You're supposed to kill stuff and level til you puke. You fight mob tier A until you outlevel it, fight mob tier b til you outlevel it, mob tier c, d, e... repeat until cap. At cap, you fight the same nine things over and over in hopes of getting to participate in the argument over who gets the rare trinket.
And for that game, i would much rather play Diablo 3. The combat is a lot more fun. There are more mob types. The loot is random so you can gear up a long long time. There is no loot argument.
And the best part .. you don't have to deal with strangers if you don't want to.
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There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You're supposed to kill stuff and level til you puke. You fight mob tier A until you outlevel it, fight mob tier b til you outlevel it, mob tier c, d, e... repeat until cap. At cap, you fight the same nine things over and over in hopes of getting to participate in the argument over who gets the rare trinket.
And for that game, i would much rather play Diablo 3. The combat is a lot more fun. There are more mob types. The loot is random so you can gear up a long long time. There is no loot argument.
And the best part .. you don't have to deal with strangers if you don't want to.
As i'm playing Dark Souls 2.
I was in ESO beta since last August and i'm sick of the crap that some devs are serving up as mmo's.
Most people don't want that. You represent a minuscule minority of people who play MMOs. Besides, who elected you king to declare what an MMO is? If you don't like the way MMOs are, don't play them. Solved your problem.
There are some devs trying to make worlds and they aren't getting much support, I often here about sandboxes and worlds being the next thing in the games I play now no one is talking about persistent worlds and wanting that they are just having fun playing the games they are playing!
Its easy to talk about concepts without actually having to think how to realize them. It's all so simple, isn't it? Why hasn't no one come by this before? This solves everything! WE HAVE FOUND THE SILVER BULLET! Rejoice!
...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I had an idea of a game that was a virtual world, where every player had the chance to do anything they wanted to do. I played runescape and everquest and I loved it... the freedom to do anything, to get stronger and try to see new areas and explore new things, are what really drew me in and made me want to play. The worlds were dangerous also, if you made mistakes you could die and it sort of felt like the world didn't care about your existence.
You see, the thing is, there are a LOT of playerswho don't share your ideas on what an mmo should be and who would never play the game you describe.
That is why games are where they are now. Because the majority of players seem to want "a game". One where they can spend some time and then move on to the next "game".
Not a virtual world, not a virtual "home".
That is why they "fail" (if they can be said to truly fail. Quite frankly, if a game stays in business then that seems like a success to me). Because players don't want to stay in these games and want to move on.
Heck, there are a plethora of players on this site who approach games like this.
The problem with this line of thinking is that most mmo's are terrible games. If you played them offline they wouldn't actually be fun to play. In addition, most mmos you have to pay a lot more for. Why do people spend so much on f2p mmo's just for a few more stats? It's because when you get to the core, why people are complaining about mmos on these boards constantly, is because they're looking for a different sort of experience from regular games when they play an mmo. I have normal games I play, like league of legends. I find it fun. I don't find wow fun anymore. I don't find eso fun. I don't find any mmo fun anymore where I start at level 1 and have to do some useless quest. It's boring.
What makes me come back to mmos, to even give them a try, is because when you've experienced a true "world" it's good. When you're part of a community, competing and working together while you build something or try to accomplish something it's fun. This is what brings me back. Also all the exploration from original eq and trying to navigate difficult dungeons with a group brings me back.
It's not about being a "game" or a "home" or whatever. It is about being fun. Old mmos were fun because of the ability to explore and interact with others and achieve. New mmos fail at this for me for all reasons stated. When theres zero challenge, zero excitement factor, no social interaction, there's nothing there that I find fun.
I'm going to point again to what I already wrote.
You see, all this is you. Of course.
But the reality is that people ARE finding these games "fun" in their own way and are willing to play them and don't care about them being a world.
the people who are complaining want to see a world but in no way are these people in the majority any more.
What is seems to be is that the mmo experience is a "buy/log in for a bit/hit level cap and enjoy a few things, a few new people/move along" experience.
Now, you may not like this but it seems there are a lot of people who do.
Obviously you're right, these mmos simply don't work for me. But most games are dying in a couple years or severely decreasing in population until they become shallow forms of their former selves. Can you agree on that? Maybe the title should have been why mmo's aren't lasting a long time. To me an mmo failing is when it has no long term sustainability. If players loved them so much they would play them and then stick with them instead of jumping constantly. But this doesn't happen. They play them and go back to wow. Wow is a 10 year old game, people try new mmos and basicaly go back to wow. So in this sense, new mmos are failing. Old mmos retained player bases for longer periods of time.
But the second thing is you don't necessarily know what the majority is or wants. I've bought some of these new games and played them. I've also played mmos I don't really like. Am I part of the majority who buys and logs in for a bit and quits? Well, I bought the game and logged in but hated it. A lot of people do exactly that then quit. Instead of saying "only YOU dont like them, you arent the majority" you should explain why you like the current mmo structure or give input on why it's good.
Obviously you're right, these mmos simply don't work for me. But most games are dying in a couple years or severely decreasing in population until they become shallow forms of their former selves. Can you agree on that? Maybe the title should have been why mmo's aren't lasting a long time. To me an mmo failing is when it has no long term sustainability. If players loved them so much they would play them and then stick with them instead of jumping constantly. But this doesn't happen. They play them and go back to wow. Wow is a 10 year old game, people try new mmos and basicaly go back to wow. So in this sense, new mmos are failing. Old mmos retained player bases for longer periods of time.
But the second thing is you don't necessarily know what the majority is or wants. I've bought some of these new games and played them. I've also played mmos I don't really like. Am I part of the majority who buys and logs in for a bit and quits? Well, I bought the game and logged in but hated it. A lot of people do exactly that then quit. I'm assuming you must be the opposite, you must like current mmos and play them, or you're just arguing because you hate people trying to improve anything. So then instead of saying "only YOU dont like them, you arent the majority" you should explain why you like the current mmo structure or give input on why it's good.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't those older mmos have less than 500k subs? Many even less than that? Which current mmos have, if not more.
But there is indeed a problem with chasing the majority of the market. Companies in the video game industry are scared to step out and do something that might not appeal to a abroad, casual audience. Unfortunaly, as SE with Tomb Raider, and Capcom and Resident Evil 6 and Dead Rising 3 showed, cashing that big piece of WOW piece, or in this case, the COD/UC piece, doesn't mean finacial sucess. Some mmos do actually fail, liek TOR and TSW (atleast at first), and some don't, like RIFT and GW2.
May games decrease in populations simply because it isn't reasonably to expect to sustain millions of subs. When compared to old games the populations are the same or higher.
Old mmos also had populations that fell after about a year mostly. And they grew to that peak much much slower simply because the information about the game want as result available.
So the choice is slow growth to 300k or start with 2 million and fall top 300 k.
Which would you choose?
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
So the choice is slow growth to 300k or start with 2 million and fall top 300 k.
Which would you choose?
Isn't it pretty obvious .. start with 2M = 2M box sales right out of the gate. Unless we are talking about F2P .. which makes 2M up front even more desirable since f2p players don't stick around.
But there is indeed a problem with chasing the majority of the market. Companies in the video game industry are scared to step out and do something that might not appeal to a abroad, casual audience. Unfortunaly, as SE with Tomb Raider, and Capcom and Resident Evil 6 and Dead Rising 3 showed, cashing that big piece of WOW piece, or in this case, the COD/UC piece, doesn't mean finacial sucess. Some mmos do actually fail, liek TOR and TSW (atleast at first), and some don't, like RIFT and GW2.
Tomb Raider is finally making money .. and a new edition + sequal is coming. Sure, SE was disappointed in the beginning even when it sold 3+M in first month ... but eventually it is profitable.
And TOR made more than $200M in 2013 .. it is a huge financial success whether you like the game or not.
Speak for yourself. I much prefer scripted SP games.
And may be devs get what a old MMO means but don't care. If the audience don't care, why should they?
players interaction ... nah .. i would much rather have good scripted stories.
players politics .... nah ... that is just drama.
reputation with players ... nah ... i would much rather hit "quit" when i meet someone i do not like.
familiar faces .. i have enough of that in real life
familiar guilds .. too much work
persistence ... not necessarily for me to have fun.
You seem to think the stories are very interesting so I guess it's good for you. For me the stories and very boring. The old stories weren't even that great, but they were interesting for the time. Generally everything is just a rehash with a new twist. I watch a lot of TV shows and play a lot of games, but none of them can I really say are so good that I feel like I need to watch them. They are usually filled with modern day cliches that replace the old cliches. There is only so much new you can do with stories. Usually it gets to a point where it's better left up to the person to make their own. Funny though that the game you like to play a lot (Diablo 3) or at least the one you consider and MMO has very little story in it.
The funny thing about the people that prefer old MMOs here seem to want the past I have yet to see someone that enjoys themeparks state they are the best games ever and don't need improvement, we seen to crave an innovation to the genre.
I like new MMOs because they don't require a time commitment I can play casually or hardcore and be relevant in the game and I can log in for an hour or two and accomplish something and most importantly no designated downtime or ridiculous death penalties.
So Flyte if your imagination is better than a professional storytellers how come you aren't producing some kind of creative content wether it be games etc. This seems like a great job for you as you love it and use your imagination all the time.
Originally posted by Fenrir767 So Flyte if your imagination is better than a professional storytellers how come you aren't producing some kind of creative content wether it be games etc. This seems like a great job for you as you love it and use your imagination all the time.
It's not about weather my imagination is better then what other people can write. It's that it's better for me because I can personalize it for myself or play the game however I choose too. I never said it would be better for you. You make your own story or play the way you want too.
New MMOs fail because the majority of people nowadays want instant gratification without effort. THOSE people are your real problem, not the way MMOs are made.
There should be a game where you log in and a large "IWIN" button pops up. As soon as you click it, the game ends. Finished a game in about 3 seconds...<--That's how millions of people act today in MMOs...Really sad.
When Devs make MMOs in the future they need to add more text to the TOS: "Gameplay may take time to reach the maximum level given the effort involved. Play at your own risk. We will not give in to lazy people that don't want to earn what they get. Regardless if you have 1 hr a day or 20 hrs a day to play."
Also, About those who always complain that real life only allows them to play a small amount of time....SO WHAT?
YOU chose your lifestyle, it should not factor in how a game should change to cater to you. "Boohoo...Johnnyboy got a new mount..It will take me forever to get mine!" SO WHAT?
You will still get that mount! It will just take you longer than it did Johnnyboy who plays 20 hrs a day..SO WHAT? You do NOT have to have things any faster just because of the REAL Life YOU chose. Why is it important for you to "MUST GET THIS NOW"?
It's Not!
Play the game, don't worry about what other people have or don't have. You do NOT need to flex that new shiney just because Johnnyboy is flexing it..at the same time!
Impatient People is what is killing these games, NOT the game makers.
Inbefore....."I pay money just like the others." Well...There you go worrying about others...AGAIN. lol
You seem to think the stories are very interesting so I guess it's good for you. For me the stories and very boring. The old stories weren't even that great, but they were interesting for the time. Generally everything is just a rehash with a new twist. I watch a lot of TV shows and play a lot of games, but none of them can I really say are so good that I feel like I need to watch them. They are usually filled with modern day cliches that replace the old cliches. There is only so much new you can do with stories. Usually it gets to a point where it's better left up to the person to make their own. Funny though that the game you like to play a lot (Diablo 3) or at least the one you consider and MMO has very little story in it.
Stories are very interesting to me in some games .. Dishonored, Tomb Raider, STO to some extent ...And no i don't want to make my own. Professional story writers are better than me. Otherwise, i would be joinign their rankings.
And yes, I like D3 .. it has no story. But you don't think i only like/play one game, do you? For example, i am splitting out my gaming time between D3 and Tomb Raider now although D3 is still getting a slight higher amount.
And stories is not just about the plot (which obviously novels do the best) but also little things, and presentation. For example, there are a lot of interesting and amusing little things .. like the scary climb to the top of the radio tower in Tomb Raider. If you put it on paper, it is like "climb to the top of the radio power" and not very interesting .. but actually playing it is great with all the little details happening on your way up.
New MMOs fail because the majority of people nowadays want instant gratification without effort. THOSE people are your real problem, not the way MMOs are made.
There should be a game where you log in and a large "IWIN" button pops up. As soon as you click it, the game ends. Finished a game in about 3 seconds...<--That's how millions of people act today in MMOs...Really sad.
When Devs make MMOs in the future they need to add more text to the TOS: "Gameplay make take time to reach the maximum level given the effort involved. Play at your own risk. We will not give in to lazy people that don't want to earn what they get. Regardless if you have 1 hr a day or 20 hrs a day to play."
Also, About those who always complain that real life only allows them to play a small amount of time....SO WHAT?
YOU chose your lifestyle, it should not factor in how a game should change to cater to you. "Boohoo...Johnnyboy got a new mount..It will take me forever to get mine!" SO WHAT?
You will still get that mount! It will just take you longer than it did Johnnyboy who plays 20 hrs a day..SO WHAT? You do NOT have to have things any faster just because of the REAL Life YOU chose. Why is it important for you to "MUST GET THIS NOW"?
It's Not!
Play the game, don't worry about what other people have or don't have. You do NOT need to flex that new shiney just because Johnnyboy is flexing it..at the same time!
Impatient People is what is killing these games, NOT the game makers.
Inbefore....."I pay money just like the others." Well...There you go worrying about others...AGAIN. lol
Good day.
You are confused between cause & effect. I doubt many of the gamers care much about MMOs. The devs, OTOH, care about getting a bigger audience.
If the dev make it possible to enjoy a MMO in a small amount of time, i do not see a reason not to give it a chance.
If a game is not fun for me in the first 20 min, and play to my schedule, and my liking, i am out of there. There are plenty of games that will do that.
I understand your POV but you come here bring part of that 1% that doesn't enjoy professionally created stories arguing for less of it in a medium dominated by it, not sure what the logic behind that is?
Originally posted by Fenrir767 I understand your POV but you come here bring part of that 1% that doesn't enjoy professionally created stories arguing for less of it in a medium dominated by it, not sure what the logic behind that is?
There is a lot of logic to it. MMORPGs started with almost no quests and to me they were better for it. They had a few quests here and there, but it wasn't the point of playing the game. Video games in general didn't have much storytelling when they first started. They were more about story and game play. My suggestion is just that they go back to their roots.
I take this to be a discussion about what makes a game engaging rather than what makes it successful, so I'll focus on that.
This website's community really needs to take a step back from these same few fixed ideas (usually just illusions the community has constructed amongst itself over time) about what makes an MMO engaging. I'll refute just a few.
1) An MMO world as a "home" for the player:
I once thought this way (that an MMO would should be able to act as a "home") but realized this way of thinking was a symptom of escapism more so than anything (and when I was younger, MMOs did seem, to some limited extent, to function that way). The longer you play MMOs and the more you mature in general, the harder it is to convince yourself that an MMO world can ever truly act this way. Sure, games have gotten more gimmicky and transparent to the player in their systems, but that is a minor obstacle in comparison to the simple inorganic nature of trying to find a home in a virtual world. What we are left with is a sort of fetishizing of things like player housing, and longing for a mythical "community" online. No game designer can give you that - these are things you need to seek out in the concrete world.
2) "Scripting = reduced freedom":
This doesn't work out; I had way more fun exploring every nook and cranny of new zones in WoW as I ever did in SWG, even though clearly the former world was hand-crafted with questing in mind and railroaded you around via quests. It's also sometimes fun to go to higher level zones knowing you might have to avoid enemies there as you explore, etc. It's hard to argue that the world isn't "dangerous" when you actively choose to avoid the dangerous parts. I've never seen a themepark MMO with level-sorted zones where it was impossible for you to get a party together and go level in a harder zone. If someone made a "sandbox" MMO with a handcrafted world such that there was something interesting to find around each corner, I would be impressed, but usually it's the opposite, and old games were generally not like that.
3) "I have to be visibly unique":
No, you really don't. What distinguishes you is how you interact with other players and with the game world (i.e. how you choose to play), not what gear you have or whether you have one ability most people don't have, etc. If you're immersed in a world exploring it, it's the world that is of interest, not you. When you have a chance for social interaction, again it is how you interact, not whether you have some visible "mark of distinction" to show off. I'd just as soon play a game where everyone looked the same and had the same abilities if the world and our interactions were engaging because of the people we were and what we chose to do together (like say, the game "Journey" in mmo form) than a game where everyone sat around in town worshipping eachother's gear all day.
4) "I need Impact":
Not really, if you conceive of "impact" as visible, permanent changes in the game world, as most do. If you went to the beach, built a sand-castle, and went back each day to maintain it - would your life be more meaningful as a result? No. It's the same principle here; it's not apparent 'physical' causality in our acting upon a virtual world that makes the experience meaningful or fulfilling. We only need to be able to affect the virtual world to the extent necessary for our interactions with it any other players. The same applies to story: If I had a fun time questing through a zone, I do not care that the next player will do all the same quests and see the same story again, with him as the hero this time. I still had my experience, he had his, and each of us can add our own stories on top of this or instead of this. At the end of the day, we can still share these stories with each other and get something out of them. I don't need the game to convince me that it's really just me that's the great hero and main character of the story for me to engage the world and enjoy the experience.
TLDR: Your (and the community's) obsessing over these delusions are ruining gaming experiences you might otherwise enjoy. Modern games are not perfect, but you have a greater responsibility for your attitude toward these games than you're admitting, and it's leading you to mis-diagnose the weaknesses of each new game you come across.
Originally posted by Fenrir767 I understand your POV but you come here bring part of that 1% that doesn't enjoy professionally created stories arguing for less of it in a medium dominated by it, not sure what the logic behind that is?
There is a lot of logic to it. MMORPGs started with almost no quests and to me they were better for it. They had a few quests here and there, but it wasn't the point of playing the game. Video games in general didn't have much storytelling when they first started. They were more about story and game play. My suggestion is just that they go back to their roots.
You got it in reverse. The fact that it has little story, and now it is everywhere is pretty good evidence that the "point" of playing the game has changed in responding to the market.
Going back to old ideas may suit you, but certainly that is not how the market works, nor how i like it. In fact, i would say take the trend in full. More stories. More instances. There is a reason why games are changed this way.
Originally posted by Fenrir767 I understand your POV but you come here bring part of that 1% that doesn't enjoy professionally created stories arguing for less of it in a medium dominated by it, not sure what the logic behind that is?
There is a lot of logic to it. MMORPGs started with almost no quests and to me they were better for it. They had a few quests here and there, but it wasn't the point of playing the game. Video games in general didn't have much storytelling when they first started. They were more about story and game play. My suggestion is just that they go back to their roots.
Go back to your roots completely and you will die with them, you may as well be arguing that everything such as Radio, TV, Commercials etc go back to their roots from the 1940s and earlier. Games can never go back to where they came from can they take ideas from those times yes but life moves one direction forwards and if you want to be successful in any aspect you with accept that fact.
Games when they first came out were about gameplay with nothing to keep the players loyal or engaged when I looked at 8 bit Mario I enjoyed it but it was a good thing that the booklet had some sort of story outline otherwise myself and a large amount of people would have said this is ridiculous as all hell and that would have ended Nintendo, even arcade games had a credit scroll explaining the story a lot of the time. Story has always been a part of games it has just gotten better over the years.
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There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
As i'm playing Dark Souls 2.
I was in ESO beta since last August and i'm sick of the crap that some devs are serving up as mmo's.
Most people don't want that. You represent a minuscule minority of people who play MMOs. Besides, who elected you king to declare what an MMO is? If you don't like the way MMOs are, don't play them. Solved your problem.
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
Its easy to talk about concepts without actually having to think how to realize them. It's all so simple, isn't it? Why hasn't no one come by this before? This solves everything! WE HAVE FOUND THE SILVER BULLET! Rejoice!
...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Obviously you're right, these mmos simply don't work for me. But most games are dying in a couple years or severely decreasing in population until they become shallow forms of their former selves. Can you agree on that? Maybe the title should have been why mmo's aren't lasting a long time. To me an mmo failing is when it has no long term sustainability. If players loved them so much they would play them and then stick with them instead of jumping constantly. But this doesn't happen. They play them and go back to wow. Wow is a 10 year old game, people try new mmos and basicaly go back to wow. So in this sense, new mmos are failing. Old mmos retained player bases for longer periods of time.
But the second thing is you don't necessarily know what the majority is or wants. I've bought some of these new games and played them. I've also played mmos I don't really like. Am I part of the majority who buys and logs in for a bit and quits? Well, I bought the game and logged in but hated it. A lot of people do exactly that then quit. Instead of saying "only YOU dont like them, you arent the majority" you should explain why you like the current mmo structure or give input on why it's good.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't those older mmos have less than 500k subs? Many even less than that? Which current mmos have, if not more.
But there is indeed a problem with chasing the majority of the market. Companies in the video game industry are scared to step out and do something that might not appeal to a abroad, casual audience. Unfortunaly, as SE with Tomb Raider, and Capcom and Resident Evil 6 and Dead Rising 3 showed, cashing that big piece of WOW piece, or in this case, the COD/UC piece, doesn't mean finacial sucess. Some mmos do actually fail, liek TOR and TSW (atleast at first), and some don't, like RIFT and GW2.
Old mmos also had populations that fell after about a year mostly. And they grew to that peak much much slower simply because the information about the game want as result available.
So the choice is slow growth to 300k or start with 2 million and fall top 300 k.
Which would you choose?
Speak for yourself. I much prefer scripted SP games.
And may be devs get what a old MMO means but don't care. If the audience don't care, why should they?
players interaction ... nah .. i would much rather have good scripted stories.
players politics .... nah ... that is just drama.
reputation with players ... nah ... i would much rather hit "quit" when i meet someone i do not like.
familiar faces .. i have enough of that in real life
familiar guilds .. too much work
persistence ... not necessarily for me to have fun.
Isn't it pretty obvious .. start with 2M = 2M box sales right out of the gate. Unless we are talking about F2P .. which makes 2M up front even more desirable since f2p players don't stick around.
What are you talking about?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-17-tomb-raider-finally-achieved-profitability-by-the-end-of-last-year
Tomb Raider is finally making money .. and a new edition + sequal is coming. Sure, SE was disappointed in the beginning even when it sold 3+M in first month ... but eventually it is profitable.
And TOR made more than $200M in 2013 .. it is a huge financial success whether you like the game or not.
You seem to think the stories are very interesting so I guess it's good for you. For me the stories and very boring. The old stories weren't even that great, but they were interesting for the time. Generally everything is just a rehash with a new twist. I watch a lot of TV shows and play a lot of games, but none of them can I really say are so good that I feel like I need to watch them. They are usually filled with modern day cliches that replace the old cliches. There is only so much new you can do with stories. Usually it gets to a point where it's better left up to the person to make their own. Funny though that the game you like to play a lot (Diablo 3) or at least the one you consider and MMO has very little story in it.
I like new MMOs because they don't require a time commitment I can play casually or hardcore and be relevant in the game and I can log in for an hour or two and accomplish something and most importantly no designated downtime or ridiculous death penalties.
It's not about weather my imagination is better then what other people can write. It's that it's better for me because I can personalize it for myself or play the game however I choose too. I never said it would be better for you. You make your own story or play the way you want too.
New MMOs fail because the majority of people nowadays want instant gratification without effort. THOSE people are your real problem, not the way MMOs are made.
There should be a game where you log in and a large "IWIN" button pops up. As soon as you click it, the game ends. Finished a game in about 3 seconds...<--That's how millions of people act today in MMOs...Really sad.
When Devs make MMOs in the future they need to add more text to the TOS: "Gameplay may take time to reach the maximum level given the effort involved. Play at your own risk. We will not give in to lazy people that don't want to earn what they get. Regardless if you have 1 hr a day or 20 hrs a day to play."
Also, About those who always complain that real life only allows them to play a small amount of time....SO WHAT?
YOU chose your lifestyle, it should not factor in how a game should change to cater to you. "Boohoo...Johnnyboy got a new mount..It will take me forever to get mine!" SO WHAT?
You will still get that mount! It will just take you longer than it did Johnnyboy who plays 20 hrs a day..SO WHAT? You do NOT have to have things any faster just because of the REAL Life YOU chose. Why is it important for you to "MUST GET THIS NOW"?
It's Not!
Play the game, don't worry about what other people have or don't have. You do NOT need to flex that new shiney just because Johnnyboy is flexing it..at the same time!
Impatient People is what is killing these games, NOT the game makers.
Inbefore....."I pay money just like the others." Well...There you go worrying about others...AGAIN. lol
Good day.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
Stories are very interesting to me in some games .. Dishonored, Tomb Raider, STO to some extent ...And no i don't want to make my own. Professional story writers are better than me. Otherwise, i would be joinign their rankings.
And yes, I like D3 .. it has no story. But you don't think i only like/play one game, do you? For example, i am splitting out my gaming time between D3 and Tomb Raider now although D3 is still getting a slight higher amount.
And stories is not just about the plot (which obviously novels do the best) but also little things, and presentation. For example, there are a lot of interesting and amusing little things .. like the scary climb to the top of the radio tower in Tomb Raider. If you put it on paper, it is like "climb to the top of the radio power" and not very interesting .. but actually playing it is great with all the little details happening on your way up.
You are confused between cause & effect. I doubt many of the gamers care much about MMOs. The devs, OTOH, care about getting a bigger audience.
If the dev make it possible to enjoy a MMO in a small amount of time, i do not see a reason not to give it a chance.
If a game is not fun for me in the first 20 min, and play to my schedule, and my liking, i am out of there. There are plenty of games that will do that.
There is a lot of logic to it. MMORPGs started with almost no quests and to me they were better for it. They had a few quests here and there, but it wasn't the point of playing the game. Video games in general didn't have much storytelling when they first started. They were more about story and game play. My suggestion is just that they go back to their roots.
I take this to be a discussion about what makes a game engaging rather than what makes it successful, so I'll focus on that.
This website's community really needs to take a step back from these same few fixed ideas (usually just illusions the community has constructed amongst itself over time) about what makes an MMO engaging. I'll refute just a few.
1) An MMO world as a "home" for the player:
I once thought this way (that an MMO would should be able to act as a "home") but realized this way of thinking was a symptom of escapism more so than anything (and when I was younger, MMOs did seem, to some limited extent, to function that way). The longer you play MMOs and the more you mature in general, the harder it is to convince yourself that an MMO world can ever truly act this way. Sure, games have gotten more gimmicky and transparent to the player in their systems, but that is a minor obstacle in comparison to the simple inorganic nature of trying to find a home in a virtual world. What we are left with is a sort of fetishizing of things like player housing, and longing for a mythical "community" online. No game designer can give you that - these are things you need to seek out in the concrete world.
2) "Scripting = reduced freedom":
This doesn't work out; I had way more fun exploring every nook and cranny of new zones in WoW as I ever did in SWG, even though clearly the former world was hand-crafted with questing in mind and railroaded you around via quests. It's also sometimes fun to go to higher level zones knowing you might have to avoid enemies there as you explore, etc. It's hard to argue that the world isn't "dangerous" when you actively choose to avoid the dangerous parts. I've never seen a themepark MMO with level-sorted zones where it was impossible for you to get a party together and go level in a harder zone. If someone made a "sandbox" MMO with a handcrafted world such that there was something interesting to find around each corner, I would be impressed, but usually it's the opposite, and old games were generally not like that.
3) "I have to be visibly unique":
No, you really don't. What distinguishes you is how you interact with other players and with the game world (i.e. how you choose to play), not what gear you have or whether you have one ability most people don't have, etc. If you're immersed in a world exploring it, it's the world that is of interest, not you. When you have a chance for social interaction, again it is how you interact, not whether you have some visible "mark of distinction" to show off. I'd just as soon play a game where everyone looked the same and had the same abilities if the world and our interactions were engaging because of the people we were and what we chose to do together (like say, the game "Journey" in mmo form) than a game where everyone sat around in town worshipping eachother's gear all day.
4) "I need Impact":
Not really, if you conceive of "impact" as visible, permanent changes in the game world, as most do. If you went to the beach, built a sand-castle, and went back each day to maintain it - would your life be more meaningful as a result? No. It's the same principle here; it's not apparent 'physical' causality in our acting upon a virtual world that makes the experience meaningful or fulfilling. We only need to be able to affect the virtual world to the extent necessary for our interactions with it any other players. The same applies to story: If I had a fun time questing through a zone, I do not care that the next player will do all the same quests and see the same story again, with him as the hero this time. I still had my experience, he had his, and each of us can add our own stories on top of this or instead of this. At the end of the day, we can still share these stories with each other and get something out of them. I don't need the game to convince me that it's really just me that's the great hero and main character of the story for me to engage the world and enjoy the experience.
TLDR: Your (and the community's) obsessing over these delusions are ruining gaming experiences you might otherwise enjoy. Modern games are not perfect, but you have a greater responsibility for your attitude toward these games than you're admitting, and it's leading you to mis-diagnose the weaknesses of each new game you come across.
You got it in reverse. The fact that it has little story, and now it is everywhere is pretty good evidence that the "point" of playing the game has changed in responding to the market.
Going back to old ideas may suit you, but certainly that is not how the market works, nor how i like it. In fact, i would say take the trend in full. More stories. More instances. There is a reason why games are changed this way.
Go back to your roots completely and you will die with them, you may as well be arguing that everything such as Radio, TV, Commercials etc go back to their roots from the 1940s and earlier. Games can never go back to where they came from can they take ideas from those times yes but life moves one direction forwards and if you want to be successful in any aspect you with accept that fact.
Games when they first came out were about gameplay with nothing to keep the players loyal or engaged when I looked at 8 bit Mario I enjoyed it but it was a good thing that the booklet had some sort of story outline otherwise myself and a large amount of people would have said this is ridiculous as all hell and that would have ended Nintendo, even arcade games had a credit scroll explaining the story a lot of the time. Story has always been a part of games it has just gotten better over the years.