If CoH was still around I'd still play it then take a break to try out WildStar then go back after seeing how that game turned out. CoH was a good solid game that had potential but its publisher wanted more so decided it would rather destroy it rather accept a low but reliable income. It happens in other industries too, the shareholders want more profit so they try to squeeze everyone else so hard things break. In the end the shareholders move on without thinking about those they hurt.
As for CoH... .. . Well... As much as i loved it, it did not age very well in most aspects and it had some real issues with end-game. Now with that said there are tons of game sout there that both match it and surpass it game-play wise. But it will always have one of the most robust character creators on the market.
I'd say CoH needed a sequel game to update it and adapt to the changes in MMOs.
Ironically those updates would have hampered character creation. Since CoH I played other games and so many of them are gear based and because of that you can't have the customization CoH had. The very nature of how the graphics worked made it easier to customize. In the other games I tried you can control bits of the face but not things like height or shoulder width and such because the gear would have to be designed to accomodate all those variables. So the customization is CoH's greatest strength and weakness. Any reincarnation of the game would have to balance graphics and customization.
Why does this example matter? Because players of all tastes want replayability in their games, especially if they really love them. Yet, there are only certain ways in which you can create replayability in certain games.
"Says who? I don't want replayability. I want good content .. and when I finish it, i move onto the next game. (Now don't get me wrong, some games i do repeat play ... like Diablo .. but that is not a must). I prefer quality (a lot of fun) over quantity (replay again and again). And there are more games than i can finish. So i don't need replayability to fuel my entertainment."
There is no inherent dichotomy between providing good content (or quality) and providing replayability (or quantity). Both can be in the same game. And, if you want to play good content and a game has good content which is replayable in some way, then there is no strict reason why you should not be open to replaying the said content on some basis, especially when you lack fresh good content at the moment for some reason. For example, as you said, you do replay Diablo.
Good, satisfying content is good, satisfying content. It's as simple as that.
With all due respect, I can handle agreeing to disagree and letting things go. I'm prepared to do it now. But, at this point, I think that you are arguing just to argue. /Shrug.
You hit the nail on the head with that last sentence. And he's been beating that same horse for, lord knows, a year now? And will continue to do so. He can contradict himself in the same paragraph (see the Diablo example) and still argue the position until he has reduced his point down to, "Hey LoL makes good money, SWTOR turned a profit, so that must mean I'm right no matter what the argument."
The points you provide are well-thought out and insightful, you're just sharing them with deaf ears, unfortunately.
Why does this example matter? Because players of all tastes want replayability in their games, especially if they really love them. Yet, there are only certain ways in which you can create replayability in certain games.
"Says who? I don't want replayability. I want good content .. and when I finish it, i move onto the next game. (Now don't get me wrong, some games i do repeat play ... like Diablo .. but that is not a must). I prefer quality (a lot of fun) over quantity (replay again and again). And there are more games than i can finish. So i don't need replayability to fuel my entertainment."
There is no inherent dichotomy between providing good content (or quality) and providing replayability (or quantity). Both can be in the same game. And, if you want to play good content and a game has good content which is replayable in some way, then there is no strict reason why you should not be open to replaying the said content on some basis, especially when you lack fresh good content at the moment for some reason. For example, as you said, you do replay Diablo.
Good, satisfying content is good, satisfying content. It's as simple as that.
With all due respect, I can handle agreeing to disagree and letting things go. I'm prepared to do it now. But, at this point, I think that you are arguing just to argue. /Shrug.
But his point is the EVERYONE wants replayability. No one says I would refuse it .. just that it is not important to me. There is a difference.
I play plenty of short games, and I don't hold it against them (as long as the content is fun), unlike some here.
Marvel Heroes ... much better game (for me, of course, since "great" is subjective) than SWG, CoH or TR.
Unless you can make your own character in MH, I won't bother.
Obviously you have a different preferences. I would much rather actually play ironman, xman, spiderman .. then some no one knock-off heroes.
In fact, that is why MH is a much better game (for me) than DC universe. Who cares if i can only see Batman once in a while?
If you like comics then being your own hero is mega cool. Playing Batman in a batman game is great, but playing with other players you want your own guy. To use your logic fantasy MMOs would be better if we all played Conan, Aragorn, Legolas, the Grey Mouser etc.
Five Conans, ten Aragorns and three Legolas walk in to an Inn...cue joke. That's how silly it is.
Marvel Heroes ... much better game (for me, of course, since "great" is subjective) than SWG, CoH or TR.
Unless you can make your own character in MH, I won't bother.
Obviously you have a different preferences. I would much rather actually play ironman, xman, spiderman .. then some no one knock-off heroes.
In fact, that is why MH is a much better game (for me) than DC universe. Who cares if i can only see Batman once in a while?
If you like comics then being your own hero is mega cool. Playing Batman in a batman game is great, but playing with other players you want your own guy. To use your logic fantasy MMOs would be better if we all played Conan, Aragorn, Legolas, the Grey Mouser etc.
Five Conans, ten Aragorns and three Legolas walk in to an Inn...cue joke. That's how silly it is.
There is no logic in preferences. I play what I like, not yours.
Why would i want my own guy when i play with others? I can play iron man, and some others play wolverine? Just put in a match algorithm so that iron man won't be pugging with iron man. Plus, i play mostly solo.
I don't like Conan, Argorn, Legolas and so on .. i like ironman, spiderman and so on. I don't know how to make that more clear.
"MMOs were not that fun pre-WoW. By reading these forums you would think that MMOs back then were the holy grail and everyone is super happy and there were shooting rainbows everywhere and all problems turned to pixie dust.
My only explanation is a severe stage of nostalgia and also for a lot of people their first MMO was one of those MMOs (most commonly EQ) and this i why they still have that first MMO love relationship with it.
EQ was so bad, how could people throw away their ENTIRE life playing that game. Did you guys spend 12-14 hours everyday grinding like maniacs to get 0 progress? Was that fun?"
I think that you are missing the point. This issue--what they are getting at (I believe)--is primarily about more abstract experiences like experiencing consequences for your actions in terms of personal responsibility and personal reliance, earning things, getting a feeling of accomplishment when you do something, building community in the face of adversity, and so on. Exactly how they experienced these things through these "old school" games is purely a secondary issue which obfuscates the primary issue.
The problem is that "new school" gamers in general don't understand these things. They say things like, " 'A sense of accomplishment'? What? These are just games. Gimmie my money's worth." And, with this attitude, they drive the MMORPG market in bad directions.
In this sense, "old school" gamers and "new school" gamers are talking past each other on these forums.
The only way to make "new school" gamers understand these things is to somehow show them and have them experience what "old school" gamers have experienced. But, I would agree that this requires a different approach than simply reviving "old school" games and saying, "Here ... play them!" Clearly, "new school" gamers don't want to.
"There is also another factor in the differences.
I agree, assuming I understood your previous post, in that I didn't play MMORPGs for fun. I played them to achieve something.
But there was another factor. The 'Old School' games had a depth to them. They were layered games. There were games within the game that people played and they could chose paths they wanted to follow along them. Generally they involved crafting, gathering, social positioning, and as in the case of SWG, a political system. What I refer to as 'Meta-Game' This kind of layered gaming is gone. And Developers have replaced it with their attempts to 'revolutionize' MMORPG Combat systems. I've always thought the 2 were not mutually exclusive and yet, in the new games, if you are killing something, you aren't progressing.
I think these experiences are gone for another reason. One I've never seen discussed here. This issue is that most if not all of that layerd meta gaming comes as a result of the players interacting through an in-game economy. But the truth is, the way that "new School" games have been monetized has destroyed any kind of hope for any kind of player influenced economy.
Trion has shown you cannot have a player driven economy and a cash shop at the same time. Well, at least one where you have cash shop items that can be traded in game anyway. Developers know this so unless we see a different kind of business model where the real money and the game are kept separate, there will never be anything more than single player focused experiences with group combat."
I think that what you are describing boils down to a risk and reward issue, which fits into what I said. The "new school" which WoW helped establish doesn't like such risk, especially when more complex gameplay is involved. To illustrate, as of the time of Patch 4.0.1 in WoW, the "intelligentsia" on the WoW forums was arguing that Blizzard should basically make it impossible to make a "bad build" in terms of talent tree management. They basically said, "Freedom? Choice? Who cares. It can go wrong. That's not fun. We want guaranteed viability."
So, game developers have eliminated it.
In the end, you cannot have freedom, choice, and, in general, a world which reacts to the player's actions without having some form of risk to balance things out against bad extremes. It is what it is. And, hopefully, as "new school" gamers in general crave these things more and more, they will grow out of, "I deserve because I pay money", and grow into, "I'm tired of the same old stuff--I want more; just give me more".
Waiting for:Citadel of Sorcery. Along the way, The Elder Scrolls Online (when it is F2P).
Keeping an eye on:www.play2crush.com (whatever is going on here).
Comments
Unless you can make your own character in MH, I won't bother.
I kind of feel you on SWG/CoG, but Tabula Rasa? Holy mother that game was bad. I mean, really really bad. I had trouble getting through one day of it.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I'd say CoH needed a sequel game to update it and adapt to the changes in MMOs.
Ironically those updates would have hampered character creation. Since CoH I played other games and so many of them are gear based and because of that you can't have the customization CoH had. The very nature of how the graphics worked made it easier to customize. In the other games I tried you can control bits of the face but not things like height or shoulder width and such because the gear would have to be designed to accomodate all those variables. So the customization is CoH's greatest strength and weakness. Any reincarnation of the game would have to balance graphics and customization.
You hit the nail on the head with that last sentence. And he's been beating that same horse for, lord knows, a year now? And will continue to do so. He can contradict himself in the same paragraph (see the Diablo example) and still argue the position until he has reduced his point down to, "Hey LoL makes good money, SWTOR turned a profit, so that must mean I'm right no matter what the argument."
The points you provide are well-thought out and insightful, you're just sharing them with deaf ears, unfortunately.
Obviously you have a different preferences. I would much rather actually play ironman, xman, spiderman .. then some no one knock-off heroes.
In fact, that is why MH is a much better game (for me) than DC universe. Who cares if i can only see Batman once in a while?
But his point is the EVERYONE wants replayability. No one says I would refuse it .. just that it is not important to me. There is a difference.
I play plenty of short games, and I don't hold it against them (as long as the content is fun), unlike some here.
If you like comics then being your own hero is mega cool. Playing Batman in a batman game is great, but playing with other players you want your own guy. To use your logic fantasy MMOs would be better if we all played Conan, Aragorn, Legolas, the Grey Mouser etc.
Five Conans, ten Aragorns and three Legolas walk in to an Inn...cue joke. That's how silly it is.
There is no logic in preferences. I play what I like, not yours.
Why would i want my own guy when i play with others? I can play iron man, and some others play wolverine? Just put in a match algorithm so that iron man won't be pugging with iron man. Plus, i play mostly solo.
I don't like Conan, Argorn, Legolas and so on .. i like ironman, spiderman and so on. I don't know how to make that more clear.
I think that what you are describing boils down to a risk and reward issue, which fits into what I said. The "new school" which WoW helped establish doesn't like such risk, especially when more complex gameplay is involved. To illustrate, as of the time of Patch 4.0.1 in WoW, the "intelligentsia" on the WoW forums was arguing that Blizzard should basically make it impossible to make a "bad build" in terms of talent tree management. They basically said, "Freedom? Choice? Who cares. It can go wrong. That's not fun. We want guaranteed viability."
So, game developers have eliminated it.
In the end, you cannot have freedom, choice, and, in general, a world which reacts to the player's actions without having some form of risk to balance things out against bad extremes. It is what it is. And, hopefully, as "new school" gamers in general crave these things more and more, they will grow out of, "I deserve because I pay money", and grow into, "I'm tired of the same old stuff--I want more; just give me more".
Waiting for: Citadel of Sorcery. Along the way, The Elder Scrolls Online (when it is F2P).
Keeping an eye on: www.play2crush.com (whatever is going on here).