Whilst capitalism has its faults, it has so far proven to be the most effective way to improve the lives of the human race. It has been the single greatest force for improving lives, providing stability and helping us all live longer.
Now, capitalism left to its own devices may well enslave us all, but that is why we have laws and governments to prevent that happening.
But, to blame capitalism on the dumbing down of MMOs....can't make the connection myself. It is in the best interests of the capitalists to make deep, compelling games that retain people for years and get them to spend lots of money. Suggesting that they deliberately make crap games that make small amounts of money is....well, weird.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Here is the problem with this idea. There are people that don't care about lore and questing all they want is to be the first to do something. These were not the target players of the first MMORPG's. It is those people that have driven this low content idea. They fly thru areas as fast as they can to get to the mythical endgame. This is something else I personally detest is the idea that the game begins when you have to run the same instance or raids or quest over and over. There should never be an endgame in an MMO.
Trying to attract more and more players from other genres to an over-saturated market is another problem. Many companies are just creating what I term throw away games these days. They take a game reskin it and push it out the door to be completed in about a month or two tops. And they move on to the next reskin and push it out. They are not trying to create games for lifetime players they are trying to get cash as fast as they can, which is what business want. So overall the developers have turned from creating fun games for the players into creating cash cows for investors.
People like myself that enjoy exploring and lore can take an average game and make it last for about 4-6 months right now. I do think leveling needs to be address. If I am in a zone that has a max level of 20 stop giving xp at all while I am in that zone or at least give the option to turn off xp gains without having to buy it in a cash shop. Let me finish the zone at level. And no I do not want autoscale leveling for everything either. Overall we will never probably see an MMORPG again where the rpg part is the main part of the game. I doubt we will see a game where it can take a full day to get to level 2 with a max level of say 100. Make getting that great loot at level 2 feel like something instead of replacing it within seconds of getting it.
In the modern age developers have dug themselves into a hole which is impossible to fix. People are use to the grind being removed, the content being no work all reward, and people to be rewarded 100% of the time while they are online. MMOs are now the most casual gaming experience you have in a rpg... complete 180 from the beginings of the genre.
The games removed the grinds to appeal to larger amounts of people, but the devs are not putting in nearly enough meaningful content to replace it. Pet/Mount/Achievement hunting is not valid content for the majority of players to replace it.
Example FFXIV has about 90% less grind then its predecessor FFXI. Sounds good but FFXI was game you could literally put in 20,000+ hours (not making this up I did it) and never run out of progression related content. Think about it you could play 100hrs a week in that game and never run out of stuff to do.... so in order for FFXIV to have as much content as FFXI in terms of playable hours they would have to release nearly 10 fold the content each expansion to keep up with the entire playerbase (hardcore and casuals). Meaning they have to release an expansion worth of content every 3months... .think about that. It is simply not feasible for a company to do that. WoW is no different, the game is so dumbed down and simplified people play an expansion for 2-3 months then quit until the next one.... that is a huge problem in the genre.
Either devs need to change from the current model of appealing to the masses. Or they need to hire teams of 600-800 developers to churn out absurd amounts of content to keep everyone occupied for the duration of the game. If not we are stuck in the play a mmo for 3 months then find a new one cycle. The MMO genre is more or less dead currently, the newer games are something new entirely.
A few indy devs are trying to bring it back, but only time will tell if the have the money to make it happen. But not appealing to the masses is the only way we will get TRUE mmorpgs back again, instead of what ever you want to call what we have today.
I think that was kinda the point the OP was trying to make. You shouldn't have to go play something that was made years ago to get that type of game. Some developers should be attempting to make a new game with those same types of ideas.
I think that was kinda the point the OP was trying to make. You shouldn't have to go play something that was made years ago to get that type of game. Some developers should be attempting to make a new game with those same types of ideas.
Trouble is, it is the lack of financial success of those early titles which keeps their designs from being revisited by the big developers.
Now that they realize WOWs success can't be duplicated they've stopped trying.
Even Blizzard gave up on it even though I really think they could have done somthing grand with the Starcraft franchise.
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
The problem is some people have simply no life and play games 12 hours a day. If they build a hard core game for these types of players then other players who can maybe play 1-2 will get no where. I always thought it would be interesting to have a game where the game puts limits on progressing per day. For example you can only earn so much exp / gold per day, but maybe open up PVP or have some kind of side games to play. The "unused" exp would roll over so if you didnt play for a couple days you could "catch up." The way players plow though content now a days is ridiculous. What I find funny is alot of players look for the fastest leveling routes and any possible shortcuts then complain there is no content. If they would play the game as intended then there would not be such a problem.
Eight months is nothing , I played Vanguard for seven years and I can still say I could of started a new character and still could of found content I hadn't done.
I loved Vanguard....But with todays one month games, I would settle for 8 months.
With 8 months of content, you can have at least some replay ability, and a chance to build a community.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Would love to be proved wrong but some of you are overestimating the ability of procedural generation to solve the content problem. It's awesome for producing atmosphere (weather, migration patterns, resources, etc.) or even "filler" content similar to dailies (go fetch, bring or kill)
Aside: On a personal note, I find that randomizing which daily quests are available per day makes them quite a bit more palatable since I'm not doing the same exact thing every day.
Procedural sucks for making interesting content. The state-of-the-art AI's can barely produce something intelligible much less something that wouldn't get them booed off the stage on a civic-center community talent show. Creative and talented humans are still necessary for making compelling stories and fun mechanics.
Both are not mutually exclusive. Having a fully dynamic, procedurally managed world doesn't stop a continuing live story.
Actually, without the need to manage all the side "crap", the standard content, the developers could become story tellers again, like they were in Asheron's Call with the monthly patches.
People are throwing around the term procedural Generation at ton lately. PG isn't a magic bullet to solve problems. PG is easy especially when it is bad. PG that is good enough is harder. Great PG is very tough though I believe that will be solvable very soon.
Players might not like PG in the long term. Once the shiny newness wears off they might enter an Oh another PG game. But if they are just hopping from game to game and don't really care about it, then it will be ok.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
This all comes down to what you want in a game. I prefer the holy trinity tank and spank model where the majority of today's gamers prefer quest to level or twitch combat. I do not enjoy today's MMOs, which is why I have been playing the same MMO since 1999.
Tough to explain 30 years of game cycles in a mere paragraph or two but i'll try.
What happened was "competition" in the marketplace.
This spawned all the changes from free to play/cash shops to gimmicks,to marketing etc etc.Then upstart devs aimed at certain demographics,started to take aged old ideas and give them new terms and create totally new genres which are basically just simple PARTS of bigger better games.'
I do NOT believe in the single player game design of 2/3/5/8 months or whatever length of time in content,i believe you NEED a certain amount or a LOT of repeatable ideas.Is there one single person on the entire planet Earth who says ..oh there is something i like,i hope i can only do it ONCE? Of course not,so what it really comes down to is TYPE of content,type of game design and MANY other factors like bringing players together,encouraging friendships and keeping content within reason,example NOT needing 24 players or a pile of people spending hours trying to organize one single content run.
Most importantly we NEED the VOICE of intelligent gamer's to rise up and silence the ones who have no clue what they want.A perfect example that just makes me laugh and cringe is when i hear someone say "I am happy devs have learned that forced grouping is out"however EVERY single game THEY are playing has RAIDING,which last i looked NEEDS lots of FORCED grouping ...so yeah LMAO,,people who are lost in their own minds can seriously ruin the direction of game development.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Would love to be proved wrong but some of you are overestimating the ability of procedural generation to solve the content problem. It's awesome for producing atmosphere (weather, migration patterns, resources, etc.) or even "filler" content similar to dailies (go fetch, bring or kill)
Aside: On a personal note, I find that randomizing which daily quests are available per day makes them quite a bit more palatable since I'm not doing the same exact thing every day.
Procedural sucks for making interesting content. The state-of-the-art AI's can barely produce something intelligible much less something that wouldn't get them booed off the stage on a civic-center community talent show. Creative and talented humans are still necessary for making compelling stories and fun mechanics.
Both are not mutually exclusive. Having a fully dynamic, procedurally managed world doesn't stop a continuing live story.
Actually, without the need to manage all the side "crap", the standard content, the developers could become story tellers again, like they were in Asheron's Call with the monthly patches.
People are throwing around the term procedural Generation at ton lately. PG isn't a magic bullet to solve problems. PG is easy especially when it is bad. PG that is good enough is harder. Great PG is very tough though I believe that will be solvable very soon.
Players might not like PG in the long term. Once the shiny newness wears off they might enter an Oh another PG game. But if they are just hopping from game to game and don't really care about it, then it will be ok.
Well, I have 25 years of software engineering under my belt in the graphic/video/movie industry, and even more gaming years, and I know quite a bit about what procedural generation can do or not.
I think a 100% procedurally generated landscape like Minecraft would be a bad idea for a MMORPG. Actually, most MMO studios use a first pass of procedural noise to generate the base landscape, mountains, lakes, shorelines, etc, but then it's heavily modified by the art team to become "attractive" and to make sense, and not just be a random mess. In a MMORPG, player need to be in a coherent world with a lore and a generally known geography, landmarks, cities, villages, etc...
But things like mob migrations and social behavior, along with automatically generated "quests" (or call it "missions", or just "activities" if you dislike the word "quest") based on the local situation, and constantly changing ecosystems based on factors like NPC activity, player activity, natural phenomenons, seasons are definitely possible with today's AI technology.
To make it short, the world would take care of itself, and the devs could focus on what matters, the storylines, lore, events. They did that in AC1 with a rather static world. It would be 1000x better in a fully dynamic world.
I don't have ANY years of Software development under my belt, and I know this is hard.
Offline games like the Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 is about the best you'll get for now !
For right now this would be a waste of resources, since they cant even give us 30 days of content.
I don't have ANY years of Software development under my belt, and I know this is hard.
Offline games like the Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 is about the best you'll get for now !
For right now this would be a waste of resources, since they cant even give us 30 days of content.
I don't know if you just didn't understand what I posted or just clicked "reply" to increase your post count, but that answer has nothing to do with the post you're answering to. Nothing at all.
What ?......Here is just one quote you made:
" and constantly changing ecosystems based on factors like NPC activity, player activity, natural phenomenons, seasons are definitely possible with today's AI technology "
And your telling me I don't understand your post !..........It can be done,yes......But for right now, developers cant even give us a full months content, yet your asking for deep AI.
This is about finding the balance between Grind, Freedom, and Fun.
I find games that give the players to much power to be horrid, not because the game is bad, because the players make the game bad. The first people that walk the path make it harder for the next, simple because they find it fun to be stronger than the newbie. Destroying any new players that comes into the game eventually leading the game to destruction. The same could be said for Theme parks and making party compositions Meta. I find players themselves typically cause games to get boring. They get strong and then boss everyone below them around causing these people to never to get strong and leaving only them. Theme park games have an advantage though because the players only control so much power. Sandbox on the other hand, I'm a newbie and walk outside the starter zone and get my ass handed to me by someone who is max lvl/best gear/etc over and over and over again, I quit. Causing that living breathing world to die because no one ever has a chance to reach the heights of the person that is already there. Much like any open minecraft server has billions of dicks around, cause it was funny for them to make other people look at dicks, but they are destroying the atmosphere of the game.
So game developers bridged this with well you can just speed to the end, and be the best that there ever was and all will be great. This has failed to keep people around.
"You want to be a Knight you say, well fuck you I'm already a Knight and you a bitch."
The OP's logic is so flawed it's not even funny. Yeah, after painfully going through 8 months of content to level to the max, people will do it again and again.
No. Most won't.
The only way to make an "endless" world is to make everything procedural. Changes of landscape, building and destruction of places, migration of animals and of NPCs, weather and other natural events (volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes...), quests, everything is generated procedurally depending on the surrounding conditions.
For instance, if a tribe of orcs arrives and camps near a village, they will start to steal cattle and other resources, ambush villagers, so quests related to that situation will be automatically generated for the players to complete. For instance, escort a merchant to the city to safeguard his merchandise, or simply protect the cattle from scavenging orc scouts, up to " raid" quest to erradicate the orc camp. Unlike today's MMOs, a single player entering an orc camp alone would most likely die very quickly and painfully.
Or if a tsunami provoqued by an earthquake in the sea destroys a coastal areas, the players will get quests to go help the survivors, bring supplies, etc...
There's an infinite number of possible situations.
Then you'll have endless, always renewing content. And the game should not have levels, but skills like UO. It's not a grind to some max level and "end game". It's about adventuring in an ever changing world.
But going through the same content, no matter how "long" it is, is not endless, it's a grind.
i remember watching Gw2 podcast and what not and expecting that
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
Comments
Now, capitalism left to its own devices may well enslave us all, but that is why we have laws and governments to prevent that happening.
But, to blame capitalism on the dumbing down of MMOs....can't make the connection myself. It is in the best interests of the capitalists to make deep, compelling games that retain people for years and get them to spend lots of money. Suggesting that they deliberately make crap games that make small amounts of money is....well, weird.
Trying to attract more and more players from other genres to an over-saturated market is another problem. Many companies are just creating what I term throw away games these days. They take a game reskin it and push it out the door to be completed in about a month or two tops. And they move on to the next reskin and push it out. They are not trying to create games for lifetime players they are trying to get cash as fast as they can, which is what business want. So overall the developers have turned from creating fun games for the players into creating cash cows for investors.
People like myself that enjoy exploring and lore can take an average game and make it last for about 4-6 months right now. I do think leveling needs to be address. If I am in a zone that has a max level of 20 stop giving xp at all while I am in that zone or at least give the option to turn off xp gains without having to buy it in a cash shop. Let me finish the zone at level. And no I do not want autoscale leveling for everything either. Overall we will never probably see an MMORPG again where the rpg part is the main part of the game. I doubt we will see a game where it can take a full day to get to level 2 with a max level of say 100. Make getting that great loot at level 2 feel like something instead of replacing it within seconds of getting it.
The games removed the grinds to appeal to larger amounts of people, but the devs are not putting in nearly enough meaningful content to replace it. Pet/Mount/Achievement hunting is not valid content for the majority of players to replace it.
Example FFXIV has about 90% less grind then its predecessor FFXI. Sounds good but FFXI was game you could literally put in 20,000+ hours (not making this up I did it) and never run out of progression related content. Think about it you could play 100hrs a week in that game and never run out of stuff to do.... so in order for FFXIV to have as much content as FFXI in terms of playable hours they would have to release nearly 10 fold the content each expansion to keep up with the entire playerbase (hardcore and casuals). Meaning they have to release an expansion worth of content every 3months... .think about that. It is simply not feasible for a company to do that. WoW is no different, the game is so dumbed down and simplified people play an expansion for 2-3 months then quit until the next one.... that is a huge problem in the genre.
Either devs need to change from the current model of appealing to the masses. Or they need to hire teams of 600-800 developers to churn out absurd amounts of content to keep everyone occupied for the duration of the game. If not we are stuck in the play a mmo for 3 months then find a new one cycle. The MMO genre is more or less dead currently, the newer games are something new entirely.
A few indy devs are trying to bring it back, but only time will tell if the have the money to make it happen. But not appealing to the masses is the only way we will get TRUE mmorpgs back again, instead of what ever you want to call what we have today.
Now that they realize WOWs success can't be duplicated they've stopped trying.
Even Blizzard gave up on it even though I really think they could have done somthing grand with the Starcraft franchise.
"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
I loved Vanguard....But with todays one month games, I would settle for 8 months.
With 8 months of content, you can have at least some replay ability, and a chance to build a community.
What kind of hat? Also, did you put little bits of paper in there with different time-frames? If not, are you sure 8 isn't your hat size?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
People are throwing around the term procedural Generation at ton lately. PG isn't a magic bullet to solve problems. PG is easy especially when it is bad. PG that is good enough is harder. Great PG is very tough though I believe that will be solvable very soon.
Players might not like PG in the long term. Once the shiny newness wears off they might enter an Oh another PG game. But if they are just hopping from game to game and don't really care about it, then it will be ok.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
What happened was "competition" in the marketplace.
This spawned all the changes from free to play/cash shops to gimmicks,to marketing etc etc.Then upstart devs aimed at certain demographics,started to take aged old ideas and give them new terms and create totally new genres which are basically just simple PARTS of bigger better games.'
I do NOT believe in the single player game design of 2/3/5/8 months or whatever length of time in content,i believe you NEED a certain amount or a LOT of repeatable ideas.Is there one single person on the entire planet Earth who says ..oh there is something i like,i hope i can only do it ONCE?
Of course not,so what it really comes down to is TYPE of content,type of game design and MANY other factors like bringing players together,encouraging friendships and keeping content within reason,example NOT needing 24 players or a pile of people spending hours trying to organize one single content run.
Most importantly we NEED the VOICE of intelligent gamer's to rise up and silence the ones who have no clue what they want.A perfect example that just makes me laugh and cringe is when i hear someone say "I am happy devs have learned that forced grouping is out"however EVERY single game THEY are playing has RAIDING,which last i looked NEEDS lots of FORCED grouping ...so yeah LMAO,,people who are lost in their own minds can seriously ruin the direction of game development.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
EVE and Runescape.
I don't have ANY years of Software development under my belt, and I know this is hard.
Offline games like the Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 is about the best you'll get for now !
For right now this would be a waste of resources, since they cant even give us 30 days of content.
What ?......Here is just one quote you made:
" and constantly changing ecosystems based on factors like NPC activity, player activity, natural phenomenons, seasons are definitely possible with today's AI technology "
And your telling me I don't understand your post !..........It can be done,yes......But for right now, developers cant even give us a full months content, yet your asking for deep AI.
I understand fully !
I find games that give the players to much power to be horrid, not because the game is bad, because the players make the game bad. The first people that walk the path make it harder for the next, simple because they find it fun to be stronger than the newbie. Destroying any new players that comes into the game eventually leading the game to destruction. The same could be said for Theme parks and making party compositions Meta. I find players themselves typically cause games to get boring. They get strong and then boss everyone below them around causing these people to never to get strong and leaving only them. Theme park games have an advantage though because the players only control so much power. Sandbox on the other hand, I'm a newbie and walk outside the starter zone and get my ass handed to me by someone who is max lvl/best gear/etc over and over and over again, I quit. Causing that living breathing world to die because no one ever has a chance to reach the heights of the person that is already there. Much like any open minecraft server has billions of dicks around, cause it was funny for them to make other people look at dicks, but they are destroying the atmosphere of the game.
So game developers bridged this with well you can just speed to the end, and be the best that there ever was and all will be great. This has failed to keep people around.
"You want to be a Knight you say, well fuck you I'm already a Knight and you a bitch."
I'd love to use nerve gear and play sword art online myself. But that isn't realistic.
You probably need to state what game you played that you can relate to.
PEOPLE DIDN'T LIKE IT SO IT GOT CHANGED.
Games with a great amount of content do exist.
"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