things right and made a few mistakes along the way. FIghting/racing another guild to a rare boss spawn. Requireing certain classes and what they could do to acomplish goals or certain fights, to reach certain areas. Every class had something unique and was needed in one way or another, something that you don't see anymore. Every newer MMO tries to make it "no class restrictions", be whatever you want blah blah, everyone pretty much will end up the same after a time, with very little diversity.
I would like less instanced areas, death that matters, hard corspe runs, a NEED for certain classes, maybe I need a monk for a corspe run, ranger to help me track a mob, wizard or druid to teleport me and my friends etc etc, and getting to know all these other players becuase I HAD to engage in a conversation with them, ask for the help/services offering to pay them. Turning into a friendship sometimes. I want it to slow down, way down....leveling should take a long, long time, but enough content at your level that you don't get bored at level 10 or 20 or 30 all the way to whatever the cap is. Progression after you hit level cap to give your toon more diversity and to ways to improve. Make it NOTHING like WoW (I can't stand it)
Originally posted by cronius77 What Ive gathered from this thread reading every ones replies all I see is everyone pretty much wants something different. I feel sorry for any dev company that tries to please everyone just on answers here alone. Me personally I think more mmorpgs would succeed much better if they just made the games of today much more community focused and driven. Build up a community and give them the tools to setup events and things to do with a lot of guild activites and I think we will see more people staying long term and much more forgiving towards dev teams.
I agree, the MMO genre needs to be community focused. I also think the first place we went wrong is making the leveling up process largely a solo endeavor. When the game requires grouping to gain experience / level / earn skills, people form groups to hang out and exp farm. People chat and get to know eachother, bonds form, people care about their reputation. Because if you are a jerk all the time no one will want to group with you and your game is over.
Currently games make it so easy to solo that even some group encounters are easily soloed by a few overpowered classes. They start being anti-social, why would I need to group with you scrubs when I can do this alone, it becomes about your epeen and what you can solo and what others cant as a bragging right. You end up in competition with your fellow players rather than working together to make the world a living breathing place. You end up with LFG tools and other automated processes for just anonymously joining groups being a jerk, looting everything then never have to see them again.
This is the root of the problem, as I think people will be much more invested in a game when they make friends and group with them all the time.
You right
Community relate PVE contents are thing that i want most.
MMORPGs become worst when they focus on solo gameplay with quests , because most time of that gameplay style is solo. You rarely have good party aside instances ,
but even in instances , everyone only want to finish fast , grab reward. Not even time for know each other.
Sometime i feel like instances push people's greed to top.
And it cut community a part, if you too weak , you don't have party lol .
Guild cut in to small party that run dungeon with other and rarely help other group.
Though i hate grind , but that's time i feel fun when play MMORPGs .
Old open world PVE also lead to PVP where guilds vs guilds for bosses , those time are chaotic but it fun.
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
The same that Asheron's Call had almost 15 years ago. A MASSIVE, zoneless world to explore, without artificial borders everywhere. Add the ability to jump more than an inch off the ground, and have monthly content updates that have an ongiong story, bug fixes, and additional dungeons/area to explore. Have a level max that will take years to reach, with a flexible levelling system that let's you customize(again, like AC).
I do not want another 1 inch jumping, bordered, tiny zoned world, with a max level that you hit in 5 minutes, to then sit in town repeating the same 5 dungeons to get items to repeat those same dungeons again and then be forced into larger groups with childish buffoons, who are doing it over and over just for items to do it over and over again. I do not care about housing in a video game and do not care about other barbie dress up features.
Originally posted by UsualSuspect Now they're more single player than most single player games, which to me completely defeats the point of playing an online game in the first place.
Then don't treat them as such. Just enjoy them as solo game like what i do.
If they were enjoyable then maybe I would, but MMO's are so shallow in their gameplay compared to single player games that I can only last a few hours playing them solo before being bored to tears. Look at them. Select target, stand in front of target, press 12323123 until the target falls over. Repeat with a new target.
The only MMO I've enjoyed playing solo was The Secret World, but to be honest I can't explain why that was. It might have been the great characters and story that kept me interested, or the group instances at the end of each area that I played over and over again. Not sure, but it was fun for a while. Other MMO's? Uninstall after a few hours..
No one says every single MMO is a good enough SP game. You found one that works for you. I found quite a few. Similarly, not every SP game is good either. The point is that some MMORPGs can be enjoyed as SP game.
For me, that is GW2, Marvel Heroes, and STO.
And who says it has to be long. I just finished a iOS stealth game, the Republique. It was great .. very innovative story and stealth gameplay with zero violence ... and it is only a few hours long.
MMORPGs become worst when they focus on solo gameplay with quests , because most time of that gameplay style is solo. You rarely have good party aside instances ,
nah .. they may not be old "traditional mmorpgs", but they can be enjoyable solo games.
Comments
Exactly my thoughts.
The only reason I've played WoW for so long is because I can sit down and play it, and if I don't have an alarm set or anybody around, I'll play for 50 hours straight lol. I want to get lost in the game I'm playing. I want to look over at a clock and say "Holy bungie cords batman! It's been 4 hours!?!?"
Only a few games have ever done this for me. Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Final Fantasy 11, World of Warcraft, and Rift. Of these games Rift was the shortest I played (from Beta to F2P). Others like Wow, I've been playing since launch, or Dark Age of Camelot, which I played for 8+ years or Neverwinter Nights for almost 6 years. All these games I could get lost in the lore, virtual world, and whether it was questing, raiding, or clearing out a relic keep, I could do it until I couldn't keep my eyelids open anymore lol.
Problem with MMORPGs is the Lead Designers who have no clue what an MMORPG should be like and usually their reference is World of Warcraft at best.
Lead Designers who should never consider creating an MMORPG and just probably best to stick to whatever genre they do best. Either that or we should create a new game genre (call it World Experience Game) when we finally would play an MMORPG.
Then don't treat them as such. Just enjoy them as solo game like what i do.
Just pretend the games are from another genre. Problem solved.
In my opinion there is no feature list that would solve my issues with games.
It is more about how the system as a whole works and how each part of the game system acts and, more importantly, interacts.
Looking at a game through the lens of good "features" and bad "features" isn't very useful from my perspective. The way developers sell games on feature lists and the way we buy them based on feature lists isn't something I consider good for the industry. Not that I claim to have any sort of instant fix to make all gamers happy.
I'd like better AI. Dynamic events in GW2 are a step better then escort quests in WoW. But we should be doing a lot more with AI then we are in MMOs. I'd like to see NPCs that we could actually talk to..
The current next step has been adding action combat and superior graphics to the WoW style mechanic. Its a step forward with regards to gameplay. But smarter AI could lead to interesting procedural content and interestring interactions with the NPCs. The ultimate goal of all MMOs is going to be something like the Holodeck. But it will be a slow process.
I am dismayed by how little progress AI has made since the EQ days. We have better graphics and better combat engines but basically its the still the same game.
If they were enjoyable then maybe I would, but MMO's are so shallow in their gameplay compared to single player games that I can only last a few hours playing them solo before being bored to tears. Look at them. Select target, stand in front of target, press 12323123 until the target falls over. Repeat with a new target.
The only MMO I've enjoyed playing solo was The Secret World, but to be honest I can't explain why that was. It might have been the great characters and story that kept me interested, or the group instances at the end of each area that I played over and over again. Not sure, but it was fun for a while. Other MMO's? Uninstall after a few hours..
I agree, the MMO genre needs to be community focused. I also think the first place we went wrong is making the leveling up process largely a solo endeavor. When the game requires grouping to gain experience / level / earn skills, people form groups to hang out and exp farm. People chat and get to know eachother, bonds form, people care about their reputation. Because if you are a jerk all the time no one will want to group with you and your game is over.
Currently games make it so easy to solo that even some group encounters are easily soloed by a few overpowered classes. They start being anti-social, why would I need to group with you scrubs when I can do this alone, it becomes about your epeen and what you can solo and what others cant as a bragging right. You end up in competition with your fellow players rather than working together to make the world a living breathing place. You end up with LFG tools and other automated processes for just anonymously joining groups being a jerk, looting everything then never have to see them again.
This is the root of the problem, as I think people will be much more invested in a game when they make friends and group with them all the time.
Agree! I remember in EQ trying to run across a zone solo that was higher level than my toon because I wanted to get to another town, took me 30 mins of dodging/hiding and sprinting to make it, I was actually afraid and it was a lot of fun. Not to mention if I would have died I would have had to make a corpse run and I would have lost hard earned exp.. Whoa!! Death mattered??? Yeah and sometimes it was tough!
EQ did a lot of things right and made a few mistakes along the way. FIghting/racing another guild to a rare boss spawn. Requireing certain classes and what they could do to acomplish goals or certain fights, to reach certain areas. Every class had something unique and was needed in one way or another, something that you don't see anymore. Every newer MMO tries to make it "no class restrictions", be whatever you want blah blah, everyone pretty much will end up the same after a time, with very little diversity.
I would like less instanced areas, death that matters, hard corspe runs, a NEED for certain classes, maybe I need a monk for a corspe run, ranger to help me track a mob, wizard or druid to teleport me and my friends etc etc, and getting to know all these other players becuase I HAD to engage in a conversation with them, ask for the help/services offering to pay them. Turning into a friendship sometimes. I want it to slow down, way down....leveling should take a long, long time, but enough content at your level that you don't get bored at level 10 or 20 or 30 all the way to whatever the cap is. Progression after you hit level cap to give your toon more diversity and to ways to improve. Make it NOTHING like WoW (I can't stand it)
You right
Community relate PVE contents are thing that i want most.
MMORPGs become worst when they focus on solo gameplay with quests , because most time of that gameplay style is solo. You rarely have good party aside instances ,
but even in instances , everyone only want to finish fast , grab reward. Not even time for know each other.
Sometime i feel like instances push people's greed to top.
And it cut community a part, if you too weak , you don't have party lol .
Guild cut in to small party that run dungeon with other and rarely help other group.
Though i hate grind , but that's time i feel fun when play MMORPGs .
Old open world PVE also lead to PVP where guilds vs guilds for bosses , those time are chaotic but it fun.
--John Ruskin
The same that Asheron's Call had almost 15 years ago. A MASSIVE, zoneless world to explore, without artificial borders everywhere. Add the ability to jump more than an inch off the ground, and have monthly content updates that have an ongiong story, bug fixes, and additional dungeons/area to explore. Have a level max that will take years to reach, with a flexible levelling system that let's you customize(again, like AC).
I do not want another 1 inch jumping, bordered, tiny zoned world, with a max level that you hit in 5 minutes, to then sit in town repeating the same 5 dungeons to get items to repeat those same dungeons again and then be forced into larger groups with childish buffoons, who are doing it over and over just for items to do it over and over again. I do not care about housing in a video game and do not care about other barbie dress up features.
No one says every single MMO is a good enough SP game. You found one that works for you. I found quite a few. Similarly, not every SP game is good either. The point is that some MMORPGs can be enjoyed as SP game.
For me, that is GW2, Marvel Heroes, and STO.
And who says it has to be long. I just finished a iOS stealth game, the Republique. It was great .. very innovative story and stealth gameplay with zero violence ... and it is only a few hours long.
nah .. they may not be old "traditional mmorpgs", but they can be enjoyable solo games.