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Why do people wish MMO's to fail?
Tsumoro
Member UncommonPosts: 435
Over the last couple of years I have seen this kind of attitude get fiercer and fiercer and in honest they aren't all trolls. A lot of it is pseudo-businessmen who claim to have this greater understanding in the ways of business, marketing, PR and finance although I very much doubt that 1% of those posting have ever worked outside of domino's.
Where did it all go so wrong, that this jaded behavior manifest itself? Now, I get the fan-boyism that goes with supporting a game, I even understand the fanatical behavior that comes with it to some degree. But I feel like every single debate, conversation and open forum about an MMO slowly degrades into Two Girls one cup with the constant pissing and shitting on each other.
We are here, because we have a love and a connection to the MMO genre, we want it to succeed. We do not want games to fail. Of course, when a game is bad its fine to point it out, anything that further powers the consumer is fantastic considering how secular some reviews tend to be. But, for the most part this is never constructive. I see stuff like "This sucks" or "Look at this companies financial performance" etc with nothing offered to support their rants.
I would very much like to come on to the forums to see a post that goes "I didn't like this game, because..." and have that followed up with "This is what I expected" and then "This is what they could do better for me". That way people with like interests can actually get something out of it and make an informed decision.
I also don't know why people who dislike a franchise, go to a forum of a game they clearly dislike and rip into it. If you played it and disliked it, then sure make a thread like I mentioned above. But if people have a thread that talks about the stuff they like I am not sure why people weigh in with their disdain. Surely there is better things to do with that energy?
People need to stop with toxic behavior, you are killing MMO's, people also need to stop treating MMO's as a solo experience, its not what the genre is about. You might enjoy playing solo, but if you're bored in it because playing solo seems a bit empty or boring, you are the one at fault, NOT the game. Its as effective as playing an RPG and complaining it had no FPS elements in it.
If you truly desire a solo RPG experience there are plenty of FANTASTIC RPGS to play to where you can get your jollies. MMO's are meant to be about coming together and being immersed, not bastardizing it to a standard of your own lone wolf experiences.
I just get the impression as of late that MMO players are very jaded and shallow creatures who are completely anti-social who seem to only delight in the mocking, and jeering of others who play.
Of course, not tarring everyone with the same brush, just wish the community would come together more rather than pushing each other a way.
Comments
I'll approach this in a more general way. The internet is like the front door to our online 'house', and we've all turned into Jehovah's Witnesses. We want everyone to agree with us, to believe what we believe - because our opinion is RIGHT. There's no such thing as a proportionate response anymore. Not liking a game garners the same reaction as the evolution vs. creationism "debate" ( <~ used loosely) if not even more emotional. A lot of people feel that the internet is their pulpit, their soapbox. Their chance to have their voices heard, for better or worse.
It's also one of the only places online where they run into vehement disagreement. People fill their facebook and twitter (and google+?) with their friends, who are generally people that come from similar backgrounds and have similar influences, including belief structure. Without considering this they post stories to their feed about the impact of climate change, for instance, and everyone applauds. Those who disagree are less likely to voice that opinion and face off against the 31 likes and 15 comments on there by the time they came across it. So, they're not used to the confrontation. When they come across resistance here they have to fire back to discredit the other person and/or sway the masses - because they're always right when they post online! They can't possibly be wrong this time...
Of course those are just my general thoughts on it at 7 in the morning, so I could be way off. By my above attempt at logic this does reflect my infrequent use of facebook and twitter. Haha.
- Nellus
My feelings are pretty simple.
The industry is in a rut, and we the gamers are the main reason why.
We are addicts, video games are all about addiction.
Studies have revealed video games generate the same chemical releases as narcotics.
For the most part, we show the same behaviours as drug addicts and the video game developers know it.
Developers have begun to treat gamers exactly the way dealers treat junkies.
They raise the cost and lower the quality.
Unless we the consumers take the profit out of this behaviour it will continue down this path.
Personally I am tired of getting corn starch, when I am paying for a high quality Columbian.
As long as we continue to buy this crap, the industry will NEVER invest the time time or money to advance the industry and make anything better.
So imo the only way to make better games is for every mediocre game out there to fail.
And just like drug dealers, once they realize we the junkies are no longer willing to pay them for the same old crap, they will invest in research into designer "games".
Innovation a new and better high.
In short, it's two words: Crab. Mentality.
In longer, it's basically that most everyone blames someone else as 'the reason' that games aren't being made to their personal specifications. It's something we all have to watch out for, but its always more noticeable in others than ourselves (which of course makes it very, very insidious). But since I can't have -my- game the way I want it, then by God I hope yours fails too so we can commiserate together. If you're happy and I'm not (so the thinking goes), then I've lost, and that's not fair because the game you're enjoying -should- have been made the way I wanted it!
Edit: Cleared up a typo
I never wish for a MMO to fail, but there are games I hope don't become the new Wow. In fact I feel that the genre will do best if we have a few games with 2-3 million players instead of a single large to boost competition and some games are just poorly made so they don't deserve a million players either.
If a shoddy made game can be huge it just sends a bad message to investors. A well made game that isn't my type of game is fine though, while I personally don't enjoy it the message to investors and devs are still clear: make good products and you earn money.
Far too many MMOs releases buggy, with a bad engine, no new or improved features and pretty average graphics. Wishing for those games to fail completely isn't particularly nice to the actual players but wishing success for them is another matter entirely.
If the game is just really well made it still is no real problem there, all it's prove is that good games sell, not that a game must have those features. Sure, many devs still will copy it but some wont.
If the game is crappy as well as something you don't like on the other hand it is a disaster.
Most are spiteful little weenies that have accomplished nothing in life and do not want to see anyone else succeed either. The rest are people who claim to hate any game that even remotely looks like it has the features of another game that will not be mentioned and yet will refuse to play any game that comes out because it doesn't have any of the features from that game.
It all boils down to anonymity. The internet shows us what people would really be like if they could get away with it.
Welcome to the Human race!
Imo there should be only one reason.
Think of it like you have a fellow worker who is real lazy but gets paid the same as you.
I don't like seeing developers get rewarded for putting out a real lazy effort and/or a real cheap effort.It becomes worse when the dev tries to act like their game is the best game on the planet when they clearly know the effort they put in was real slack.
No i don't want to see those hard working people inside of that dev team lose their jobs,but still it is hard to stomach those real slack developers.I do know what kind of effort these devs can put out there,so when they try to sell us real garbage i know it and don't like it.I also don't like seeing others get ripped off by these slack efforts either and i know tons do get ripped off,we all see it 2-3 months after releases with a huge exodus.
There you have it,i just don't like a slack effort ,mmorpg's SHOULD be a multi million dollar investment,it SHOULD look like it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
In my view, MMO games will always fail if they rely on the game to be the subject of populism for being the merit of being a game at all.
If a MMO game fail by not ending up with enough players, it is probably by their own design. Because if people don't really want to play a particular MMO game in the first place for one reason or another, then the devs can't expect a good turnout.
OP, I'll up the ante and suggest that there's a sizable number of posters here who were once fans of the genre but are now in the mindset of jilted lovers, actively despising what they once adored. Rather than moving on they stew over it, using every free opportunity to bash and ridicule. Witness the gleeful pronunciations of "F2P in 6 months" and the sleight-of-hand logic used to declare the genre doomed and dying despite its massive (no pun intended) popularity.
They can't move on nor accept that the object of their desire has moved on. The mere idea that someone else could be making time with the one they lost is offensive, so we have a litany of posts painting current gamers as infantile, dumb, entitled, casual, or otherwise lacking. The heady days of the relationship are raised to legendary status, all the negative aspects glossed over while no blemish goes unnoticed and no nit unpicked when talking about today's experiences.
A reasonable person moves on from a relationship that isn't working, even if there are hurt feelings. But many people on this site just want to see their past love fall into a ditch and break both legs. Schaudenfreude? Eternal hope of a future reunion? Whatever it is, it's profoundly unhealthy and boring and it's the primary reason why this site has become morbidly toxic. Such negativity from so-called enthusiasts only makes MMOs and their fans look bad, and driving potential suitors away from the genre is a far surer way to kill it than making "yet another themepark".
I'll solo in whatever MMO strikes my fancy, as I have for over a decade. And I'll talk about what I do and don't like during my solo play, too.
It's pretty toxic to suggest solo players should shut up and go away.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
OP, I wouldn't use MMORPG.com's forum poster as a sample of first of all, proper MMORPG players, half of them probably don't even play one right now because they can't find an MMORPG to meet expectations. Now if we are talking about just the people here, I think most of them don't wish it to fail, I think they wished it was what they wanted. IMO I think they just generalize the experience of the whole thing across every MMO and if it has weapons, armor, spells and dungeons, it must be a "WoW clone" and they been there and already done that.
Movies and anime doesn't help either because what they all really want is an actual Sword Art Online or some kind of autonomous living breathing world that allowed them to do anything they want to do but then expect that to be easy or practical to actually implement. They also assume their opinion matches with the overall population of the actual MMO gamers (in which we clarified half aren't even a part of or participating in), which it doesn't because MMO gamers are busy enjoying their game and not grunting and complaining on these forums.
In short, don't take the opinions of really anyone on these forums and extrapolate them as this is what everyone believes, they are a very small underrepresented portion (if represented at all) of the actual MMORPG community, this site quite honestly has declined over the years. (It doesn't help its article writers tend to write along the same vein as many of the negative people around here).
There are a lot more different type of players out there and currently the modern setup of MMORPGs is trying to please all of them. However the problem its having is this is casuing everything to be diluted.
The pure PvPer is finding hes being forced into a quest/leveling grind when all he really wants is to dive straight intoa FFA PVP murder/gank fest
The pure PvEer is findings he being forced into a race/class balanced for PvPing whihc makes them lose a lot of their uniqueness. They offten find a heavy amount of PvP being pushed on them.
Then you have the Open World /Theme Park balance a good mmorpg needs both these elements but the balancing of them needs to be right. The players need the belief that they are in control the more open a world is the better its longetivity. The more themepark the better the engagement and purpose. Getting this forumla right is what makes the game last. However everybody has a different idea of what the right balance is.
The reason for the hate is simple its fear people see a game they think could have been good not going in their preferred direction they slam it and slam it hard as often as they can. this is not intended to actually fix the game in question its designed to punish the game and try to convince future developers that its the wrong direction. Hence hopefully moving the next developer to avoid that area and move more towards their ideal.
Of course the current crop of developers are not helping their situation at the moment they are mostly sitting on the fence doing a lot of what could be good ideas but only doing them half arsed. ESO for example not a bad Open World the themepark and PvP lacks meaningful rewards and ultimatly because they are trying to be both PvE and PvP they don't quite make either great.
Just my 2 cents
to op..
there is this saying... It's easy to destroy than it is to build, no one has faith anymore in long term mmorpgs like they once did back in the late 90s nad early 00's.
The mentality has changed as well as gamers in this day of age.
The stakes are just too high here in the MMO business...
This is an industry which redesigns your games out from under you, takes everything away from you when they close, and are always at risk of developing in distasteful ways, based on market metrics.
As a result, people are a lot more mindful of the greater market position of their MMO of choice. What goes on in some other game DOES have an impact on every other game...almost unhealthily so.
And so, is it any wonder that we get so spiteful towards other games? Is it any wonder why we have no sympathy to games that get closed down? Because when a game gets closed down, it can only mean good things for the games that aren't closed down. And when a game is successful, it places all other games on notice.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I thought investors are after profits, so wouldn't a huge game infact draw in more investors. I know this is going off topic but nearly all non crowd funding investors are not game players, so it matters nothing to them what the game offers, just that it makes money, isn't this the driving force for many MMO companies these days, Profits.
Your points are mute because you felt the need to marginalize every single person that doesn't fall in line with your way of thinking.
And that is the actual problem with MMORPGers today.
Selfish and self centered, sure, but so what, it's all about me after all.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Hmmm ... I think you may have described mmorpg.com in a nutshell there ..
Because crap games block IPs from being used. SWTOR and STO are garbage MMOs but because they are still alive you better believe they do not want to make other Star Wars or Star Trek MMOs for fear of taking some of the market. That is the reason why it was "decided" for SWG to be shut down......right around the time TOR was coming out.
I don't think it's just mmos that this type of thing is going on. I think the internet in general is a pretty negative place. Read the comments on just about any site and it's generally a bunch of nasty people going at each other over nothing.
Maybe it's just free speech and total anonymity create this perfect storm of hostility. People probably want games to fail because they don't know how to have a real discussion about anything anymore unless it involves something bad.
MMO's in general have average quality compared to a decade ago.
UO / EQ / Eve Online / WoW / SWG / DaoC are still considered the best mmo's ever made and most are so old......specialy in the world of tech and games.
The mmo industry is making way to average mmo's to top the old ones as they play is safe and dont inovate or inovate on stuff that needs not to be changed.
Also themeparks seems to be worse off with the carrot on a stick design, they become boring due to lack of interesting developments.
While Sandbox mmo's doesnt suffer nearly as much from this as its the players who create most of the contend and that opens up tons of unexpected events and situations.
I think that developers need to stop playing safe and invole community's with a few key aspects instead of their own fail idea's.
Nothing wrong when they set a thick red line, but if you ignore todays community's idea's they your missing out on tons of potential.
Its not the people that make mmo's fail.......its the studio itself.