Devs know what their doing. They made a game and for a certain group of people and a good game. The next one after is going to be for a broader audience that your grandma can play. Which just ends up annoying everyone. So, only small indie people making their first game are going to have a chance at being a good game. It's possible.
Said this in another thread. What people are calling small indie MMO gaming companies these days, are what we used to call major game studios in the past. That's why all the old MMO games were unique, and not bland copies of whatever else the last soulless juggernaut company made.
I am still waiting for a good mmorpg. its been about 12 years now The only things that tickle me are Star Citizen and Ashes of Creation. So about 20 more years to go.
I just look at Ashes and fail to get excited, I cannot work out what they're making. When I cannot work out a game just by looking at it, the game is almost always bad. Gameplay wise I get it, they're doing nothing new which is also worrying.... But I cannot see any inspiration in the game and the world looks dull and yeah... I'm going to give it a miss.
When gankers get excited about a game; I get worried.
To me that means either the gankers will reduce it to a wasteland or the developers have oversold the ganking feature. On one hand the PvE crowd will be furious, on the other hand the gankers will be furious.
But what is the identity of the game? I look at all the footage and I just cannot see anything to it but blandness.
I am still waiting for a good mmorpg. its been about 12 years now The only things that tickle me are Star Citizen and Ashes of Creation. So about 20 more years to go.
I just look at Ashes and fail to get excited, I cannot work out what they're making. When I cannot work out a game just by looking at it, the game is almost always bad. Gameplay wise I get it, they're doing nothing new which is also worrying.... But I cannot see any inspiration in the game and the world looks dull and yeah... I'm going to give it a miss.
When gankers get excited about a game; I get worried.
To me that means either the gankers will reduce it to a wasteland or the developers have oversold the ganking feature. On one hand the PvE crowd will be furious, on the other hand the gankers will be furious.
But what is the identity of the game? I look at all the footage and I just cannot see anything to it but blandness.
They said they are keeping the lore "very close to the chest" so gamers can discover it on their own as they play. Does not mean much to me, i have never been much of a lore guy. Just give me people to group up with so we can go duke it out with others with some fluid, non-clunky combat...and i will be happy. I will say, the more game footage they release, (AoC) the more interested i become. Disclaimer: Every single new game i have tried lately, i have lost interest in them rather quickly....so the bar is not even that high at the moment.
Apparently some people can just do repeated things over and over for enternity and still get kicks.
Maybe they are just super super super casual and it takes them 20 years to do what others do in a few weeks.
Maybe they are just real slow learners.
Maybe they still play tic tac toe against a computers for enjoyment.
On the other hand.
Most others, have played their masterpiece game, beat it to death, soaked all the fun out, and it just has no more fun to give. Everything has been done, the game has nothing left to offer. Even new content from that game feels like the exact same thing rehashed. Time to move on.
Another example is like reading a book, do I really have to reread the book over and over again for the rest of my life, or else the book is not good?
Apparently some people can just do repeated things over and over for enternity and still get kicks.
Maybe they are just super super super casual and it takes them 20 years to do what others do in a few weeks.
Maybe they are just real slow learners.
Maybe they still play tic tac toe against a computers for enjoyment.
On the other hand.
Most others, have played their masterpiece game, beat it to death, soaked all the fun out, and it just has no more fun to give. Everything has been done, the game has nothing left to offer. Even new content from that game feels like the exact same thing rehashed. Time to move on.
Another example is like reading a book, do I really have to reread the book over and over again for the rest of my life, or else the book is not good?
Is this really so hard to understand?
Different strokes for different folks.
There are people who literally play football for most of their lives.
it's not about learning and doing a few times and then you're done. It's about the moments you get based off of parameters of the experience.
Same can be said of many sports and yes, games.
So remember, you said it "Different strokes for different folks."
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Apparently some people can just do repeated things over and over for enternity and still get kicks.
Maybe they are just super super super casual and it takes them 20 years to do what others do in a few weeks.
Maybe they are just real slow learners.
Maybe they still play tic tac toe against a computers for enjoyment.
On the other hand.
Most others, have played their masterpiece game, beat it to death, soaked all the fun out, and it just has no more fun to give. Everything has been done, the game has nothing left to offer. Even new content from that game feels like the exact same thing rehashed. Time to move on.
Another example is like reading a book, do I really have to reread the book over and over again for the rest of my life, or else the book is not good?
Is this really so hard to understand?
Different strokes for different folks.
Almost everyone go to works right?
You can just slap some rewards in the repetitive tasks and people'll do it. And there are apparent joy to do the repetitive tasks as efficient as possible.
Apparently some people can just do repeated things over and over for enternity and still get kicks.
Maybe they are just super super super casual and it takes them 20 years to do what others do in a few weeks.
Maybe they are just real slow learners.
Maybe they still play tic tac toe against a computers for enjoyment.
On the other hand.
Most others, have played their masterpiece game, beat it to death, soaked all the fun out, and it just has no more fun to give. Everything has been done, the game has nothing left to offer. Even new content from that game feels like the exact same thing rehashed. Time to move on.
Another example is like reading a book, do I really have to reread the book over and over again for the rest of my life, or else the book is not good?
Is this really so hard to understand?
Different strokes for different folks.
Almost everyone go to works right?
You can just slap some rewards in the repetitive tasks and people'll do it. And there are apparent joy to do the repetitive tasks as efficient as possible.
That being said, it is really sad people do that.
But people go to work for money, pay me my current wage to play a game and I'll play it.
I agree. It's really quite baffling that no studio opts to just make WoW with modernized combat and graphics. Instead we get MMO's with weird quirks that no one is looking for.
Lost Ark had massive attention when it launched just because it's a fantasy RPG that looked really nice.
This is such an overdramatization(woe is me ; /facepalm). Well, we could argue and bicker about the meaning of "worthwhile", but I don't think you can say that you didn't find a single worthwhile, fun MMO in 20 years(!). That's almost impossible.
For me: GW 1, LoTR:O, SWTOR, TSW and others. There is also so many other good MMOs: ESO, EQ 2, AoC, WoW, GW 2 etc.
This is such an overdramatization(woe is me ; /facepalm). Well, we could argue and bicker about the meaning of "worthwhile", but I don't think you can say that you didn't find a single worthwhile, fun MMO in 20 years(!). That's almost impossible.
For me: GW 1, LoTR:O, SWTOR, TSW and others. There is also so many other good MMOs: ESO, EQ 2, AoC, WoW, GW 2 etc.
LOL a bit retro on your list dont you think?
No games in your list that isnt a decade or more old. So essentially your argument is, nothing in the last decade but 20 is over the top? LOL
Impossible you say? LOL that is overdramatization. In your list all I liked was WoW and ESO. So Since Wow is right at 20 years, that only leaves ESO at over 10 years ago. Not exactly that far fetched.
In the 22 years I've been playing MMORPGS the only "worthwhile" titles were DAOC, vanilla WOW, EVE Online and maybe ESO which still had far less longevity than those other 3 titles which all were created in 2004 or earlier.
I've long since given up any hope of seeing the genre evolve in a direction I would have preferred and really thought they would go back in 2002 when I played Lineage 1.
I should have seen it coming. I introduced a friend from work to Lineage 1, my new found gaming "world."
He didn't last more than a few sessions, got pissed when a ganker killed his dog (we were on a PVE server, but there were ways to grief) and then confessed he had no interest in living in a virtual world, much less one filled with asshat people.
As time went on I came to realize he and most other gamers were far more casual and varied in their gaming preferences than I.
This scenario replayed itself more than a few times, even among some friends who burned out on MMORPGs and went back to consoles and other single player games.
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 fact so many mmorpgs have been bad in the past years should really be a matter of excitement. Clearly making a mmorpg is very hard. It has to be fun, have at least charming visuals and a lot of immediately enjoyable content, capture a broad audience and be profitable at that. With dev and server costs, that just isn't easy!
But this means that creating an actually great mmorpg still hasn't been achieved in decades. Even the likes of venerated WoW, RO, Lineage2 etc. have their fundamental issues that they tried to fix in the years and generally failed, losing a lot of their audience.
Let's get some of the most basic issues: -pay to win design and gacha monetization -treadmill and skinner box content that runs out and needs constant replacement, creating a race between devs and players that someone will lose -RMT issues -ganking and griefing -player fragmentation and solo play -shallow and derivative designs
If you think of it, fixing any of these issues tends to give raise to the others. There needs to be a smart engineering solution that solves everything at once, you can't just do like so many teams and try to brute force it, for example Archeage or even Star Citizen. A huge, expensive game with heaps of systems for every issue is just not manageable without some predatory monetization.
Some indie games attempt to avoid to fall for the excessive scope by keeping the game small, which is the way to go, but with a low scope one must really understand all of the dynamics that affect mmorpgs, which is daunting and clearly not many have succeeded at. (If anyone is interested in discussion on these dynamics, feel free to send me a message!)
In the 22 years I've been playing MMORPGS the only "worthwhile" titles were DAOC, vanilla WOW, EVE Online and maybe ESO which still had far less longevity than those other 3 titles which all were created in 2004 or earlier.
I've long since given up any hope of seeing the genre evolve in a direction I would have preferred and really thought they would go back in 2002 when I played Lineage 1.
I should have seen it coming. I introduced a friend from work to Lineage 1, my new found gaming "world."
He didn't last more than a few sessions, got pissed when a ganker killed his dog (we were on a PVE server, but there were ways to grief) and then confessed he had no interest in living in a virtual world, much less one filled with asshat people.
As time went on I came to realize he and most other gamers were far more casual and varied in their gaming preferences than I.
This scenario replayed itself more than a few times, even among some friends who burned out on MMORPGs and went back to consoles and other single player games.
Now I feel the only thing left is to ride off
I remember showing some friends Lineage 2. They weren't impressed with the game play: "you mean you have to just keep 'killing' those things over and over again and money falls out their asses?"
"Well, it's not meant to be literal but 'yeah' and then I get more powerful so I can be more competitive in pvp"
"What's PvP?"
"Player vs Player combat"
"Oh, Ok. let's go eat ... "
I think there's a certain type of person who is wired to appreciate what the older games offered.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
@Sovrath I agree with you totally. My first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot and then EQ followed but DAOC caught my attention because of the setting. I love mythos-history and especially anything to do with the British isles and Norse mythology. My friends played EQ before I started DAOC and tried to explain to me the "point" of MMOs and I just did not get it. I was confused by stand around, kill mobs, level, and repeat with no real final boss or achievement. This concept was very different from the Age of Empires, Diablo, Warcraft, etc....games I had played.
Of course I came to understand it quickly and it makes sense - I RP'ed in D&D back in the 80s and this was the next step. And the rest as they say, is history.
@Sovrath I agree with you totally. My first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot and then EQ followed but DAOC caught my attention because of the setting. I love mythos-history and especially anything to do with the British isles and Norse mythology. My friends played EQ before I started DAOC and tried to explain to me the "point" of MMOs and I just did not get it. I was confused by stand around, kill mobs, level, and repeat with no real final boss or achievement. This concept was very different from the Age of Empires, Diablo, Warcraft, etc....games I had played.
Of course I came to understand it quickly and it makes sense - I RP'ed in D&D back in the 80s and this was the next step. And the rest as they say, is history.
yeah, it really is about "what" one could do as opposed to taking the game play at face value.
I've used this example before, but my Clan leader and I realized that if we ran a certain kill quest about 20 times, over and over, back to back, we could have enough money to buy a "D" grade weapons (lineage 2).
So we set about doing this one quest "overandoverandover" again. We'd pass each other on the road, him coming back, me going out. And eventually we had enough money for our respective D grade weapons.
Or ... one could, especially if it was a themepark mmo, say "kill 125 monsters and you'll get some gold."
For some that would be drudgery. I seem to remember some complaints in some game or another where someone had to kill 60 of something to complete a task (might have been lord of the rings online) and they were complaining.
For us in Lineage 2 we were problem solving and came up with the best way to get the money. For others, especially in a themepark mmo, tasking them with these large "grinds" doesn't seem fun.
So the type of world and how it enables you to solve problems can be a huge part of it. Seeing these worlds as "worlds" where you troubleshoot various obstacles is more interesting when you are the one who is doing it.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
ALot of us have said this before but what made the older games enjoyable wasn't the game so much, it was the community....What made Everquest fun for me was playing it with guildies and doing things as a team......When WoW and Eq2 came along and people started leaving in droves, the fun just died....It wasnt enjoyable playing alone.
People talk about why aren't we still playing the same games 20 years later? Well this is a big reason why for me...THe people I enjoyed playing the game with are gone....Sure I can go back to EQ and play again, and it is even set up for easier solo play now, but the factor that made it really fun is gone: ie the community.
ALot of us have said this before but what made the older games enjoyable wasn't the game so much, it was the community....What made Everquest fun for me was playing it with guildies and doing things as a team......When WoW and Eq2 came along and people started leaving in droves, the fun just died....It wasnt enjoyable playing alone.
People talk about why aren't we still playing the same games 20 years later? Well this is a big reason why for me...THe people I enjoyed playing the game with are gone....Sure I can go back to EQ and play again, and it is even set up for easier solo play now, but the factor that made it really fun is gone: ie the community.
I agree with you that the community is a major factor in enjoyment of an MMORPG, and that the communities of yesteryear were much better than the modern games.
However, game design influences the community in a big way. You can train your players to act in certain ways. You can give them the tools to make being part of a community more meaningful.
In addition, I would also say that certain things about modern MMORPGs are objectively worse than older games.
Standout for me: lack of depth in combat mechanics.
If your preference is for deep, tactical combat, the MMORPG genre peaked around 2007/2008ish in my opinion. Since 2014, deep combat simply went out the window, replaced with action combat.
You could also argue (and many of us have!) that the massively multiplayer feature is objectively worse these days. Modern MMORPGs tend to have much lower players caps than in the past, despite all the technological advances and improved internet speeds.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
This is such an overdramatization(woe is me ; /facepalm). Well, we could argue and bicker about the meaning of "worthwhile", but I don't think you can say that you didn't find a single worthwhile, fun MMO in 20 years(!). That's almost impossible.
For me: GW 1, LoTR:O, SWTOR, TSW and others. There is also so many other good MMOs: ESO, EQ 2, AoC, WoW, GW 2 etc.
LOL a bit retro on your list dont you think?
No games in your list that isnt a decade or more old. So essentially your argument is, nothing in the last decade but 20 is over the top? LOL
Impossible you say? LOL that is overdramatization. In your list all I liked was WoW and ESO. So Since Wow is right at 20 years, that only leaves ESO at over 10 years ago. Not exactly that far fetched.
Other factors play into this. Not only has the industry seemingly given up on MMOs, but so have I. Given that I have finished what I started in those I played ... and that I realized that I honestly don't get much from them(nice time wasters though). Yeah, I'm done lol.
...regardless. If I wanted to, I could find something. Note: I count anything with significant updates as new. Because WoTLK and ... whatever the new WoW expansion is, are hardly the same experience, are they?
Other factors play into this. Not only has the industry seemingly given up on MMOs, but so have I. Given that I have finished what I started in those I played ... and that I realized that I honestly don't get much from them(nice time wasters though). Yeah, I'm done lol.
...regardless. If I wanted to, I could find something. Note: I count anything with significant updates as new. Because WoTLK and ... whatever the new WoW expansion is, are hardly the same experience, are they?
They are not the same thing. Thats the point. What makes you think people that liked the classic versions have to like one of the new versions?
When you say you could find something if you wanted to. Does that mean you could settle, or you think something out there exists that can bring back the fun factor for you?
I have tried the new versions of old games, I have been dissapointed over and over again.
My college age kids played new WoW and hated it, then played Classic WoW when it launched and loved it. That wasnt nostalgia, they had never played vanilla WoW.
We have tried to like the new MMO's, they are just not good enough. MMO's today have lost the fun factor.
8-10 yrs ago, Pantheon was my hope for this genre LOL. What that turned into is a joke. Maybe someday something will be made that has good quality and brings back the fun factor. I dont see anything on the horizon.
It's interesting that when this thread was created it meant 'in the last 6 years'; the majority of the replies now imply 'in the last 20 years'.
Anyway, epic thread. Hasn't been one like since... 2010!
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Implying there were worthwhile mmorpgs 2004 and prior. It's debatable. Nostalgia is a hell of a dopamine hit.
Playing with dozens of others online in an RPG style game was really novel for me in 2001. Once that wore off the appeal started to tarnish for me. I like playing with friends. I don't need an mmo for that.
@Sovrath I agree with you totally. My first MMO was Dark Age of Camelot and then EQ followed but DAOC caught my attention because of the setting. I love mythos-history and especially anything to do with the British isles and Norse mythology. My friends played EQ before I started DAOC and tried to explain to me the "point" of MMOs and I just did not get it. I was confused by stand around, kill mobs, level, and repeat with no real final boss or achievement. This concept was very different from the Age of Empires, Diablo, Warcraft, etc....games I had played.
Of course I came to understand it quickly and it makes sense - I RP'ed in D&D back in the 80s and this was the next step. And the rest as they say, is history.
yeah, it really is about "what" one could do as opposed to taking the game play at face value.
I've used this example before, but my Clan leader and I realized that if we ran a certain kill quest about 20 times, over and over, back to back, we could have enough money to buy a "D" grade weapons (lineage 2).
So we set about doing this one quest "overandoverandover" again. We'd pass each other on the road, him coming back, me going out. And eventually we had enough money for our respective D grade weapons.
Or ... one could, especially if it was a themepark mmo, say "kill 125 monsters and you'll get some gold."
For some that would be drudgery. I seem to remember some complaints in some game or another where someone had to kill 60 of something to complete a task (might have been lord of the rings online) and they were complaining.
For us in Lineage 2 we were problem solving and came up with the best way to get the money. For others, especially in a themepark mmo, tasking them with these large "grinds" doesn't seem fun.
So the type of world and how it enables you to solve problems can be a huge part of it. Seeing these worlds as "worlds" where you troubleshoot various obstacles is more interesting when you are the one who is doing it.
I get what you're saying. To extend the problem solving analogy, I would call grinding away at a quest over and over again or other similar methods as the brute force solution. It is definitely problem solving, but the experience of getting to the solution is not particularly inspired or exciting. A couple of decades ago, I imagined at some point these games would have systems that allowed for different, creative and clever solutions to these problems. Perhaps that was naive, because the internet means once the optimal solution is discovered everyone would just follow a guide to get it. Regardless, instead of building more interesting systems to problem solve in, developers just simplified the problems entirely.
My college age kids played new WoW and hated it, then played Classic WoW when it launched and loved it. That wasnt nostalgia, they had never played vanilla WoW.
[--snip--]
Absolutely. That's not to say nostalgia doesn't exist, but writing off people's opinions of older iterations of a game as purely nostalgia is simply wrong. Classic WoW is a different game than modern, retail WoW. They do share some elements, but are entirely different experiences to play. Naturally, some will prefer one over the other.
Comments
Said this in another thread. What people are calling small indie MMO gaming companies these days, are what we used to call major game studios in the past. That's why all the old MMO games were unique, and not bland copies of whatever else the last soulless juggernaut company made.
But what is the identity of the game? I look at all the footage and I just cannot see anything to it but blandness.
Maybe they are just super super super casual and it takes them 20 years to do what others do in a few weeks.
Maybe they are just real slow learners.
Maybe they still play tic tac toe against a computers for enjoyment.
On the other hand.
Most others, have played their masterpiece game, beat it to death, soaked all the fun out, and it just has no more fun to give. Everything has been done, the game has nothing left to offer. Even new content from that game feels like the exact same thing rehashed. Time to move on.
Another example is like reading a book, do I really have to reread the book over and over again for the rest of my life, or else the book is not good?
Is this really so hard to understand?
Different strokes for different folks.
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
Almost everyone go to works right?
You can just slap some rewards in the repetitive tasks and people'll do it. And there are apparent joy to do the repetitive tasks as efficient as possible.
That being said, it is really sad people do that.
But people go to work for money, pay me my current wage to play a game and I'll play it.
Lost Ark had massive attention when it launched just because it's a fantasy RPG that looked really nice.
For me: GW 1, LoTR:O, SWTOR, TSW and others. There is also so many other good MMOs: ESO, EQ 2, AoC, WoW, GW 2 etc.
No games in your list that isnt a decade or more old. So essentially your argument is, nothing in the last decade but 20 is over the top? LOL
Impossible you say? LOL that is overdramatization. In your list all I liked was WoW and ESO. So Since Wow is right at 20 years, that only leaves ESO at over 10 years ago. Not exactly that far fetched.
I've long since given up any hope of seeing the genre evolve in a direction I would have preferred and really thought they would go back in 2002 when I played Lineage 1.
I should have seen it coming. I introduced a friend from work to Lineage 1, my new found gaming "world."
He didn't last more than a few sessions, got pissed when a ganker killed his dog (we were on a PVE server, but there were ways to grief) and then confessed he had no interest in living in a virtual world, much less one filled with asshat people.
As time went on I came to realize he and most other gamers were far more casual and varied in their gaming preferences than I.
This scenario replayed itself more than a few times, even among some friends who burned out on MMORPGs and went back to consoles and other single player games.
Now I feel the only thing left is to ride off
"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
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
But this means that creating an actually great mmorpg still hasn't been achieved in decades. Even the likes of venerated WoW, RO, Lineage2 etc. have their fundamental issues that they tried to fix in the years and generally failed, losing a lot of their audience.
Let's get some of the most basic issues:
-pay to win design and gacha monetization
-treadmill and skinner box content that runs out and needs constant replacement, creating a race between devs and players that someone will lose
-RMT issues
-ganking and griefing
-player fragmentation and solo play
-shallow and derivative designs
If you think of it, fixing any of these issues tends to give raise to the others. There needs to be a smart engineering solution that solves everything at once, you can't just do like so many teams and try to brute force it, for example Archeage or even Star Citizen. A huge, expensive game with heaps of systems for every issue is just not manageable without some predatory monetization.
Some indie games attempt to avoid to fall for the excessive scope by keeping the game small, which is the way to go, but with a low scope one must really understand all of the dynamics that affect mmorpgs, which is daunting and clearly not many have succeeded at. (If anyone is interested in discussion on these dynamics, feel free to send me a message!)
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
Of course I came to understand it quickly and it makes sense - I RP'ed in D&D back in the 80s and this was the next step. And the rest as they say, is history.
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
...regardless. If I wanted to, I could find something. Note: I count anything with significant updates as new. Because WoTLK and ... whatever the new WoW expansion is, are hardly the same experience, are they?
They are not the same thing. Thats the point. What makes you think people that liked the classic versions have to like one of the new versions?
When you say you could find something if you wanted to. Does that mean you could settle, or you think something out there exists that can bring back the fun factor for you?
I have tried the new versions of old games, I have been dissapointed over and over again.
My college age kids played new WoW and hated it, then played Classic WoW when it launched and loved it. That wasnt nostalgia, they had never played vanilla WoW.
We have tried to like the new MMO's, they are just not good enough. MMO's today have lost the fun factor.
8-10 yrs ago, Pantheon was my hope for this genre LOL. What that turned into is a joke. Maybe someday something will be made that has good quality and brings back the fun factor. I dont see anything on the horizon.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
I get what you're saying. To extend the problem solving analogy, I would call grinding away at a quest over and over again or other similar methods as the brute force solution. It is definitely problem solving, but the experience of getting to the solution is not particularly inspired or exciting. A couple of decades ago, I imagined at some point these games would have systems that allowed for different, creative and clever solutions to these problems. Perhaps that was naive, because the internet means once the optimal solution is discovered everyone would just follow a guide to get it. Regardless, instead of building more interesting systems to problem solve in, developers just simplified the problems entirely.