OP, what you described is the worst possible thing i could think of doing with my meagre gaming time.
Games are for entertainment, they are not life simulators.
That's the thing why this genre has shifted into more "game" because the majority these day's has a very limited scope as in unable to understand how they might have fun in a more virtual world.
It's more because the industry isn't only for basement dwellers anymore. More regular people started to play, people that already have rich life outside of gaming, and just want to play a game for entertainment, not to compensate for nothing to do outside.
Besides games were always games. SWG and other few like that were only exceptions, that were liked by different people, not a holy grail for entire industry. Most gamers didn't even bother trying them out. It was for specific tastes. Suddenly everyone is glorifying them like it was the best thing that ever happened.
It really feels like that few people that really played those games and liked it, are the dominant speakers in this forum.
All I remember about vanilla SWG is a lot of complaint and small player base. Suddenly when it is not here to be checked out, everyone can say whatever they want and no one will be able to verify. It is convenient.
Yup that's the common response of people who simply have a limited scope. No worries my life is great outside of gaming.
But my main hobby is games and I happen to like different type of games. It has absolutely nothing to do with compensating anything. I keep thinking gamers are openminded, yet we keep seeing responses like the one above me.
But don't worries I don't play the blame game. I have fun in MMORPG's even themeparks, found my own niche.
I think you missed the point.
It's cool that you can have fun achieving nothing in game but people like me like to progress a little each day when they log on. I stop and smell the roses as well(which explains my massive screenshot library) but the primary focus is to progress and actually achieve something each time i play.
Progression and the ability to slowly develop my character into something powerful is the only reason i play MMORPG's.
The day that stops is the day the genre dies.
Also note that every AAA game over the past 10 years has focused on that and companies that put massive amounts of due diligence before pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into development know what gamers want to do.
Nope think you missed it. Let me explain I do not play RPG´s without progression. I like to build up my character. But there is more to a MMORPG then just progression. Also note that as said I don´t play the blame game and have very good understanding what the majority wants which is limited towards what I want out of my MMORPG experiance. Hopelfully it´s clear that I aint playing it different then you are I just want more it seems.....
Originally posted by The.agG If this isn't a post showing the rose-tinted glasses among MMO players, then i don't know what is.
I have to agree.
The most amazing game of all time cancelled! There must have been some problems, no?
The problem was the idiots at SOE took one of the best games, if not the best game (in my top 5) of all time, and turned it into one of the worst games of all time...and it was right after they released an expansion, so that expansion you just bought was totally worthless and a waste of money.
The title line is how I felt when I played Star Wars Galaxies, back a year after launch in 2004. That game didn't last long, but the game world was so rich, so immersive, that even logging on and observing what went on was fun in itself.
It wasn't for a lack of things to do. There was plenty to do in SWG, every day, but even when you felt like doing nothing, you didn't want to log off.
Stuff would happen all around you. Gunfights would erupt, people were RPing all over the place in spatial, and the galaxy would be in motion (market activity, entertainers entertaining, pick up groups and loners in far off locales). This was the kind of game where something interesting could happen at any time, and you didn't want to miss out. You'd do your own thing, just hanging out, and BOOM...you'd get a text and it was on!
This kind of interest in staying logged on is rare these days. The only other time I experienced it was in CoH around Atlas Park and Pocket D. And I don't know if it was because the players were different, the games were designed differently, or that the environments were more conducive to staying logged on.
But in today's games, I don't feel the same vibe. If I'm not doing something, there seems to be no reason to stay logged on just to "hang out"...these are not games which encourage you to hang out. They encourage you to keep on grinding or questing or acting in some way to exhaustion and log out. It is as if the games are saying, "if you ain't mashing buttons in combat, you shouldn't be here." But what if I don't want to mash buttons in combat all the time? Sometimes I feel like that and I want something interesting to experience in the game without it all having to rely on me navigating a life and death struggle every second. Is it wrong to want that in an MMO?
So correct. A poster after you stated that EQ could as well be revamped with a new graphics engine and be brought back - and that it's mind boggling as to why this doesn't happen.
Let's add Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, et al., to that list.
The past decade of mmo video games are made by corporately driven cultures - not by folks who love the immersive feel of walking through a fantasy novel as a hero. Heck, even most players I meet have no idea what this means because it hasn't been done for so long - and therefore, the industry that has initially betrayed its own creative freedom, has spoon fed a generation of gamers - complete crap. In response, gamers smile as they eat the crap, by the spoonful, assuming that's as good as this will ever get.
I thought ESO would break the mold, but they copy pasted race, class and concept across their plastic, tri-realm e-sport. So now, waiting on Camelot Unchained for my last great hope.
If you can no longer sit still for 30 minutes and just look at shit or talk to people, do you really think its the games that have changed? I do that in every mmo I play. Maybe you are too swayed by the shiny content being dangled in front of your face and you blame the game for that? Get some feckin willpower. Learn to chill the hell out and just start talking to people again. Or just watch whats going on. Read what people are saying. Chime in. Or lend a hand when someone asks.
Its amazing people blame video games for their own inability to exercise self control.
Every day I log on and watch people scamper around trying to finish their dailies or get their marks. Trying to maximize their precious playtime. You ever just...you know...not do that? Try it. Log on and just hang out where theres a lot of people. Or just go somewhere and do something that might be helpful to someone else. They will show up, I promise. Somebody somewhere will talk to you, or buy your low level crap, or say hi.
I think sometimes veteran mmo players dream of the old games because they liked how They Themselves Were Back Then. Its sad now because they makes threads like this, insisting its not them that have changed. You're just the same wide eyed, super positive, full of wonder noob like when you first played that old mmo? Bullshit. If that were true, you wouldnt be here shitting on everything like some jaded old crotchety gamer blaming everything around them but themselves.
New people try new mmos every day. And they are just as wide eyed and full of amazement as you once were. My advice: seek them out in-game like they are a precious rare resource and talk to them. Help them out. Show them the ropes. Take on a monster. Or a dungeon. Maybe some of their magic will rub off on you and you'll remember why you loved these games so much. And then you might realize that what your're looking for in these games has always been right in front of you.
^this
SWG is still my favorite MMO, yet what foom said is spot on. Just because you never take the time to stop and look around doesn't mean you can't stop and just look around.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
i think i changed. i remember logging into my first multiplayer game playing with OTHER people. it was mechcommander, then age of empires 2, then diablo 2 and just by accident anarchy online. it was free to download and had a free trial.
it was so new and i was excited. i didnt even know what it is. it took its time to find the way out of the leet playground and arriving in the city was even more exciting.
games were very social. people communicated, roleplayed, and partied together, and chatted while doing group stuff. you did almost everything in a group. and groups stayed together for hours, just changing 1 position every other time, when someone needed to leave. i spent nights!
other people was exciting and the bet part of playing online: playing with others, chatting.
SWG was the first game and only game where i ran around planets finding good ressources to craft. crafting was meaningful and i normally hate crafting. roleplaying was great. pvp was exciting when you had it on, just too laggy.
but what i did have what i dont have now: time and no responsibilities. no family, no kids, no wife, sometimes not even a girlfriend. just little work next to university. i could spend the whole night sleeping the whole morning after because i could.
now: social aspects are gone. people dont use their keyboard to chat and i cant use TS because of family... but there is no chatting anyway... yeah and me having few time making it even harder to get into the social things.
It's cool that you can have fun achieving nothing in game but people like me like to progress a little each day when they log on. I stop and smell the roses as well(which explains my massive screenshot library) but the primary focus is to progress and actually achieve something each time i play.
Progression and the ability to slowly develop my character into something powerful is the only reason i play MMORPG's.
The day that stops is the day the genre dies.
Also note that every AAA game over the past 10 years has focused on that and companies that put massive amounts of due diligence before pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into development know what gamers want to do.
I have to call you on that.
Progess takes many different forms for different people but the reason we have games like we have to do is 2 fold.
1 - Back when MMO's began the only people that really played them were the geeks. These were the people that liked science and Maths, had been using computers for many years, owned a home computer for many years, could probably do a bit of programming, fix a hardware fault or two and probably had at some point in their life done a bit of roleplaying. MMO's when they first came out were designed for THESE types of people because the designers WERE these types of people. The cool kids were not interested in roleplaying or gaming or computers because they were too busy trying to be cool.
2 - At some point back in time when computers started to get useful to people not described in point 1 some business types (also not the types mentioned in point 1) found out that you could sell this high cost gizmo for a lot of money and guys who hadn't got a clue how they actually worked found out they could get it to add up numbers, auto correct spelling mistakes and look at porn (again not the types mentioned in point 1 expect porn, we all love porn!). Then they found out they could get these guys without any clue how computers worked to press buttons and click flashing lights on screen to keep them happy for 5 minutes but who will also spend lots of cash to do so.
People in group 1 are going to be the ones who see progression as more then getting another level but also things like finding a hidden location, making a new friend, finding a new route, having a conversation with a new person, making music with total strangers, having conversations while doing a dungeon, sharing loot so that everyone gets something they can use to enable more progress rather then ninja it and get blackballed.
People in group 2 are happy pressing the flashing buttons and getting excited by the pretty lights. But they get bored easy and so would rather spend 5 minutes spending £100 to get everything without trying then spend 6 months just enjoying the journey and meeting people along the way.
Group 1 are small in number and a dying breed.
group 2 is growing the more vacuous the population gets and the more blight buttons some enterprising businessman can add to make someone part with an extra £50.
I know which group I belong to and which group is the cause of the decline of the genre...do you?
Originally posted by Elsabolts I agree, Its like crystal clear to me that Sony could take back control of the intire MMO market by just giving EQ1 a new graphics engine. Why they do not see this is beyond me.
EQ1 was so good because mmo's were new. People will not play that shit today because we've been playing that shit for over 10 years. swg has a emu yet nobody is playing it. It's the nostalgia you're in love with not the game. You can never go home again.
Originally posted by Elsabolts I agree, Its like crystal clear to me that Sony could take back control of the intire MMO market by just giving EQ1 a new graphics engine. Why they do not see this is beyond me.
EQ1 was so good because mmo's were new. People will not play that shit today because we've been playing that shit for over 10 years. swg has a emu yet nobody is playing it. It's the nostalgia you're in love with not the game. You can never go home again.
I also wonder why no one plays the emu version. So many topics saying they want their game back, while it is alive and doing fine. If people really wanted to play SWG that much, the emu community would be huge. I tried playing and it is the same as the original, few bugs and problems... just like original. And I didn't like it, just like original. Why fans won't play it?
I log into the EMU every once in awhile just to have a look around. It's still in development so I don't want to put the time and energy into a character that may get wiped.
SWG had it's good and bad times just like MMO's today. Now I like the fact that I have a much greater range of games to pick from. So many, that I can jump from game to game anytime I want. Let the good times role.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Originally posted by Elsabolts I agree, Its like crystal clear to me that Sony could take back control of the intire MMO market by just giving EQ1 a new graphics engine. Why they do not see this is beyond me.
EQ1 was so good because mmo's were new. People will not play that shit today because we've been playing that shit for over 10 years. swg has a emu yet nobody is playing it. It's the nostalgia you're in love with not the game. You can never go home again.
I also wonder why no one plays the emu version. So many topics saying they want their game back, while it is alive and doing fine. If people really wanted to play SWG that much, the emu community would be huge. I tried playing and it is the same as the original, few bugs and problems... just like original. And I didn't like it, just like original. Why fans won't play it?
The reason no one mentions it is because we're not allowed to. I know plenty of people who play it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I was never a huge fan of SWG tbh, but then I didnt play it until 2007 or so which is after all the CU / NGE stuff. I personally preferred GW1 but thats not the point of this post. My point is that the players were different even then. Part of the game was socialising, making your own content, finding random things to do that werent necessarily designed into the game by the devs and just doing stuff with other people.
Players dont do that any more, so even if SOE did release SWG mk2 or EQ1 with a new engine the same thing that happens with all modern games would happen - players would flock to it to start with, complete all the content then leave, and the community would be just as bad as any other modern MMO....
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Players dont do that any more, so even if SOE did release SWG mk2 or EQ1 with a new engine the same thing that happens with all modern games would happen - players would flock to it to start with, complete all the content then leave, and the community would be just as bad as any other modern MMO....
The only way see it working is for a game company to release a game with a small budget that "speaks to" the section of people who want this type of game play and therefore design the game with a lower expected income.
It's not so much people are different today as much as there are different types of people playing these games.
The same people who want them are still there. Whether they are those who experienced these games at the start or new players who would love to see this type of game play.
Anytime a game is made that requires large amounts of investment and return you will have to have a game that keeps the larger group of players who don't want this type of game.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by Elsabolts I agree, Its like crystal clear to me that Sony could take back control of the intire MMO market by just giving EQ1 a new graphics engine. Why they do not see this is beyond me.
EQ1 was so good because mmo's were new. People will not play that shit today because we've been playing that shit for over 10 years. swg has a emu yet nobody is playing it. It's the nostalgia you're in love with not the game. You can never go home again.
Nonsense, I spent most of 2013 playing a DAOC freeshard that had locked into a 2003 ruleset (right before SI launch) and had the most fun I've had in years. I'd still be playing but they took it down at year's end to rework it and implement SI, once it comes back up I'll be right back again.
You can go home again, if someone makes the original experience available.
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
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar I found swg to be s horrible boring game.
I am with you on that. The had to make changes. People were leaving.
1. SWG released 2003
2. WoW released 2004 (WoW a phenom of subscribers)
3. SWG Combat Upgrade 2005 (Mixed emotions of player base about CU)
4. SWG NGE Upgrade 2005 (Let's make our game more like WoW and grab more subscribers, let's make it more Star Warsy with iconic professions) (Mass exodus of veterans and what's left of the player base stay due to their love of Star Wars).
5. SWG cancelled 2011 for a game called SWtOR that would be Star Wars version of WoW.
What most SWG fans seem to ignore is the exodus of players between points 1 and 2. CU was just being announced, few people thought much about WoW and early SWG players started to leave the game because they hit a dead end and run out of stuff to do in the game. My guild had an active fully upgraded player city and in the span of a few weeks it was dead as most inhabitants just quit to play CoH, EVE or Planetside. Those were the players who managed to play through the incredibly buggy early period.
For me the big change that started SWG's decline was the Jedi Hologrind. SOE took the most iconic thing about Star Wars and turned it into a lowest common denominator grind. This signalled to a lot of players that they run out of creative ideas and would not expand on the sandbox nature of the game.
NGE was the reaction to the hemmorrage of players that the game experienced during that period.
Originally posted by The.agG If this isn't a post showing the rose-tinted glasses among MMO players, then i don't know what is.
I have to agree.
The most amazing game of all time cancelled! There must have been some problems, no?
It was cancelled after they went from a unique/innovative gameplay strategy to be more in-line with WoW/modern strategies. That's when most people quit.
I never got to play but didn't any of the players warn the devs what they were about to do was going to be a disaster? Makes you think maybe dev board meetings could use about 25 actual high standing community players to represent the voice of the customer. How many mmo's have been destroyed with a well meant expansion / update?
Originally posted by Mr.Kujo It's more because the industry isn't only for basement dwellers anymore. More regular people started to play, people that already have rich life outside of gaming, and just want to play a game for entertainment, not to compensate for nothing to do outside....
This notion of nerdy basement dwellers is a fallacy that everyone is aware of, except you, apparently. A virtual world is far more fascinating than the ADHD cheap thrill games of today.
Originally posted by Mr.Kujo I also wonder why no one plays the emu version. So many topics saying they want their game back, while it is alive and doing fine. If people really wanted to play SWG that much, the emu community would be huge. I tried playing and it is the same as the original, few bugs and problems... just like original. And I didn't like it, just like original. Why fans won't play it?
Let me clue you in as to why millions don't play them (but thousands do) 1. EMU servers are not officially sanctioned gameplay servers. 2. Games require specific versions of the software that are not commercially available. 3. Getting it up and running is far more complicated than installing a commercially available game. 4. some people are probably afraid of being exposed to hackers. 5. Server admins have a very "it's my ball so my rules and if you don't like it GTFO" attitude. 6. As classic as some servers claim to be, they aren't classic. Important differences exist.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by DrannyReally so I must have been dreaming when the CU hit then, seeing all the players protesting outside Cnet Thread and other places. watching prime locations that used to be the place to have your house now deserted. sure I must have got it all wrong. I didn't play much longer after the CU hit as my guild and most of my friends quit playing.
Here's a quote from the Wikipedia entry...
Media outlets criticized the changes of the "Combat Upgrade"[47][48] while subscription cancellations rose.[49] After the New Game Enhancements were implemented in November 2005, sparking huge demonstrations in-game from the majority of players,[50] various media outlets criticized the reduced depth and complexity of the game,[51][52][53][54] but John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, defended the decision claiming it necessary to revamp the game in order to reverse the deterioration they were seeing in the subscriber base.[55] SOE offered refunds on the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion due to it being released two days before the New Game Enhancement was announced.[56] The development team affirmed this was their desired direction for the game and that they would modify parameters to address player's concerns.[57] Features such as expertise trees were later added to the game to add complexity and differentiation to characters. After the announcement that SOE had acquired the game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Smedley addressed that game's players about the perceived threat of major changes to the game: "We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players."[58]
I was there for both... you're wrong.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Originally posted by DrannyReally so I must have been dreaming when the CU hit then, seeing all the players protesting outside Cnet Thread and other places. watching prime locations that used to be the place to have your house now deserted. sure I must have got it all wrong. I didn't play much longer after the CU hit as my guild and most of my friends quit playing.
Here's a quote from the Wikipedia entry...
Media outlets criticized the changes of the "Combat Upgrade"[47][48] while subscription cancellations rose.[49] After the New Game Enhancements were implemented in November 2005, sparking huge demonstrations in-game from the majority of players,[50] various media outlets criticized the reduced depth and complexity of the game,[51][52][53][54] but John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, defended the decision claiming it necessary to revamp the game in order to reverse the deterioration they were seeing in the subscriber base.[55] SOE offered refunds on the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion due to it being released two days before the New Game Enhancement was announced.[56] The development team affirmed this was their desired direction for the game and that they would modify parameters to address player's concerns.[57] Features such as expertise trees were later added to the game to add complexity and differentiation to characters. After the announcement that SOE had acquired the game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Smedley addressed that game's players about the perceived threat of major changes to the game: "We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players."[58]
I was there for both... you're wrong.
So now you are telling my own memories of what happened to me while playing a game are wrong, You must be some sort of special person to be able to tell me about myself.
There were many games in the past that were innovative and exciting to play.. Some like EQ1 and SWG had few major issues that should of been addressed and corrected.. However instead the devs sat on their asses and did nothing until it was too late, then tossed the baby out with the bath water.. Both EQ1 and SWG are worth playing as a primary MMO game to play if they would just FIX some of the main issues. I'm confident that as a lead dev along with a few chatters on this forum we could turn both those games into Top 5 gaming communities.. But then I'm not part of the inner "incompetent" circle of industry devs..
Originally posted by Rydeson There were many games in the past that were innovative and exciting to play.. Some like EQ1 and SWG had few major issues that should of been addressed and corrected.. However instead the devs sat on their asses and did nothing until it was too late, then tossed the baby out with the bath water.. Both EQ1 and SWG are worth playing as a primary MMO game to play if they would just FIX some of the main issues. I'm confident that as a lead dev along with a few chatters on this forum we could turn both those games into Top 5 gaming communities.. But then I'm not part of the inner "incompetent" circle of industry devs..
I would not be so sure about your conclusion. When I played SWG, I noticed some fundamental issues with the game that seemed to be caused by deficiencies in the core engine. I have always believed that the buggy nature of the game was caused by the devs trying to fit in their features around those deficiencies and as a result piling one hack on top of another. (It's an issue I regularly encounter with legacy code). My theory is that the NGE came about because they realized that they already had to open up and rework the core parts of the game and decided that this gave them the opportunity to redisign how the game functioned.
Originally posted by The.agG If this isn't a post showing the rose-tinted glasses among MMO players, then i don't know what is.
Generally you would be right, but I think the SWG-Post Death stories tell us something.
It wasn't about the broken combat, stupid randomly generated missions, lack of star wars music, no story, and 10,000 other significant design problems.
It was simply that the game had a community, and community building tools that facilitated it to levels I have never seen. It truly was like nothing else before it or since. The game was before its time and it had so little to do with star wars, but everything to do with building cities together, creating all the content and creating an economy were fighters kill for resourcers, scouts harvest it, sell it to crafters who then distribute it to fighters. They actually created some simplified circle-of-life type thing.
At the launch in 2003 june 26th, the game was impossible to play simply due to the fact that nothing bad been build. no great armor drops or weapons existed. everything had to be built by players. there were cities, as the player cities came months afterwards.
SWG was a broken mess, but everything people speak about it being an amazing experience is true. It's why sandbox people won't shut the hell up about it. They feel that no combat system, raid end game or graphic fidelity can make up for what it feels like to play a game were you literally cannot be an a**hole due to people cutting you off from the good gear. The game was genius. It should have been the game World of Warcraft became. But WoW showed us that playing it simple and safe is a much better way at being succesful. Very rarely are innovation and and ambitious breakthrough rewarded. Particularly because its unchartered territory and nobody knows what they are doing.
If i was you i would not be so bloody dismissive... For what the OP is looking for... H1Z1 ticks all the boxes apart form the setting. It has the same type of open ended gameplay and carefree attitude towards "must-do"
I am sorry that you interpreted Smed´s statement as he was going to give you a SWG2... But that is on you and not him. H1Z1 does deliver pretty much the exact criteria that SWG vet´s have always touted would bring them back no matter the setting... Turns out most of "those" people where red-faced lying their pants off.
Pretty much housing seems to be the only thing that they will not capture and a part of me is kind of glad for that... The outskirts of the hubs in SWG was a messy maze of random buildings without any single thought towards loking good.
Originally posted by The.agG If this isn't a post showing the rose-tinted glasses among MMO players, then i don't know what is.
I have to agree.
The most amazing game of all time cancelled! There must have been some problems, no?
It was cancelled after they went from a unique/innovative gameplay strategy to be more in-line with WoW/modern strategies. That's when most people quit.
I never got to play but didn't any of the players warn the devs what they were about to do was going to be a disaster? Makes you think maybe dev board meetings could use about 25 actual high standing community players to represent the voice of the customer. How many mmo's have been destroyed with a well meant expansion / update?
That was part of the problem. Players were upset because nobody knew how to become a Jedi. So the dev gave them hints. Then players were upset because Jedi never left their houses. So the Devs created forced pvp for Jedi that pushed them out of their houses if they activated a Jedi skill. Then players were upset cause Jedi was hiding. So the Devs fixed the tracking system. Then players were upset because it was too difficult to become a Jedi. So the Devs made Jedi a regular profession. Not to mention the usual cry about op skills and constant nerfs. And that was just about Jedi, imagine constant demands being made by just about all the classes and professions.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Comments
Nope think you missed it. Let me explain I do not play RPG´s without progression. I like to build up my character. But there is more to a MMORPG then just progression. Also note that as said I don´t play the blame game and have very good understanding what the majority wants which is limited towards what I want out of my MMORPG experiance. Hopelfully it´s clear that I aint playing it different then you are I just want more it seems.....
The problem was the idiots at SOE took one of the best games, if not the best game (in my top 5) of all time, and turned it into one of the worst games of all time...and it was right after they released an expansion, so that expansion you just bought was totally worthless and a waste of money.
So correct. A poster after you stated that EQ could as well be revamped with a new graphics engine and be brought back - and that it's mind boggling as to why this doesn't happen.
Let's add Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, et al., to that list.
The past decade of mmo video games are made by corporately driven cultures - not by folks who love the immersive feel of walking through a fantasy novel as a hero. Heck, even most players I meet have no idea what this means because it hasn't been done for so long - and therefore, the industry that has initially betrayed its own creative freedom, has spoon fed a generation of gamers - complete crap. In response, gamers smile as they eat the crap, by the spoonful, assuming that's as good as this will ever get.
I thought ESO would break the mold, but they copy pasted race, class and concept across their plastic, tri-realm e-sport. So now, waiting on Camelot Unchained for my last great hope.
^this
SWG is still my favorite MMO, yet what foom said is spot on. Just because you never take the time to stop and look around doesn't mean you can't stop and just look around.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
i think i changed. i remember logging into my first multiplayer game playing with OTHER people. it was mechcommander, then age of empires 2, then diablo 2 and just by accident anarchy online. it was free to download and had a free trial.
it was so new and i was excited. i didnt even know what it is. it took its time to find the way out of the leet playground and arriving in the city was even more exciting.
games were very social. people communicated, roleplayed, and partied together, and chatted while doing group stuff. you did almost everything in a group. and groups stayed together for hours, just changing 1 position every other time, when someone needed to leave. i spent nights!
other people was exciting and the bet part of playing online: playing with others, chatting.
SWG was the first game and only game where i ran around planets finding good ressources to craft. crafting was meaningful and i normally hate crafting. roleplaying was great. pvp was exciting when you had it on, just too laggy.
but what i did have what i dont have now: time and no responsibilities. no family, no kids, no wife, sometimes not even a girlfriend. just little work next to university. i could spend the whole night sleeping the whole morning after because i could.
now: social aspects are gone. people dont use their keyboard to chat and i cant use TS because of family... but there is no chatting anyway... yeah and me having few time making it even harder to get into the social things.
and games got worse...
I have to call you on that.
Progess takes many different forms for different people but the reason we have games like we have to do is 2 fold.
1 - Back when MMO's began the only people that really played them were the geeks. These were the people that liked science and Maths, had been using computers for many years, owned a home computer for many years, could probably do a bit of programming, fix a hardware fault or two and probably had at some point in their life done a bit of roleplaying. MMO's when they first came out were designed for THESE types of people because the designers WERE these types of people. The cool kids were not interested in roleplaying or gaming or computers because they were too busy trying to be cool.
2 - At some point back in time when computers started to get useful to people not described in point 1 some business types (also not the types mentioned in point 1) found out that you could sell this high cost gizmo for a lot of money and guys who hadn't got a clue how they actually worked found out they could get it to add up numbers, auto correct spelling mistakes and look at porn (again not the types mentioned in point 1 expect porn, we all love porn!). Then they found out they could get these guys without any clue how computers worked to press buttons and click flashing lights on screen to keep them happy for 5 minutes but who will also spend lots of cash to do so.
People in group 1 are going to be the ones who see progression as more then getting another level but also things like finding a hidden location, making a new friend, finding a new route, having a conversation with a new person, making music with total strangers, having conversations while doing a dungeon, sharing loot so that everyone gets something they can use to enable more progress rather then ninja it and get blackballed.
People in group 2 are happy pressing the flashing buttons and getting excited by the pretty lights. But they get bored easy and so would rather spend 5 minutes spending £100 to get everything without trying then spend 6 months just enjoying the journey and meeting people along the way.
Group 1 are small in number and a dying breed.
group 2 is growing the more vacuous the population gets and the more blight buttons some enterprising businessman can add to make someone part with an extra £50.
I know which group I belong to and which group is the cause of the decline of the genre...do you?
EQ1 was so good because mmo's were new. People will not play that shit today because we've been playing that shit for over 10 years. swg has a emu yet nobody is playing it. It's the nostalgia you're in love with not the game. You can never go home again.
I also wonder why no one plays the emu version. So many topics saying they want their game back, while it is alive and doing fine. If people really wanted to play SWG that much, the emu community would be huge. I tried playing and it is the same as the original, few bugs and problems... just like original. And I didn't like it, just like original. Why fans won't play it?
I log into the EMU every once in awhile just to have a look around. It's still in development so I don't want to put the time and energy into a character that may get wiped.
SWG had it's good and bad times just like MMO's today. Now I like the fact that I have a much greater range of games to pick from. So many, that I can jump from game to game anytime I want. Let the good times role.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The reason no one mentions it is because we're not allowed to. I know plenty of people who play it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Another "I miss SWG" post, how innovative
I was never a huge fan of SWG tbh, but then I didnt play it until 2007 or so which is after all the CU / NGE stuff. I personally preferred GW1 but thats not the point of this post. My point is that the players were different even then. Part of the game was socialising, making your own content, finding random things to do that werent necessarily designed into the game by the devs and just doing stuff with other people.
Players dont do that any more, so even if SOE did release SWG mk2 or EQ1 with a new engine the same thing that happens with all modern games would happen - players would flock to it to start with, complete all the content then leave, and the community would be just as bad as any other modern MMO....
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
The only way see it working is for a game company to release a game with a small budget that "speaks to" the section of people who want this type of game play and therefore design the game with a lower expected income.
It's not so much people are different today as much as there are different types of people playing these games.
The same people who want them are still there. Whether they are those who experienced these games at the start or new players who would love to see this type of game play.
Anytime a game is made that requires large amounts of investment and return you will have to have a game that keeps the larger group of players who don't want this type of game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Nonsense, I spent most of 2013 playing a DAOC freeshard that had locked into a 2003 ruleset (right before SI launch) and had the most fun I've had in years. I'd still be playing but they took it down at year's end to rework it and implement SI, once it comes back up I'll be right back again.
You can go home again, if someone makes the original experience available.
"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
What most SWG fans seem to ignore is the exodus of players between points 1 and 2. CU was just being announced, few people thought much about WoW and early SWG players started to leave the game because they hit a dead end and run out of stuff to do in the game. My guild had an active fully upgraded player city and in the span of a few weeks it was dead as most inhabitants just quit to play CoH, EVE or Planetside. Those were the players who managed to play through the incredibly buggy early period.
For me the big change that started SWG's decline was the Jedi Hologrind. SOE took the most iconic thing about Star Wars and turned it into a lowest common denominator grind. This signalled to a lot of players that they run out of creative ideas and would not expand on the sandbox nature of the game.
NGE was the reaction to the hemmorrage of players that the game experienced during that period.
I never got to play but didn't any of the players warn the devs what they were about to do was going to be a disaster? Makes you think maybe dev board meetings could use about 25 actual high standing community players to represent the voice of the customer. How many mmo's have been destroyed with a well meant expansion / update?
This notion of nerdy basement dwellers is a fallacy that everyone is aware of, except you, apparently. A virtual world is far more fascinating than the ADHD cheap thrill games of today.
Let me clue you in as to why millions don't play them (but thousands do)
1. EMU servers are not officially sanctioned gameplay servers.
2. Games require specific versions of the software that are not commercially available.
3. Getting it up and running is far more complicated than installing a commercially available game.
4. some people are probably afraid of being exposed to hackers.
5. Server admins have a very "it's my ball so my rules and if you don't like it GTFO" attitude.
6. As classic as some servers claim to be, they aren't classic. Important differences exist.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Here's a quote from the Wikipedia entry...
I was there for both... you're wrong.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
So now you are telling my own memories of what happened to me while playing a game are wrong, You must be some sort of special person to be able to tell me about myself.
I would not be so sure about your conclusion. When I played SWG, I noticed some fundamental issues with the game that seemed to be caused by deficiencies in the core engine. I have always believed that the buggy nature of the game was caused by the devs trying to fit in their features around those deficiencies and as a result piling one hack on top of another. (It's an issue I regularly encounter with legacy code). My theory is that the NGE came about because they realized that they already had to open up and rework the core parts of the game and decided that this gave them the opportunity to redisign how the game functioned.
Generally you would be right, but I think the SWG-Post Death stories tell us something.
It wasn't about the broken combat, stupid randomly generated missions, lack of star wars music, no story, and 10,000 other significant design problems.
It was simply that the game had a community, and community building tools that facilitated it to levels I have never seen. It truly was like nothing else before it or since. The game was before its time and it had so little to do with star wars, but everything to do with building cities together, creating all the content and creating an economy were fighters kill for resourcers, scouts harvest it, sell it to crafters who then distribute it to fighters. They actually created some simplified circle-of-life type thing.
At the launch in 2003 june 26th, the game was impossible to play simply due to the fact that nothing bad been build. no great armor drops or weapons existed. everything had to be built by players. there were cities, as the player cities came months afterwards.
SWG was a broken mess, but everything people speak about it being an amazing experience is true. It's why sandbox people won't shut the hell up about it. They feel that no combat system, raid end game or graphic fidelity can make up for what it feels like to play a game were you literally cannot be an a**hole due to people cutting you off from the good gear. The game was genius. It should have been the game World of Warcraft became. But WoW showed us that playing it simple and safe is a much better way at being succesful. Very rarely are innovation and and ambitious breakthrough rewarded. Particularly because its unchartered territory and nobody knows what they are doing.
If i was you i would not be so bloody dismissive... For what the OP is looking for... H1Z1 ticks all the boxes apart form the setting. It has the same type of open ended gameplay and carefree attitude towards "must-do"
I am sorry that you interpreted Smed´s statement as he was going to give you a SWG2... But that is on you and not him. H1Z1 does deliver pretty much the exact criteria that SWG vet´s have always touted would bring them back no matter the setting... Turns out most of "those" people where red-faced lying their pants off.
Pretty much housing seems to be the only thing that they will not capture and a part of me is kind of glad for that... The outskirts of the hubs in SWG was a messy maze of random buildings without any single thought towards loking good.
This have been a good conversation
That was part of the problem. Players were upset because nobody knew how to become a Jedi. So the dev gave them hints. Then players were upset because Jedi never left their houses. So the Devs created forced pvp for Jedi that pushed them out of their houses if they activated a Jedi skill. Then players were upset cause Jedi was hiding. So the Devs fixed the tracking system. Then players were upset because it was too difficult to become a Jedi. So the Devs made Jedi a regular profession. Not to mention the usual cry about op skills and constant nerfs. And that was just about Jedi, imagine constant demands being made by just about all the classes and professions.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey