What I Miss from MMOs - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com

SBFord · May 2017

What I Miss from MMOs - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com

In playing MMOs since Ultima Online there are a long list of reasons why I used to log in every night. As you get older and life kicks in, it becomes harder to find time online. However, there are certain aspects of MMOs that I feel really bring out why we play these games. It is the reason so many independent projects are finding funding now, because we want to play together.

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Jaedia88 · May 2017

You know, I finally decided to give LotRO a proper go, and I'm amazed that even now, that game still feels very community focused. I'm making friends and feeling like I'm a part of Middle-earth, and I can't really say the same for my personal bread and butter, WoW. I'm so glad that feeling still exists somewhere.

Dauzqul · May 2017

Nice read.

You're right. There is certainly a "lack of purpose" in modern MMOs. There is almost no social realm anymore. Devs need to make incentives so that players will actually make use of Taverns, INNs, Cantinas, etc. Social skills and features are a huge welcome, e.g., LoTROs playable instruments, SWG's dancing / musician / image designer type classes, etc.

postlarval · May 2017

Dauzqul said:

Nice read.

You're right. There is certainly a "lack of purpose" in modern MMOs. There is almost no social realm anymore. Devs need to make incentives so that players will actually make use of Taverns, INNs, Cantinas, etc. Social skills and features are a huge welcome, e.g., LoTROs playable instruments, SWG's dancing / musician / image designer type classes, etc.

Shroud of the Avatar was on the right track, but then they went a added player-owned towns after high-level backers started demanding them, realizing how much money they could make exploiting Garriott's name and the nostalgia of their fans.

Now all the whales built their own little gated communities and hide in them to role-play with each other while the rest of the world is a ghost town.

Giving people the ability to install utilities in their houses also discourages social activities. You should not have access to a banker in your house. Get off your ass and go to the fucking bank. Need a new sword? Go to the blacksmith and craft one.

Players kept demanding convenience and when devs started adding them, the social aspect tanked.

It's our own fault. Anyone on these forums using any mechanism in an MMO that discourages socializing has no right to complain about the lack of it in games.

FelixMajor · May 2017

Planetside. Greatest moments of all time. All you had was each other. Making Auraxis blue again, one bio lab at a time xD

edujam · May 2017

Your article is the main reason we miss city of heroes so much. Log in city was to check what friends were doing, and start a task force, level alts. Once me and a friend started 2 toons on a Friday and did all task forces and many other friends joined us to help us do things by Sunday we hit 50, we did like 60 hours of true play through all the group content with friends. I loved that toon so much, she was a earth/ trick arrow controller, man fun as hell I had 13 aoes and almost all of them was place the crap on the floor and have fun.

Can't believe 5 years have passed and I haven't found anything to fill that hole. I'm on swtor and lol waiting for one of the spirit thing come to live. Can't stand the Korean crap like aion ( one of the first) and now blade and soul, revelations online or black desert. I respect wow but gimme my city back.

zanfire · May 2017

MMOs post WoW got too far away from the multiplayer aspects that brought people together in the older MMOs. Soloing to level cap (and quickly) linear designs, cross server groups, the over abundance of instancing and just the general lack of needing other players to do things pretty much sunk most games into feeling like a glorified single player RPG with a chat box.

I'm really glad a game like Pantheon: Rise of The Fallen is coming. It gives someone like me who spent years enjoying the developed community, deep systems and less hand holdy years of FFXI (like many other pre-WoW MMOs) and really want to play something like it...even if its not AAA and has a niche audience because at least it's not trying to be yet another either WoW clone or trying to hard with the Action everything we see far too much of these days.

KnightFalz · May 2017

There is purpose, but it is more at the individual level than that of the group. Even when there is group purpose everything is faster and easier than it once was, making the relationships more about temporary need for the short-term than long-term mutual involvement and support.

For MMORGPs to provide communal experiences like those of the past they will have to give communal activity a more central role as it had in the old days. I don't know, though, that the players of today would wish for the dependence on playing with others that led to the stronger bonds and memories that were more common yesteryear.

Dhaenon · May 2017

Talk about reading an article that sums me up.
I miss not being stuck on a gear treadmill. Playing the game to play. Being in a fantasy world.
DAOC was my jam back in the day.

[Deleted User] · May 2017

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Kyleran · May 2017

Nyctelios said:

blueturtle13 said:

I have never had a shortage of MMO's to play. They are everywhere. Grouping has never been a problem and finding good communities have never been hard to find. Most older MMO's are still going and new ones are being made as we speak. People wax rhapsodic about the 'good ole days' but to me personally? They never left.

Don't be like that.

There is nothing that compares a "know by name" crafter/stall/seller to modern auction houses.

That kind of facilitation kills the sense of community since, like said above, you just get people to momentary solve problems - people don't care about creating a fame for themselves within the community.

Yes. You may find guilds and communities nowadays but they are nothing but bubbles. They breath their environment, they do stuff together... so? They exist within their structure and that's it.

Every MMO I played back then (and that I still play to this day, and some few modern exceptions) had this sense of "server scale" when you would talk about content or progression... Now? The most "server-wide" feeling of reach you would have is "my guild was the X to do Y". How is that interaction with community?

I played some pretty bad mmorpgs in my past, but at least they had the multiplayer aspect figured out instead of optional co-op or forced dungeons you find today.

All comes down to how selective one is on their gameplay preferences and value they place on social interactions within a game.

Those with broader tastes or are naturally more social don't comprehend the issue or understand what many see clearly has been lost.

Some are also intentionally obtuse for the sake of being contrarian.

BTW, Blue's not in the latter category.

[Deleted User] · May 2017

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Avarix · May 2017

This is the outcome of MMOs putting the focus on solo play. Some of us seen this coming ages ago, and whined about it at length. You're late to the party. Welcome

[Deleted User] · May 2017

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WoeToTheVanquished · May 2017

I've always been a fan of MMOs that allow you -- as a specific player -- to become notable for your character's power. In Lineage 1, we would recognize others by name -- because the community was small enough. Guilds/pledges were feared only for the players they recruited. If a notably powerful player left on his own, you'd still have to watch out for him because that's how the game's damage system and character stats were coded. Nobody could deal 3 digits worth of damage unless their character was super powerful. And health bars didn't easily exceed 600 hp.

But this was back when I was a child. Games today -- such as WoW -- make 6 million dps look like nothing. It really makes DPS seem pointless.

Leiros · May 2017

Nice article Garrett. I can totally relate. I miss a lot of the social systems that were built into earlier games like Star Wars Galaxies. I'm not talking about the state of current emu's where you can have 10 alts that do everything on a macro. Rather, I'm referring to when the game was live and you could only have like 2 toons per server and a finite amount of skill points so you had to rely on others. I was playing ESO earlier today and I realized that almost all of my crafting skills were up to 50 without even really trying to level them ... this would have been impossible in a game like SWG. Maybe I've got rose colored glasses on, but I do miss the atmosphere of the cantinas in SWG when 50 players were gathered around buffing, talking, dancing, playing music, and forming groups. Good times.

Mikeha · May 2017

What ever you are looking for is out there.

Its up to you to play and support it.

Alverant · May 2017

edujam said:

I respect wow but gimme my city back.

Here here! It was the community and being a superhero I missed the most. What's left are just gear grinds and games where we are pretty much extraordinary yet ordinary folks. I've tried other games but none have the community of CoH and I'm not sure I every will again.

Jakdstripper · May 2017

I find that the larger the game is, the harder is it to feel part of the in-game community. For me the funnest guild experience was in the tiniest of games (MO). Everyone knew eachother and guilds had rivalries that lasted years...i find this almost impossible to replicate in a large community. Cross server and random group ques completly destroy communities even further.

zanfire · May 2017

@DMKano "yep - today the majority of players don't devote all their time to a single game, nor do they spend ridiculous hours playing a single game."

DO you mean this sarcastically? I'm not 100% sure tbh. If you are serious then you arer very much wrong. MOBAs are one of the very prime examples of games that people sink thousands of hours into and almost play almost exclusively. Same goes for games like Minecraft that people play as much as an MMO and either dont buy much else or focus most of their time into that single game. I know quite a few personal examples of kids and some younger adults that do just that.

Hell you dont even need my personal experiences, just look at the massively popular twitch/youtube channels that have millions of viewers and how dedicated people of many ages are to them.

saintriku92 · May 2017

Well i recently returned to wows legion, joined a guild and instantly found a role for myself within a secondary raiding group, ive been running dungeons/heriocs/ herbing/crafting/chatting/ and of course raiding with the same 10 ppl for about.....a month now, very social experiences are out there if u try to find them. ps, im also a stockpiler of herbs that a few ppl on my friends list rely on for crafting. all in all i think those social interactions are still there if u actually look.

derpderpa23 · May 2017

I still miss those nostalgic gameplay of tab targetting like RO. It's the first game that I played since highschool

37 years from now.

Gruug · May 2017

I really don't play MMO's anymore. It is not a "life is too busy" thing but rather MMO's just suck these days. People are there to PvP, to level up as quickly as possible and then to move on. MMO's were fun when everyone was trying build something together and they actually socialized while doing it. I am afraid most people that still play MMO's do so with the same people they played with years ago. They have become cliquish and they don't go out of their way to make new friends. Or new players just want to rush through and then move on to the next game. It just is not the same and I am afraid until that what I have said above changes, MMO's will continue to suck.

DavodtheTutt · May 2017

When it comes to "playing with your friends," the thing I liked about City of Heroes was that, although none of my friends played, when I logged on, I was with friends. No PKers to worry about (although later they had zones for that if you wanted it). Often didn't even need to announce "LFT" -- got invites to team up on sight. The distinctive powers also helped with the team spirit and feeling like you were making a special contribution to the group effort.

Dheacon · May 2017

I think we don't acknowledge enough the rise of social media and the ease of smartphone apps. The early MMO genres were the best place we coudl interact with our friends real-timeWith the advent of facebook, twitter, etc, we don't need to socialize in-game as much when guilds and even your friends list expect to share Facebook pages and followers on whatever social media of choice.

Unsure we should be blaming MMOs for the lack of in-game socialization, when maybe Zuckerberg is the one to blame? But at the end of the day, the nature of online socializing inevitably would change the most sociable affects of MMOs. Maybe the MMO development needs to address and integrate more with the social media world that currently runs parallel to the PC-heavy MMO world. An overlay may be interesting, other than the current apps that provide intel on the player's presence in a game that only looks from the client-side in, rather than from the server-side out.

Albatroes · May 2017

To me WoW/FFXIV and many others honestly have a lack of purpose. At each of those games core, all you're doing is chasing a gear number to use that number to increase it again. Not to mention that there's always going to be catch up mechanics and at the start of every expansion, that precious score you were chasing ultimately means nothing since everyone is the same at the new cap, only to do the same chase all over again.

I respected systems in games like EQ and FFXI because it was more than just the gear, even though the gear was important, but there were also systems in place that persisted through content, like the AA system in EQ and Merit system (later adding job point system) in FFXI. These systems made it feel like the time you put in was carrying over into new content and yes it did mean that veterans had a slight advantage over newer players until they were able to catch up. All today's content is just throw away content to keep business until the company finds a new way to milk more money (i.e. new expansions or in the case of FFXIV, monthly cash shop updates).

Some games have tried or are trying like Rift/WS but you have to question their future given that in the case of Rift, their system is a bit shallow with many stat increases and Wildstar, it might be too late since the future of that game always feels like its on its last leg not to mention Carbine is recruiting for a new project which honestly seems more and more likely WS is gonna end soon.

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What I Miss from MMOs - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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