Games tend to not respect the general idea of having immersion into the game world. Like, being really disrespectful in this regard.
One thing is working with abstractions, to have menus and things going on, to have this visually shown on screen, A QUITE DIFFERENT THING, is to debase your investment into creating this world you made with your game, and turning it into shit by adding things that are at odds with having the player being immersed into the game world.
Note, playing the game will NEVER be immersion itself. So, playing a flight sim with a joystick, does NOT make the game more immersive just becuase you are using a joystick. Nor does a game become more immersive the more things you add to the game. "Immersion" should be about the game world, not the gimmicks, which would be an absurdity for all you know.
Ugh, I am playing Witcher 3 atm, but wow, the game is VERY gimmicky. Only saving grace is the graphics, and the beauty of it all (and the stories). Repeating something like Witcher 3 for Cyberpunk 2077 would be a big mistake on CD Project I have to say.
Just and FYI, as a young adult that grew up playing pokemon.... it's not to blame for anything. Their game was not "that" easy and had quite the grind (catch 200, then 350 the next game, then 420) and it even REQUIRED grouping because some pokemon only evolved when traded with other players... I remember having to ask my friends to ask if people at their school had this pokemon to trade or this one (and many were game specific either Red or blue/ Silver or Gold)
MMOs suck today because the golden age of mmos are over.
They aren't 'new' anymore, but i hardly think their best was their first, groundbreaking maybe, but the real 'golden age' i personally think hasn't happened yet, after all, we have gone from the stage where there was just a few games out there that everybody played, to the present where we have a huge number of games and players are spread far and wide between them, i half expect there to be some ground breaking new tech, not necessarily even VR related, that will allow the creation of MMO's with more depth, functionality and maybe, just maybe, better scripting/AI's etc. I don't see MMO's as being over, i think we have barely begun.
The "Golden Age of MMOs" certainly was not MMOs reaching the epitome of all they can be. Whether it was the highest point they will ever reach or not (or at least reach anytime soon) depends a lot on the MMO market. If we keep doing what we've been doing for the past 13 years we're going to get the same results which is the continued decline of the MMO industry.
A resurgence in MMOs means MMOs finding a way to become relevant again to a gamer population that has grown increasingly disillusioned with them. Which means doing things differently.
I don't believe that a truly new and innovative MMO that is very well done couldn't capture an audience as large as vanilla WoW. MMOs have fallen from popularity because people are sick of what MMOs are now, not because they dislike what MMOs can be.
That being said no MMO should set it's sights on being a WoW killer and no MMO should bank on WoW level success. MMOs should identify under catered to audiences, cater to them very well, and attempt to do such a good job at catering to their audience that they can potentially expand the market for what they are offering.
If that happens to bring them incredible success then good for them, but they should at least be able to bank on success within their target audience if they do a good job.
Modern MMOs with their entitlements, equality of outcome and overwhelming belief that no one should be able to say or do anything you disagree with is just a reflection of today's society - and that's the driving factor for why they suck.
Or not... what ever.
Ok lets set something straight about how terrible our generation is. @Vardahoth - This post is for you.
The millennials got participation trophies. The baby boomers came up with them and gave them to us.
The millennials will have to save for their own retirement. The baby boomers are the ones who let the government get away with spending the social security trust fund so we have to pay into it to fund YOUR retirement but will never get that money back.
The millennials tend to live at home longer. The baby boomers are the ones who trashed the housing market.
The millennials are overeducated and under experienced. The baby boomers are the ones that told us that everyone needs to go to college and crapped all over viable alternatives like trade schools like they weren't really options.
You can look at the worst most spoiled examples of our generation and pretend that's what we're all like or that we are the worst generation. And you can pretend like how bad things are for us is all our own fault.
But every generation has it's shining stars, and every generation has it's selfish entitled idiots. And there are plenty of selfish entitled idiots in your generation too. And you just happened to let them spend away our future before we were even born.
Modern MMOs with their entitlements, equality of outcome and overwhelming belief that no one should be able to say or do anything you disagree with is just a reflection of today's society - and that's the driving factor for why they suck.
Or not... what ever.
The fact you're spreading the narrative that we're all just a bunch of titled narcissists who need our safe space and a our participation trophy.
We're also the generation who's seen the resurgence of Libertarianism as a political philosophy as a direct counter to the types of things you're describing so there is always that.
I disagree that on the whole that equality of outcomes and or the right to "not be offended" are traits exhibited in more than a minority within society. Though the fact you immediately fall upon insults like "trigger warning" shows exactly what kind of person you are. The kind who is quick to paint anyone who disagrees with them as though they are just too fragile to handle what you're saying. No I can handle what you're saying, I just think what you're saying is crap.
I do think that the dumbing down of content to make it easier is catered to a segment of society that can't handle failure.
But I think that level grinding / gear grinding is the main thing ruining MMOs. And that's the product of a generation who can't tell the difference between activity, and accomplishment.
Much of American history of the 20th century is preserved
within entertainment. You can listen to the fear of nuclear war from the radio
shows of the late 1940s. You can hear the Civil Rights movement in the music of
the 1960s. You can watch the anti-communism efforts in movies produced throughout
the Cold War. Every aspect of society can be identified through the entertainment
method of that time.
Modern MMOs with their entitlements, equality of outcome and overwhelming belief that no one should be able to say or do anything you disagree with is just a reflection of today's society - and that's the driving factor for why they suck.
Or not... what ever.
I do somewhat agree. But I tihnk another reason MMO's are this way is because entertainment is largely supposed to be easy, no? Without equality of outcome and entitlements and protection from griefers or spammers or similar, how is it easy? This is why sandboxe MMOs are typically less popular. They don't usually have enough rules to protect players from adversity, since their basis for existing is freedom. The end result is most games become like a theme park or a instanced world specifically made for YOUR pleasure. You become the center of everything.
But a common theme in MMO's and any story is of defeating the tyrannical overlord and regaining freedoms lost. So despite people expecting entertainment or RL to be easy, we all desire freedom and it can run counter to "easy". So I might expect every person to have two personalities or selves. One wants to brave the jungle to find freedom and the other wants to be protected from the dangers of the world.
Modern MMOs with their entitlements, equality of outcome and overwhelming belief that no one should be able to say or do anything you disagree with is just a reflection of today's society - and that's the driving factor for why they suck.
Or not... what ever.
Ok lets set something straight about how terrible our generation is. @Vardahoth - This post is for you.
The millennials got participation trophies. The baby boomers came up with them and gave them to us.
The millennials will have to save for their own retirement. The baby boomers are the ones who let the government get away with spending the social security trust fund so we have to pay into it to fund YOUR retirement but will never get that money back.
The millennials tend to live at home longer. The baby boomers are the ones who trashed the housing market.
The millennials are overeducated and under experienced. The baby boomers are the ones that told us that everyone needs to go to college and crapped all over viable alternatives like trade schools like they weren't really options.
You can look at the worst most spoiled examples of our generation and pretend that's what we're all like or that we are the worst generation. And you can pretend like how bad things are for us is all our own fault.
But every generation has it's shining stars, and every generation has it's selfish entitled idiots. And there are plenty of selfish entitled idiots in your generation too. And you just happened to let them spend away our future before we were even born.
So thanks for that.
WTF was all that about?
Someone is upset they are a millennial and is being asked to solve the problems left behind by the previous generation.
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
Much of American history of the 20th century is preserved
within entertainment. You can listen to the fear of nuclear war from the radio
shows of the late 1940s. You can hear the Civil Rights movement in the music of
the 1960s. You can watch the anti-communism efforts in movies produced throughout
the Cold War. Every aspect of society can be identified through the entertainment
method of that time.
Modern MMOs with their entitlements, equality of outcome and overwhelming belief that no one should be able to say or do anything you disagree with is just a reflection of today's society - and that's the driving factor for why they suck.
Or not... what ever.
I do somewhat agree. But I tihnk another reason MMO's are this way is because entertainment is largely supposed to be easy, no? Without equality of outcome and entitlements and protection from griefers or spammers or similar, how is it easy? This is why sandboxes are typically less popular. They don't usually have enough rules to protect players from adversity, since their whole premise is to make the world a sandbox. The end result is every game becomes like a theme park or a instanced world specifically made for YOUR pleasure. You become the center of everything.
MMO's aren't just music or radio
I think the main difference between modern and older games in terms of what we're debating is the potential for failure. Originally we had games so difficult there was no guarantee you could beat them with out a lot of practice and raw skill. (Think the original Mario or arcade games.)
Then we had games where you should be able to beat them at almost any skill level but if you ramp of the difficulty high enough it will be difficult to impossible depending on your capabilities. (Think Halo Legendary mode.) Or games where while you could beat the main storyline easily some of the side quests could be pretty challenging (Think Ocarina of Time).
Finally we've come to a point that as long as you do enough easy content to get the levels you need you will always overcome any challenge even if you have almost no skill at all. (Think almost every MMO on the market.)
Pair this with the removal of things that actually cause you to think about the game. Such is the dumbing down and eventual removal of skill trees in many games because they are. "Too mathy."
I think this is more the issue then protection from griefers and scammers. There is nothing truly difficult anymore. I think the last time I was actually challenged in an MMO it was running down the length of a fence within a time limit in LOTRO for some special beer mug as a part of a festival, and I'm guessing it wasn't made that challenging intentionally.
However I think the root of this is just as much attributable to activity vs. accomplishment as it is to any kind of "entitlement" to win mentality.
Activity- Is the process of being active and appearing to be doing something. For instance when you do a fairly non-essential task in the slowest most detailed way possible once you run out of real work because you equate constantly doing something with good work ethic.
Accomplishment- Is the process of actually achieving something. When you are doing a task of actual substance in the most efficient way possible and therefore achieving desirable results.
Leveling is a process that rewards activity, anything you do as long as you are doing SOMETHING will allow you to overcome the challenge eventually.
Games like arcade games, the original mario, Halo, and the sidequests in Zelda expected accomplishment. If you did not learn from your previous failures and implement that knowledge in your successive attempts you will never succeed.
Older generation MMOs rewarded activity over accomplishment by giving us insanely long grinds and telling us "If you play that long you DESERVE the reward of being more powerful." Which is it's own form of entitlement.
Newer generation MMOs expanded on the legacy of the older MMOs by removing any and all obstacles to success other than the grind such as skill trees or high level dungeons that are actually somewhat challenging for people who aren't way undergeared. What little challenge there was in games like Everquest, they threw away so that in games like WoW there no longer is a challenge other than how long you are willing to play.
From my perspective, one of the big problems, is the total focus on the destination rather than the journey. Instant level 100 potions being one of the grossest examples.
- An mmo has to be LARGE, it has to release large. The only way to have a living world for the players to play in in to release a huge game. Something for everyone AND mix and match with your mood.
- An mmo needs to have slow leveling. So you can make friends and have a reason for guild mates. Also crafting would be worthless if fast.
- An mmo needs to have hard content. If not players will leave from boredom.... How can this be disputed unless the player likes a fashion show like BDO.
This is not nostalgia talking. Developers just STOPPED making mmos !!
Why ?.......Cost is #1...... To capture non-mmo players is #2
If you don't like the above, your not an mmo player. But sure, their is no problem liking both mmos and online games. But understand online games are not mmos.
After playing nothing but overwatch for an year I just cannot stand the carrot on the stick the gear treadmill and the constant need to grind levels to reach some cool area. Also MMOs are not designed to give you satisfaction in a 20 minute game session.
And that's basically every MMO in a nutshell right now.
I get it, the journey is important. But when the journey asks me to kill 50 rats (and there's nothing else to do) and get back to the NPC that gave it to me, who's 15 minutes away from me, we've got a problem.
After playing nothing but overwatch for an year I just cannot stand the carrot on the stick the gear treadmill and the constant need to grind levels to reach some cool area. Also MMOs are not designed to give you satisfaction in a 20 minute game session.
And that's basically every MMO in a nutshell right now.
I get it, the journey is important. But when the journey asks me to kill 50 rats (and there's nothing else to do) and get back to the NPC that gave it to me, who's 15 minutes away from me, we've got a problem.
Lack of taking risks to take the genre to the next level, keep doing the same thing until it gets so tired it just won't make a profitable game.
Then we get reality, several in-dev trying to change that but without really truly scale, something backed up by something on the AAA tier, we hardly get that quality tier we all want but never get within the MMO genre.
Comments
One thing is working with abstractions, to have menus and things going on, to have this visually shown on screen, A QUITE DIFFERENT THING, is to debase your investment into creating this world you made with your game, and turning it into shit by adding things that are at odds with having the player being immersed into the game world.
Note, playing the game will NEVER be immersion itself. So, playing a flight sim with a joystick, does NOT make the game more immersive just becuase you are using a joystick. Nor does a game become more immersive the more things you add to the game. "Immersion" should be about the game world, not the gimmicks, which would be an absurdity for all you know.
A resurgence in MMOs means MMOs finding a way to become relevant again to a gamer population that has grown increasingly disillusioned with them. Which means doing things differently.
But my point is everyone likes to play some solo, even the most hard core team player.
My bigger point is mmos should be very LARGE so you have choices, depending on you mood, depending on your play style.
Their is no reason an mmo shouldn't be as large as Vanilla wow was for this day and age. We should be evolving instead of building on cash shops.
And Vanilla wow was LARGE !
That being said no MMO should set it's sights on being a WoW killer and no MMO should bank on WoW level success. MMOs should identify under catered to audiences, cater to them very well, and attempt to do such a good job at catering to their audience that they can potentially expand the market for what they are offering.
If that happens to bring them incredible success then good for them, but they should at least be able to bank on success within their target audience if they do a good job.
The millennials got participation trophies. The baby boomers came up with them and gave them to us.
The millennials will have to save for their own retirement. The baby boomers are the ones who let the government get away with spending the social security trust fund so we have to pay into it to fund YOUR retirement but will never get that money back.
The millennials tend to live at home longer. The baby boomers are the ones who trashed the housing market.
The millennials are overeducated and under experienced. The baby boomers are the ones that told us that everyone needs to go to college and crapped all over viable alternatives like trade schools like they weren't really options.
You can look at the worst most spoiled examples of our generation and pretend that's what we're all like or that we are the worst generation. And you can pretend like how bad things are for us is all our own fault.
But every generation has it's shining stars, and every generation has it's selfish entitled idiots. And there are plenty of selfish entitled idiots in your generation too. And you just happened to let them spend away our future before we were even born.
So thanks for that.
We're also the generation who's seen the resurgence of Libertarianism as a political philosophy as a direct counter to the types of things you're describing so there is always that.
I do think that the dumbing down of content to make it easier is catered to a segment of society that can't handle failure.
But I think that level grinding / gear grinding is the main thing ruining MMOs. And that's the product of a generation who can't tell the difference between activity, and accomplishment.
But a common theme in MMO's and any story is of defeating the tyrannical overlord and regaining freedoms lost. So despite people expecting entertainment or RL to be easy, we all desire freedom and it can run counter to "easy". So I might expect every person to have two personalities or selves. One wants to brave the jungle to find freedom and the other wants to be protected from the dangers of the world.
Stereotypical really.
"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
Then we had games where you should be able to beat them at almost any skill level but if you ramp of the difficulty high enough it will be difficult to impossible depending on your capabilities. (Think Halo Legendary mode.) Or games where while you could beat the main storyline easily some of the side quests could be pretty challenging (Think Ocarina of Time).
Finally we've come to a point that as long as you do enough easy content to get the levels you need you will always overcome any challenge even if you have almost no skill at all. (Think almost every MMO on the market.)
Pair this with the removal of things that actually cause you to think about the game. Such is the dumbing down and eventual removal of skill trees in many games because they are. "Too mathy."
I think this is more the issue then protection from griefers and scammers. There is nothing truly difficult anymore. I think the last time I was actually challenged in an MMO it was running down the length of a fence within a time limit in LOTRO for some special beer mug as a part of a festival, and I'm guessing it wasn't made that challenging intentionally.
However I think the root of this is just as much attributable to activity vs. accomplishment as it is to any kind of "entitlement" to win mentality.
Activity- Is the process of being active and appearing to be doing something. For instance when you do a fairly non-essential task in the slowest most detailed way possible once you run out of real work because you equate constantly doing something with good work ethic.
Accomplishment- Is the process of actually achieving something. When you are doing a task of actual substance in the most efficient way possible and therefore achieving desirable results.
Leveling is a process that rewards activity, anything you do as long as you are doing SOMETHING will allow you to overcome the challenge eventually.
Games like arcade games, the original mario, Halo, and the sidequests in Zelda expected accomplishment. If you did not learn from your previous failures and implement that knowledge in your successive attempts you will never succeed.
Older generation MMOs rewarded activity over accomplishment by giving us insanely long grinds and telling us "If you play that long you DESERVE the reward of being more powerful." Which is it's own form of entitlement.
Newer generation MMOs expanded on the legacy of the older MMOs by removing any and all obstacles to success other than the grind such as skill trees or high level dungeons that are actually somewhat challenging for people who aren't way undergeared. What little challenge there was in games like Everquest, they threw away so that in games like WoW there no longer is a challenge other than how long you are willing to play.
Follow my Blog at: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/123bentilador
- An mmo has to be LARGE, it has to release large.
The only way to have a living world for the players to play in in to release a huge game. Something for everyone AND mix and match with your mood.
- An mmo needs to have slow leveling.
So you can make friends and have a reason for guild mates. Also crafting would be worthless if fast.
- An mmo needs to have hard content.
If not players will leave from boredom.... How can this be disputed unless the player likes a fashion show like BDO.
This is not nostalgia talking. Developers just STOPPED making mmos !!
Why ?.......Cost is #1...... To capture non-mmo players is #2
If you don't like the above, your not an mmo player. But sure, their is no problem liking both mmos and online games. But understand online games are not mmos.
And that's basically every MMO in a nutshell right now.
I get it, the journey is important. But when the journey asks me to kill 50 rats (and there's nothing else to do) and get back to the NPC that gave it to me, who's 15 minutes away from me, we've got a problem.
This is a FACT, short and sweet
Then we get reality, several in-dev trying to change that but without really truly scale, something backed up by something on the AAA tier, we hardly get that quality tier we all want but never get within the MMO genre.