Originally posted by Rzep So what you are saying is you don't like mmo games. Why are you on a site called mmorpg.com then?
Once you've finished all the quests in f.i. a lvl 10-15 zone, it's totally pointless to return at f.i. lvl 30 or 50 - guess that's what the OP is complaining about. GW2 made a good step in the right direction to make all content meaningful also at max level, all though it's not perfect. However, should be possible to continue on that track, and make such a design even better.
Also; games that make questing the only viable way to progress - I just don't understand why they limit the options so much. They should balance questing, pvp'ing and flat out mob grinding equally, since there are people that like different play styles or like to do different things. Personally, I prefer questing - probably why I like ESO so much
hehe, well I guess this proves you can't please everyone.
The only thing this proves is that even when repeatedly facedesking on the pointy corner of my desk after reading the original post, I still did not get to the apparently extensive brain damage of the original poster.
This is about as useful as saying a car is useless because it drives on a road.
Originally posted by Rzep So what you are saying is you don't like mmo games. Why are you on a site called mmorpg.com then?
Once you've finished all the quests in f.i. a lvl 10-15 zone, it's totally pointless to return at f.i. lvl 30 or 50 - guess that's what the OP is complaining about. GW2 made a good step in the right direction to make all content meaningful also at max level, all though it's not perfect. However, should be possible to continue on that track, and make such a design even better.
Also; games that make questing the only viable way to progress - I just don't understand why they limit the options so much. They should balance questing, pvp'ing and flat out mob grinding equally, since there are people that like different play styles or like to do different things. Personally, I prefer questing - probably why I like ESO so much
and...GW2 is a mmo, isn't it?
Dont worry, they just want to spin weakest link of WS to "If you dont like WS quit MMOs" which is retarded, to be mild.
Quests are only way of delivering lore? Really? Really really?
And they forget the fact that things can be done good and done badly, and in WS whole open world and questing (which makes vast majority of it) is just not good. They manage to devolve something 10 years old.
And a fact that open world in WS is pointless, once youre out of the zone thats it, and endgame is composed of instances (lobby game with open world as waiting room, and mind you, since trinity is involved youll spend lot of time in that waiting room)
No WS is not what "MMOs are" its a clone of specific type within MMO genre (and thats a stretch due to lobby game nature of that type of MMOs)
Originally posted by Rzep So what you are saying is you don't like mmo games. Why are you on a site called mmorpg.com then?
Once you've finished all the quests in f.i. a lvl 10-15 zone, it's totally pointless to return at f.i. lvl 30 or 50 - guess that's what the OP is complaining about. GW2 made a good step in the right direction to make all content meaningful also at max level, all though it's not perfect. However, should be possible to continue on that track, and make such a design even better.
Also; games that make questing the only viable way to progress - I just don't understand why they limit the options so much. They should balance questing, pvp'ing and flat out mob grinding equally, since there are people that like different play styles or like to do different things. Personally, I prefer questing - probably why I like ESO so much
and...GW2 is a mmo, isn't it?
Dont worry, they just want to spin weakest link of WS to "If you dont like WS quit MMOs" which is retarded, to be mild.
Quests are only way of delivering lore? Really? Really really?
And they forget the fact that things can be done good and done badly, and in WS whole open world and questing (which makes vast majority of it) is just not good. They manage to devolve something 10 years old.
And a fact that open world in WS is pointless, once youre out of the zone thats it, and endgame is composed of instances (lobby game with open world as waiting room, and mind you, since trinity is involved youll spend lot of time in that waiting room)
No WS is not what "MMOs are" its a clone of specific type within MMO genre (and thats a stretch due to lobby game nature of that type of MMOs)
1. "Themepark" is a fan made fabricated term for wow clones. A wow clone is a hub based generic quest mmo where you level to a max within a month or two, followed by repeating 5 instanced dungeons over and over, with a handful of instanced "pvp" battlegrounds where gear matters more than skill.
2. It is AMAZING to me that people have been convinced that the WoW model is the de facto definition of an MMO and that if people don't like it, then they don't like the whole genre. Just because you haven't experienced something different(Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Eve, Darkfall, etc), doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Open your eyes to the possibilities rather than accepting the garbage that is repeatedly spoon fed to you.
Originally posted by Rzep So what you are saying is you don't like mmo games. Why are you on a site called mmorpg.com then?
Once you've finished all the quests in f.i. a lvl 10-15 zone, it's totally pointless to return at f.i. lvl 30 or 50 - guess that's what the OP is complaining about. GW2 made a good step in the right direction to make all content meaningful also at max level, all though it's not perfect. However, should be possible to continue on that track, and make such a design even better.
Also; games that make questing the only viable way to progress - I just don't understand why they limit the options so much. They should balance questing, pvp'ing and flat out mob grinding equally, since there are people that like different play styles or like to do different things. Personally, I prefer questing - probably why I like ESO so much
and...GW2 is a mmo, isn't it?
Dont worry, they just want to spin weakest link of WS to "If you dont like WS quit MMOs" which is retarded, to be mild.
Quests are only way of delivering lore? Really? Really really?
And they forget the fact that things can be done good and done badly, and in WS whole open world and questing (which makes vast majority of it) is just not good. They manage to devolve something 10 years old.
And a fact that open world in WS is pointless, once youre out of the zone thats it, and endgame is composed of instances (lobby game with open world as waiting room, and mind you, since trinity is involved youll spend lot of time in that waiting room)
No WS is not what "MMOs are" its a clone of specific type within MMO genre (and thats a stretch due to lobby game nature of that type of MMOs)
The sad reality of a game on rails.
But the me and the majorrity of casual gamers just love this kind of games.... Nothing wrong with it.
you guys are a very small minority..
and i dont see any AAA games heading your way, because even EQN itselves will be all about this kind of gameplay, no real sandboxes comming up.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I think what the OP means is... MMOs are now all forced quest hubs that string you along to max level.
What he probably wants is a choice to fight bosses OR fight only mobs OR find "meaningful quests" (when there are 20 quests in one small area they aren't really that meaningful... but 2 or 3 long deep quests are meaningful). I mean you could level this way in games all the time pre-WoW. No...I'm not saying WoW is the issues (since you can level with dungeons I think still?), just saying the trend is to force people to do quests and only quests as a viable way of quickly leveling. People will say "you can level in PvP", but if leveling isn't equally fast or equally enjoyable as it is with other means then it isn't deep enough to be meaningful.
You shouldn't leave a zone and never go back ever again in an mmo. There should be reasons for why all levels and characters want to return to zones eventually without re-rolling. Yes this also was standard 10 years ago. That isn't really the case anymore...when you play a zone and never intend to return it's pretty shallow design.
My thoughts exactly. I used to enjoy questing but not any longer. The genre has gone from mob grinding to quest grinding. Mob grinding used to be a viable way of leveling but no more. Players insist not only on being rewarded with xp for killing mobs but the turn in as well. So much so that mob xp in most games has been nerfed and to level you must do ungodly amounts of running around. Players are happy to be shephereded through zones with this sort of leveling. Personally I am sick of it. I think Rift really put me over the top for quest hubs. The storm legion expansion killed my patience and tolerance for quest grinding.
Are you assuming that EQN still might be on rails or similar to a themepark clone? I feel it might be a step in the right direction but we cannot speak on something we almost know anything about, mechanic wise.
No more RAILS! NO MORE RAILS! I'm sick of quest hubs, I'm sick of MAPS!!! Most certainly I am sick of levels.
But I fear casuals will invade this game over time and dominate with there 'Entitlement' attitude. I'm just rambling here, dont mind me.
Also as stated, who goes back to previous zones you out leveled? The open world seems like a big CLUSTER (BEEEP). But they do what they do well though!
As a long time MMO player, starting with The Realm and EQ and DAoC etc. It's kinda funny to see people complaining about quests and quest hubs etc. I don't know it's its nostalgia clouding the truth of what those games were, but EverQuest and DAoC PvE was a brutal grind back in the day. Set up shop, kill the same mobs for three hours or so until someone left the group and then look for another group and repeat. There were other things to do, and that was all good, but I'd much rather do quests than spend an hour looking for a group, then another few hours killing the same mobs time and time again. Running around and doing things, however pointless, is at least something better than what it was.
That said, it would be nice to have some ideal game in which you could do whatever you like and not feel like you're being baited to go here and do this, but as far back as you look, most MMO's have this trend, whether it's systemic or an organic process. You didn't hang out in starter zones in those old titles past a certain level because you weren't progressing, so you moved to the next zone and so on. No one told you to do it, but you did it because it was the only thing you could do. Same process in theme parks today, it's just an overt process.
As a long time MMO player, starting with The Realm and EQ and DAoC etc. It's kinda funny to see people complaining about quests and quest hubs etc. I don't know it's its nostalgia clouding the truth of what those games were, but EverQuest and DAoC PvE was a brutal grind back in the day. Set up shop, kill the same mobs for three hours or so until someone left the group and then look for another group and repeat. There were other things to do, and that was all good, but I'd much rather do quests than spend an hour looking for a group, then another few hours killing the same mobs time and time again. Running around and doing things, however pointless, is at least something better than what it was.
That said, it would be nice to have some ideal game in which you could do whatever you like and not feel like you're being baited to go here and do this, but as far back as you look, most MMO's have this trend, whether it's systemic or an organic process. You didn't hang out in starter zones in those old titles past a certain level because you weren't progressing, so you moved to the next zone and so on. No one told you to do it, but you did it because it was the only thing you could do. Same process in theme parks today, it's just an overt process.
Really? EQ and DAOC, father of "themepark" MMOs (DAOC for leveling purposes) is your "defense"
I completely agree that intelligence insulting quests ARE better than completely sense ridden grind those had.
And who said anything completely against quests? BUT, quests like WoW started and now WS managed to devolve, quests that really insult your intelligence are BAD way to do quests. Quality over quantity. As in these quests are same EQ grind with xp reward after x kills (and turning to quest hub to skip ques text that seems to be written by 5 year old). Vast majority of people just skip it because, it just....sucks, it has no meaning at all.
Anyway, its waste of open world space, waste of developers time and waste of money to do it this way (as they slowly come to realize). GW2 made a step forward, i wish they made leap forward and got rid of levels alltogeher, but at least they did step forward unlike WS which managed to make step back from 2004 WoW.
As a long time MMO player, starting with The Realm and EQ and DAoC etc. It's kinda funny to see people complaining about quests and quest hubs etc. I don't know it's its nostalgia clouding the truth of what those games were, but EverQuest and DAoC PvE was a brutal grind back in the day. Set up shop, kill the same mobs for three hours or so until someone left the group and then look for another group and repeat. There were other things to do, and that was all good, but I'd much rather do quests than spend an hour looking for a group, then another few hours killing the same mobs time and time again. Running around and doing things, however pointless, is at least something better than what it was.
That said, it would be nice to have some ideal game in which you could do whatever you like and not feel like you're being baited to go here and do this, but as far back as you look, most MMO's have this trend, whether it's systemic or an organic process. You didn't hang out in starter zones in those old titles past a certain level because you weren't progressing, so you moved to the next zone and so on. No one told you to do it, but you did it because it was the only thing you could do. Same process in theme parks today, it's just an overt process.
Really? EQ and DAOC, father of "themepark" MMOs (DAOC for leveling purposes) is your "defense"
I completely agree that intelligence insulting quests ARE better than completely sense ridden grind those had.
And who said anything completely against quests? BUT, quests like WoW started and now WS managed to devolve, quests that really insult your intelligence are BAD way to do quests. Quality over quantity. As in these quests are same EQ grind with xp reward after x kills (and turning to quest hub to skip ques text that seems to be written by 5 year old). Vast majority of people just skip it because, it just....sucks, it has no meaning at all.
Anyway, its waste of open world space, waste of developers time and waste of money to do it this way (as they slowly come to realize). GW2 made a step forward, i wish they made leap forward and got rid of levels alltogeher, but at least they did step forward unlike WS which managed to make step back from 2004 WoW.
Take it the way you want.... most MMO players prefer Quest based content any day above contentless so called sandboxes... Most people want to be entertained and thats just what these Quest based MMO´s are really good up... espescially WS, because next to lore and story, there is humor anyway, but then to take notice of this part of the game, that requires you to read.. And some gamers are just not good at reading..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The replies in this thread demonstrate that people have forgotten how different MMOs can be. It's true that most MMORPGs today borrow heavily from WoW and that its type of gameplay is considered "MMORPG gameplay" by now, but there was a time when each MMO was a unique experience.
Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Eve Online and SWG (to mention some) were all MMORPGs with design philosophies that were significantly different from what we see today.
You quest to get xp and gear. You do dungeons/raids for xp and gear. I mean that is the game.
MMORPGs like this are just a variation on Diablo 2 basically. I mean there is really almost no RPG to them. Its the nature of the beast. They are purely RPG mathematical build power gaming system and all other portions of RPG gaming is essentially ignored.
Many people who have only played WoW are actually to the point where they think this is what defines an RPG. And then I guess story comes in sometimes. But classic RPGs like Ultima 4 had so much more to them.
In old RPGs the system was a means to an end. After WoW, but really beginning in the EQ raid game (because WoW was simply the next iteration of the EQ raid scene), the system became the end in and of itself.
This is not something new. From the days of table top gaming there have always been a set of people for whom the system itself was the main draw. Diablo and its successors were an important maker in this trend. But just like warcraft was a copy of an game with just barely non-quite stolen IP, Diablo is based on rogue-likes and we can easily see the trend in some rogue-likes. I have power gamed in MOST RPGs I played. I like to do it. But I don't disregard the rest of RPGs. And without the rest of the RPG, power gaming becomes boring and hollow.
The problem with the current state of the MMORPG genre is that the rest of what an CRPG game is and was is barely even known anymore at least within the genre itself. And we are left with shallow one dimensional casinos.
All you have to do is compare the total body of Skyrim and its mods to any MMORPG.
That thing is over 1 gig to install and it was made for free and is downloaded by tons of people. So many people a ridiculous amount of work into it for free. Look at what it adds and why. Almost none of it has something to do with epic lootz. What CRPGs really are has not been lost at all, its quite strong, it is only in the genre of MMORPGs we see significant people who are clueless about this stuff.
Originally posted by Gravehill Quests have been a staple of RPGs since the 70s. I think you're playing the wrong genre.
True, to some extent. I have both played tabletop rpgs and those on pc/consoles for many years. I can tell you with all certainty that in no table top session was I ever required to go out and slaughter "X" amount of monsters and bring back various trophies for xp and reward in order to level. All the slaughter and exploration had to do with progressing the storyline and not inconsequential time consuming bs meant to keep me busy. ;-)
I love an open world with quests. I played Everquest and despite its name we hardly had any . We would sit in a room and someone would pull and we would kill the mob. Or we would stand in an open camp and wait for respawns and kill that .Give me lore,quests and an open world to wander about and meeting NPCs that give me things to do that can lead to an interesting story,It's like a novel unfolding. As much I loved Everquest I feel a world with quests are an improvement.
I'll be honest I do not enjoy sandbox games. SWG bored me and I left within a month. Some of us actually do love an open world with things to do like crafting,quests,housing ,Bgs and exploring and looking for hidden lore and treasure. I sincerely like those types of games. I have no idea how many more are like me though.
Originally posted by Gravehill Quests have been a staple of RPGs since the 70s. I think you're playing the wrong genre.
Yes, but compare the quests in Anarchy Online and Asheron's Call to WoW and Wildstar's. In the former they were separate from the game's main form of progression, which allowed them to be fewer, more involved and more interesting with special rewards at the end.
In WoW and Wildstar and most modern MMOs quests are the primary progression mechanic. They're rarely special or interesting or more involved than following an arrow. It's just a way to keep you moving forward and making sure your gear is up to snuff. Every time a quest tries to be more it fails miserably because you know nothing special will happen. You will receive your fair share of experience and level appropriate loot and that will be it. You never feel like you are hunting anyone or discovering anything. You aren't "on a quest". You're just playing whack-a-quest. You are ticking boxes. You are taking care of an ever-growing laundry list of mundane boring shit you have to do just so you can have a cleaner quest log to look at.
Didn't Anarchy Online have mission terminals that gave you canned quests ?
Anyway advancing in any game is a movement in a direction whether you stand in one spot and grind mobs or complete quests you are moving in the direction of advancement of your character. You're fooling yourself if you think that there is a difference between killing random mobs that give you experience to advance over killing them for a quest.
I do not see that big draw to a world that leaves mobs that you run across and kill over ones that you search for a quest. They seem like an exercise in semantics . I am not disputing that while you progress you are ticking boxes but fantasy books that you read often have a goal and quests that you do along the way and you do them in order to achieve a goal. In games with quests the goal is often to reach the end game. How you reach there is what seems to be the difference between the games. I do not think that one way is better than the other they are just different. I also think that when you put down one method over the other you are disrespecting the player who chooses questing as an enjoyable venture.
Also I think the reason questing fails for people is because they do not read or enjoy reading and doing the quest. I enjoyed SWTOR immensely because I loved the story and yet others hated the on rails game. I think the fault of not enjoying lies with the player who does not recognize that that type of game is not to his liking. However there is nothing diminutive or less in that type of game as some here would like to have us believe .There is just different forms of playing an MMORPG.
i just realized that some companies are offering content creation tools to the players because they are sick of people complaining that X piece of content is bad. -You dont like my content? then make your own damn thing, but i get a cut of the profit.
As technology keeps evolving, creativity fades. I think every game should offer content creation tools, but since players will be making content the pricing of games would have to change drastically too.
EDIT: actually scratch the lack of creativity. It is not fading, i keep forgetting that publishers and investors dont care about developers' creativity, they rather make crappy stuff that the majority would pay for.
I think people want quests to be long and involved, opposed to being simple fetch quests. From a player enrichment standpoint, having long, epic quest chains like the Onyxia one from the original WoW that would offer XP comparable to doing however many fetch quests in that time period would be preferred. However, from a development standpoint, there's much less cost involved in making quests that only require a few minutes per quest.
Either way, quests seem largely wasted on a lot of people, simply because they don't read them. When it takes several hundred quests to get to the level cap and people aren't interested in the story to begin with, people just skip over it. You get people that skip over the dialog when a game is new because they feel like it's some major accomplishment to be the first to max level or whatever, then later on want to know why they're fighting what they are because they didn't read a lick of quest text.
MMORPGs are really losing the RPG factor (to no fault of the developers in some cases) because of players' mentalities. May as well just start calling them MMOKTB. (Kill the Bosses)
I am so sick of this trend in MMO's. The "game world" is a pointless container for questing. I hate questing. If you ask me, quests aren't even content (at all).
So seeing as how the open world offers absolutely nothing worthwhile to the game, it's another instance fest where you have 2 BGs total (amazing!) and some PVE stuff.
Warplots are apparently a massive zergfest. Hell, 10v10 feels like a massive zergfest. WTF devs? This trend is starting to piss me off.
So essentially you dislike MMORPG's to their core.
I think what the OP means is... MMOs are now all forced quest hubs that string you along to max level.
What he probably wants is a choice to fight bosses OR fight only mobs OR find "meaningful quests" (when there are 20 quests in one small area they aren't really that meaningful... but 2 or 3 long deep quests are meaningful). I mean you could level this way in games all the time pre-WoW. No...I'm not saying WoW is the issues (since you can level with dungeons I think still?), just saying the trend is to force people to do quests and only quests as a viable way of quickly leveling. People will say "you can level in PvP", but if leveling isn't equally fast or equally enjoyable as it is with other means then it isn't deep enough to be meaningful.
You shouldn't leave a zone and never go back ever again in an mmo. There should be reasons for why all levels and characters want to return to zones eventually without re-rolling. Yes this also was standard 10 years ago. That isn't really the case anymore...when you play a zone and never intend to return it's pretty shallow design.
WS is a very polished/feature complete game, however.
While there are a ton of quests in WS, possible too many in batches at a single time at points, which is amazing considering the usual mmo complaint is the opposite. Anyways I'm finding that even some of the less meaningful quests often are more enjoyable that the typical quest in (other) mmo's. So props to that, plus I'm glad that some of them are designed to allow players to stop and smell the roses (so to speak), and really appreciate the beautiful world that the devs crafted. While certainly not a stylization for everyone, it is indisputably well made.
I think WS is doing just fine. The game's addictive. I honestly didn't want anything to do with the game up until last week when my roomate showed me what he was doing with his housing plot, and then offered a guest pass. You can call it outdated all you want, or even clamor for more sandbox mmo's if you'd like to, it won't make a well made themepark mmorpg any less enjoyable to people.
Comments
Once you've finished all the quests in f.i. a lvl 10-15 zone, it's totally pointless to return at f.i. lvl 30 or 50 - guess that's what the OP is complaining about. GW2 made a good step in the right direction to make all content meaningful also at max level, all though it's not perfect. However, should be possible to continue on that track, and make such a design even better.
Also; games that make questing the only viable way to progress - I just don't understand why they limit the options so much. They should balance questing, pvp'ing and flat out mob grinding equally, since there are people that like different play styles or like to do different things. Personally, I prefer questing - probably why I like ESO so much
and...GW2 is a mmo, isn't it?
The only thing this proves is that even when repeatedly facedesking on the pointy corner of my desk after reading the original post, I still did not get to the apparently extensive brain damage of the original poster.
This is about as useful as saying a car is useless because it drives on a road.
Dont worry, they just want to spin weakest link of WS to "If you dont like WS quit MMOs" which is retarded, to be mild.
Quests are only way of delivering lore? Really? Really really?
And they forget the fact that things can be done good and done badly, and in WS whole open world and questing (which makes vast majority of it) is just not good. They manage to devolve something 10 years old.
And a fact that open world in WS is pointless, once youre out of the zone thats it, and endgame is composed of instances (lobby game with open world as waiting room, and mind you, since trinity is involved youll spend lot of time in that waiting room)
No WS is not what "MMOs are" its a clone of specific type within MMO genre (and thats a stretch due to lobby game nature of that type of MMOs)
The sad reality of a game on rails.
1. "Themepark" is a fan made fabricated term for wow clones. A wow clone is a hub based generic quest mmo where you level to a max within a month or two, followed by repeating 5 instanced dungeons over and over, with a handful of instanced "pvp" battlegrounds where gear matters more than skill.
2. It is AMAZING to me that people have been convinced that the WoW model is the de facto definition of an MMO and that if people don't like it, then they don't like the whole genre. Just because you haven't experienced something different(Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Eve, Darkfall, etc), doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Open your eyes to the possibilities rather than accepting the garbage that is repeatedly spoon fed to you.
But the me and the majorrity of casual gamers just love this kind of games.... Nothing wrong with it.
you guys are a very small minority..
and i dont see any AAA games heading your way, because even EQN itselves will be all about this kind of gameplay, no real sandboxes comming up.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
My thoughts exactly. I used to enjoy questing but not any longer. The genre has gone from mob grinding to quest grinding. Mob grinding used to be a viable way of leveling but no more. Players insist not only on being rewarded with xp for killing mobs but the turn in as well. So much so that mob xp in most games has been nerfed and to level you must do ungodly amounts of running around. Players are happy to be shephereded through zones with this sort of leveling. Personally I am sick of it. I think Rift really put me over the top for quest hubs. The storm legion expansion killed my patience and tolerance for quest grinding.
Are you assuming that EQN still might be on rails or similar to a themepark clone? I feel it might be a step in the right direction but we cannot speak on something we almost know anything about, mechanic wise.
No more RAILS! NO MORE RAILS! I'm sick of quest hubs, I'm sick of MAPS!!! Most certainly I am sick of levels.
But I fear casuals will invade this game over time and dominate with there 'Entitlement' attitude. I'm just rambling here, dont mind me.
Also as stated, who goes back to previous zones you out leveled? The open world seems like a big CLUSTER (BEEEP). But they do what they do well though!
As a long time MMO player, starting with The Realm and EQ and DAoC etc. It's kinda funny to see people complaining about quests and quest hubs etc. I don't know it's its nostalgia clouding the truth of what those games were, but EverQuest and DAoC PvE was a brutal grind back in the day. Set up shop, kill the same mobs for three hours or so until someone left the group and then look for another group and repeat. There were other things to do, and that was all good, but I'd much rather do quests than spend an hour looking for a group, then another few hours killing the same mobs time and time again. Running around and doing things, however pointless, is at least something better than what it was.
That said, it would be nice to have some ideal game in which you could do whatever you like and not feel like you're being baited to go here and do this, but as far back as you look, most MMO's have this trend, whether it's systemic or an organic process. You didn't hang out in starter zones in those old titles past a certain level because you weren't progressing, so you moved to the next zone and so on. No one told you to do it, but you did it because it was the only thing you could do. Same process in theme parks today, it's just an overt process.
Really? EQ and DAOC, father of "themepark" MMOs (DAOC for leveling purposes) is your "defense"
I completely agree that intelligence insulting quests ARE better than completely sense ridden grind those had.
And who said anything completely against quests? BUT, quests like WoW started and now WS managed to devolve, quests that really insult your intelligence are BAD way to do quests. Quality over quantity. As in these quests are same EQ grind with xp reward after x kills (and turning to quest hub to skip ques text that seems to be written by 5 year old). Vast majority of people just skip it because, it just....sucks, it has no meaning at all.
Anyway, its waste of open world space, waste of developers time and waste of money to do it this way (as they slowly come to realize). GW2 made a step forward, i wish they made leap forward and got rid of levels alltogeher, but at least they did step forward unlike WS which managed to make step back from 2004 WoW.
Take it the way you want.... most MMO players prefer Quest based content any day above contentless so called sandboxes... Most people want to be entertained and thats just what these Quest based MMO´s are really good up... espescially WS, because next to lore and story, there is humor anyway, but then to take notice of this part of the game, that requires you to read.. And some gamers are just not good at reading..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The replies in this thread demonstrate that people have forgotten how different MMOs can be. It's true that most MMORPGs today borrow heavily from WoW and that its type of gameplay is considered "MMORPG gameplay" by now, but there was a time when each MMO was a unique experience.
Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Eve Online and SWG (to mention some) were all MMORPGs with design philosophies that were significantly different from what we see today.
Isn't the whole game essentially pointless?
You quest to get xp and gear. You do dungeons/raids for xp and gear. I mean that is the game.
MMORPGs like this are just a variation on Diablo 2 basically. I mean there is really almost no RPG to them. Its the nature of the beast. They are purely RPG mathematical build power gaming system and all other portions of RPG gaming is essentially ignored.
Many people who have only played WoW are actually to the point where they think this is what defines an RPG. And then I guess story comes in sometimes. But classic RPGs like Ultima 4 had so much more to them.
In old RPGs the system was a means to an end. After WoW, but really beginning in the EQ raid game (because WoW was simply the next iteration of the EQ raid scene), the system became the end in and of itself.
This is not something new. From the days of table top gaming there have always been a set of people for whom the system itself was the main draw. Diablo and its successors were an important maker in this trend. But just like warcraft was a copy of an game with just barely non-quite stolen IP, Diablo is based on rogue-likes and we can easily see the trend in some rogue-likes. I have power gamed in MOST RPGs I played. I like to do it. But I don't disregard the rest of RPGs. And without the rest of the RPG, power gaming becomes boring and hollow.
The problem with the current state of the MMORPG genre is that the rest of what an CRPG game is and was is barely even known anymore at least within the genre itself. And we are left with shallow one dimensional casinos.
All you have to do is compare the total body of Skyrim and its mods to any MMORPG.
Just look at this one mod, Interesting NPC:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8429/?
That thing is over 1 gig to install and it was made for free and is downloaded by tons of people. So many people a ridiculous amount of work into it for free. Look at what it adds and why. Almost none of it has something to do with epic lootz. What CRPGs really are has not been lost at all, its quite strong, it is only in the genre of MMORPGs we see significant people who are clueless about this stuff.
True, to some extent. I have both played tabletop rpgs and those on pc/consoles for many years. I can tell you with all certainty that in no table top session was I ever required to go out and slaughter "X" amount of monsters and bring back various trophies for xp and reward in order to level. All the slaughter and exploration had to do with progressing the storyline and not inconsequential time consuming bs meant to keep me busy. ;-)
I love an open world with quests. I played Everquest and despite its name we hardly had any . We would sit in a room and someone would pull and we would kill the mob. Or we would stand in an open camp and wait for respawns and kill that .Give me lore,quests and an open world to wander about and meeting NPCs that give me things to do that can lead to an interesting story,It's like a novel unfolding. As much I loved Everquest I feel a world with quests are an improvement.
I'll be honest I do not enjoy sandbox games. SWG bored me and I left within a month. Some of us actually do love an open world with things to do like crafting,quests,housing ,Bgs and exploring and looking for hidden lore and treasure. I sincerely like those types of games. I have no idea how many more are like me though.
Yes, but compare the quests in Anarchy Online and Asheron's Call to WoW and Wildstar's. In the former they were separate from the game's main form of progression, which allowed them to be fewer, more involved and more interesting with special rewards at the end.
In WoW and Wildstar and most modern MMOs quests are the primary progression mechanic. They're rarely special or interesting or more involved than following an arrow. It's just a way to keep you moving forward and making sure your gear is up to snuff. Every time a quest tries to be more it fails miserably because you know nothing special will happen. You will receive your fair share of experience and level appropriate loot and that will be it. You never feel like you are hunting anyone or discovering anything. You aren't "on a quest". You're just playing whack-a-quest. You are ticking boxes. You are taking care of an ever-growing laundry list of mundane boring shit you have to do just so you can have a cleaner quest log to look at.
Didn't Anarchy Online have mission terminals that gave you canned quests ?
Anyway advancing in any game is a movement in a direction whether you stand in one spot and grind mobs or complete quests you are moving in the direction of advancement of your character. You're fooling yourself if you think that there is a difference between killing random mobs that give you experience to advance over killing them for a quest.
I do not see that big draw to a world that leaves mobs that you run across and kill over ones that you search for a quest. They seem like an exercise in semantics . I am not disputing that while you progress you are ticking boxes but fantasy books that you read often have a goal and quests that you do along the way and you do them in order to achieve a goal. In games with quests the goal is often to reach the end game. How you reach there is what seems to be the difference between the games. I do not think that one way is better than the other they are just different. I also think that when you put down one method over the other you are disrespecting the player who chooses questing as an enjoyable venture.
Also I think the reason questing fails for people is because they do not read or enjoy reading and doing the quest. I enjoyed SWTOR immensely because I loved the story and yet others hated the on rails game. I think the fault of not enjoying lies with the player who does not recognize that that type of game is not to his liking. However there is nothing diminutive or less in that type of game as some here would like to have us believe .There is just different forms of playing an MMORPG.
i just realized that some companies are offering content creation tools to the players because they are sick of people complaining that X piece of content is bad. -You dont like my content? then make your own damn thing, but i get a cut of the profit.
As technology keeps evolving, creativity fades. I think every game should offer content creation tools, but since players will be making content the pricing of games would have to change drastically too.
EDIT: actually scratch the lack of creativity. It is not fading, i keep forgetting that publishers and investors dont care about developers' creativity, they rather make crappy stuff that the majority would pay for.
I think people want quests to be long and involved, opposed to being simple fetch quests. From a player enrichment standpoint, having long, epic quest chains like the Onyxia one from the original WoW that would offer XP comparable to doing however many fetch quests in that time period would be preferred. However, from a development standpoint, there's much less cost involved in making quests that only require a few minutes per quest.
Either way, quests seem largely wasted on a lot of people, simply because they don't read them. When it takes several hundred quests to get to the level cap and people aren't interested in the story to begin with, people just skip over it. You get people that skip over the dialog when a game is new because they feel like it's some major accomplishment to be the first to max level or whatever, then later on want to know why they're fighting what they are because they didn't read a lick of quest text.
MMORPGs are really losing the RPG factor (to no fault of the developers in some cases) because of players' mentalities. May as well just start calling them MMOKTB. (Kill the Bosses)
So essentially you dislike MMORPG's to their core.
Themepark with quest hubs = outdated and boring
Sorry Wildstar.
While there are a ton of quests in WS, possible too many in batches at a single time at points, which is amazing considering the usual mmo complaint is the opposite. Anyways I'm finding that even some of the less meaningful quests often are more enjoyable that the typical quest in (other) mmo's. So props to that, plus I'm glad that some of them are designed to allow players to stop and smell the roses (so to speak), and really appreciate the beautiful world that the devs crafted. While certainly not a stylization for everyone, it is indisputably well made.
I think WS is doing just fine. The game's addictive. I honestly didn't want anything to do with the game up until last week when my roomate showed me what he was doing with his housing plot, and then offered a guest pass. You can call it outdated all you want, or even clamor for more sandbox mmo's if you'd like to, it won't make a well made themepark mmorpg any less enjoyable to people.
Sincerely,
- Former Butthurt SWG vet