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It's my turn to beat the horse again.
Neanderthal
Member RarePosts: 1,861
So....here we are in 2012, bored to death with the stale MMORPG market. For some years now things have fallen into a fairly predictable cycle. A new game is in development. It gets hyped up and hyped up and hyped up. People get all excited about it. It releases and seems to be doing ok....then people get bored with it within a few months and the population starts to drop. By the end of its' first year it has fallen to the status of yet another has-been game with a disappointing number of players still playing it.
Do developers ever even try to figure out why this happens? When they are alone in the quiet of the night, does ever a fleeting query drift through their consciousness? Do they never ask, "Why?"
....Why....
Maybe it would help to think first about why people get so excited about playing a game they have never tried. What exactly is going on in peoples' minds when they are eagerly anticipating a new game? Well, it's obvious right? They are fantasizing about being in that alternate reality.
Cards on the table guys, we all have our nerdy side or we wouldn't be here. We have all daydreamed about being in a fantasy or Science Fiction reality. But think about it; when you have those types of fantasies do you imagine yourself following a closed in and predetermined path or do you imagine yourself in a open world with all the freedom of the real world. Do you fantasize about going off on adventures or do you fantasize about prefroming menial tasks for the local butchers, bakers and candlestick makers?
The truth is that most people probably don't even try to define why they get excited about a game. Most people probably would never stop to analyse their fantasies and compare that analysis with the design of a game. People generaly just have these vague fantasies about entering the reality in which the game is based without bothering to try to pin everything down and label it.
But see, here's the problem: MMO games have been drifting further and further away from the shape of our fantasies when they should be trying to get closer. Because...see...whether some people want to admit it or not, our dreams are sandboxes. The next time you daydream about being in the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings universe just stop and think about it a little and ask yourself if your daydream resembles in any way the typical Themepark MMO.
So...here we are in 2012, bored to death and just asking game developers to ponder this a bit.
Comments
Why is this a problem?
The goal of games is to entertain. I don't find MMOs particularly lacking in that department.
Some people are entertained by their own boogers.
Good for them I suppose.
I'm surprised you can still get worked up. At this point i'm resigned with only a small glimmer of hope.
I agree with you whole heartily. But I do think that there are people who don't play MMOs for that reason. Lot's of others see it as just a game they can play with friends or meet new friends and compete against long standing rivals or new rivals. It's more of a competition for some.
But on the one hand, there are a shit load of us dreamers out there. No game is really catering to this dreamer gamer niche. Sandboxes are a future of MMOs, but certainly not the only one. I'm not saying you're advocating that.
I really really really wish an MMO company would learn from games such as the Elder Scrolls Series, in terms of detail and immersive environment (for the latter, they should pay attention to the mods for Skyrim for example). We need some complicated dungeon crawling that's dangerous like DDO. We need a living environment like in Skyrim/LOTRO (to some extent). We need to have choices available like in SWTOR.
And for me. We need Darkfall's FFA PvP with full loot and universal (or not) bank. Reality is risky, and if we're dreaming an alternate reality, my stuff is not always safe. We need to give guilds and groups of players something to fight for, and give them a damn good reason to keep fighting.
What game in the future will do this? Who knows. Will one? I hope so. Capturing the reality-style gameplay, graphics, environment, and sounds is a really tough project. And MMO companies aren't sure they are going to get the bang for their buck.
I think Skyrim has a lot to say about that however. This is what Bethesda was trying to do. Capture us into another world. The game sold like wildfire. Maybe there is a lesson in there.
Some gamers aren't easily entertained by playing the same movie/game over and over and over...
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
It sounds like you don't like the current idea of a themepark game being what an MMO is.
A lot of us here wish that Themepark games were the abnorm rather than the norm.
However, 2012 is the year where we see A LOT of sandbox games being announced, and games like Otherworld and The Repopulation do seem to fit more into what we imagined when we first spoke of an online virtual world.
Why is this a problem?
The goal of games is to entertain. I don't find MMOs particularly lacking in that department.
Imagine people had been raised on the films of the Coen Brothers, Scorcese, Hitchcock or Kurosawa and then suddenly the only film you were allowed to watch was Transformers.Well OP why dont you include the name of the last MMORPG you believe fit into the catagory of what you believe to be a good game...so we can rip you to pieces over it!
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
The goal of games is to entertain. I don't find MMOs particularly lacking in that department.
Some people are entertained by their own boogers.
Good for them I suppose.
"I got ya where I want ya. Now I'm gonna eat ya..."
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
And they would be blown away by the awesome robot fighting. You point?
"There never was much hope, just a fools hope."
I've tried about a dozen mmo's released in the past couple years. None of them held my attention past the first week. About half of them didn't make it past the first day.
For many of us, it's time to find another hobby.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
A lot of people here are making comments that MMOs used to be great.
I disagree. Our expectations were just low.
However, I agree with the heart of the statement.
Why is this a problem?
The goal of games is to entertain. I don't find MMOs particularly lacking in that department.
Imagine people had been raised on the films of the Coen Brothers, Scorcese, Hitchcock or Kurosawa and then suddenly the only film you were allowed to watch was Transformers.And they would be blown away by the awesome robot fighting. You point?
You have just made it.+1
checkmate
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Babality
Let's internet
Hmm, I'm starting to spot a pattern while visiting this site. There's a group of MMO gamers here who seem to be of the conviction that themepark MMO's are the devil of the MMO genre. That MMO gamers of the first generation can't enjoy those MMO's, that everyone who does has either no taste or dreams or imagination, etc etc.
Sounds wrong to me.
If other people enjoy things that the OP doesn't, that doesn't mean that those people don't have dreams or that it's a bad thing that those people have fun while the OP - or some other people in this thread - haven't.
I also don't really think that the MMO genre is in decline. Sure, just like any other genre it has its ebbs and flows, but so what? With MMO's like GW2, TERA, SWTOR, Planetside 2, Firefall, Otherland and TSW appearing within barely 1 year, followd by Copernicus, ArcheAge, Blade & Soul, Undead Lab's zombie MMO, Repopulation, Defiance, and Everquest Next after that, I don't see much of a decline or a dreamless genre.
Maybe some people are too rigid and stuck in 1 type of dreams, closedminded to any other kind?
Nice.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
We? Speak for yourself. I'm happy with Uncharted Waters Online and Spiral Knights right now. And I still want to go back to Champions Online sometime--but not until after the next big patch, which is expected to break a bunch of things, and then I want to wait for Cryptic to fix whatever the patch breaks. And then I still want to go back and give Europa Universalis 3 a fair shot.
Why do games have a big spike of people enter when they launch and then leave fast? Because there are a lot of people who like to be in on launch day, but don't like to hang around in any particular game for too long. The alternative that game developers face is not to get the early adopters to stay for years; those who congenitally believe that the grass is always greener on the other side will always find upcoming games to drool over and leave your game for. The alternative that game companies face is to get the early adopters to skip the game entirely, and then they lose out on a bunch of early box sales.
I imagine that those people were told that they were watching Hitchcock and Kurosawa films but in reality they were watching Uwe Boll movies. They simply cannot admit that awful truth and are in complete denial.
Pro Tip:
People are never, ever, ever going to respond well to the "elitist defense."
"So, what do you think of the new Ford F150?"
"Well, it certainly isn't a Jaguar or Mercedes but for the common man to drive to a sporting event to drink Budweiser with their blue-collar friends, I suppose it's adequet."
*punches face*
Transformers movies sucked, first being the best, but man...I usually just sit and try to not pick a movie apart, but man they really sucked...Plot holes with more pull than a black hole.
A lot of those are more in line with a hybrid, and have some good sandbox features....Not the best list...Some are more sandbox, than themepark...
I have enjoyed themeparks, and I am not over critical and give developers leeway....As I thought the core game of Vanguard was very good...Rift...The company is good, but the world is very small imo, and tired of 'dailies' as being the only thing to really do...TOR..railed/dailies, meshing of story/mmo didn't work too well...
How many mmos now adays have like 1-2 starting areas, you don't often find a mmo that has a good number of races, and starting areas for almost all of them, things are streamlined for profit it feels like anymore....They don't feel like someone was actually taking pride in their work.
It's not a matter of being elitist. He's simply comparing quality. Not everyone is satified with mediocrity.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville