The fact he doesnt see the difference between pre-WoW and post-WoW MMORPGs means he really shouldn't be wasting his time writing uninformed garbage. Now if he wants to talk specifically about the WoW type of theme park, thats fine, but he is lumping the UO/EQ/AC/DAoC/AO/FFXI/SWG/EQOA/EVE era of MMORPGs when the genre was highly creative with the current crop is ridiculous.
What so many people seem to forget is that, at least in the west, is that if you remove WoW from the picture, the genre was more successful pre-WoW than post-WoW.
I don't think so at all. EQ peaked at 450k subscribers and was by far the most successful western type MMO before wow. UO I'm told got close, DAOC, AO,AC did not get close. ao maybe a 1-1.5 players total spread among 5 games (assumming that people didn't flow back and forth between them which did happen).
Today there are hundreds of games boasting anywhere from 5000 to 300,000 subscribers. Swtor alone beast the entire western market pre wow. Lotro, EQ2, CoH, Eve... have all held fairly steady for many years at 100-300,000 subscribers each. So those games alone rival pre-wow, now add in 100+ other western type games that have held steady at 5000-100,000 and you have a market many many many times the size of the market pre-wow, even when your remove.
Now there is an argument that a particular game was more successfull, but the market today (with wow removed) still has many many many more subscribers, there are many many many more games - all measures of a healthy and successfull genre.
Edit - I also think the genre is just as creative. The problem is people are being selective in the games they look at. They look at wow like games and say all post games post wow are identical, the genre is less creative and ignore all the other games that are nothing like wow.
There were 5 titles that had some differences, a lot of similarities but some key differences. Today there are over 400 MMO's on this site alone, there are more than 5 that are significantly different.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Hmm, an article by a person who states they hate MMO's, from what he writes doesn't really understand them all that well (especially from their early days) and somehow people consider his viewpoint valid?
I'm not disagreeing that MMO's need some change, but like most rants/whines on this topic the article is long on complaints however very short on actual ideas on what he would do better to change things.
Sure, some titles are planning to make some changes, but face it, we who enjoy MMORPG's like progression mechanics. We may disagree on how that might best be implemented, but a MMORPG without a decent form of progression would be sort of like.... GW2 I suppose. Not so much an MMORPG anymore.
OK, just kidding, but seriously, are we really looking for an Adventure game MMO, where people just live in the world? I'm not, I like killing stuff and getting rewarded for (the key point), just killing stuff for the fun of it isn't, well, fun.
So yes, I'd like to see more radical departures from the standard theme park formula (and no TERA is not one, though it has its moments of enjoyment) but like the author of the article, I'm not really full of any new, good ideas, most of mine are retreads from earlier days that I think could use a revist.
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 old mmo's are fine. The newer ones have deliberately delivered a shallower, highly segmented experience that caters to solo play. Of course there is lack of interest.
The mmo as a world simulator was the expectation. The expectation that the simulation would have greater fidelity and depth as the genre matured. Instead the simulation was tossed and we ended up with rpg's with multiplayer. Which is fine, but its not worth a monthly fee to belong to.
Once WoW hit it big, the rest of the development world (or rather the investors who fund them) slammed on their breaks and ceased looking ahead and only looked to the side, and then backwards and said "I want to make THAT much money!"
The MMO genre is fine, just no one making them anymore. Just making knockoffs, and calling them MMO's
i think the quote he used about not liking character advancement at all was even more telling than his i hate MMOs statement. Even if you agree with the premise of the article that 'traditional' (read wow - clone since that seems to be what he means) MMOs are over done, which I do, I hardly want this guys input as he dislikes the most fundementally important aspect of an MMO.
The old mmo's are fine. The newer ones have deliberately delivered a shallower, highly segmented experience that caters to solo play. Of course there is lack of interest.
The mmo as a world simulator was the expectation. The expectation that the simulation would have greater fidelity and depth as the genre matured. Instead the simulation was tossed and we ended up with rpg's with multiplayer. Which is fine, but its not worth a monthly fee to belong to.
Once WoW hit it big, the rest of the development world (or rather the investors who fund them) slammed on their breaks and ceased looking ahead and only looked to the side, and then backwards and said "I want to make THAT much money!"
The MMO genre is fine, just no one making them anymore. Just making knockoffs, and calling them MMO's
This post is the also my opinion on what is wrong the industry.
AKA Turbine's make of AC2. When AC1 was much finer example of a game, and AC2 a mimickery of easy-mode gaming.
The fact he doesnt see the difference between pre-WoW and post-WoW MMORPGs means he really shouldn't be wasting his time writing uninformed garbage. Now if he wants to talk specifically about the WoW type of theme park, thats fine, but he is lumping the UO/EQ/AC/DAoC/AO/FFXI/SWG/EQOA/EVE era of MMORPGs when the genre was highly creative with the current crop is ridiculous.
What so many people seem to forget is that, at least in the west, is that if you remove WoW from the picture, the genre was more successful pre-WoW than post-WoW.
I don't think so at all. EQ peaked at 450k subscribers and was by far the most successful western type MMO before wow. UO I'm told got close, DAOC, AO,AC did not get close. ao maybe a 1-1.5 players total spread among 5 games (assumming that people didn't flow back and forth between them which did happen).
Today there are hundreds of games boasting anywhere from 5000 to 300,000 subscribers. Swtor alone beast the entire western market pre wow. Lotro, EQ2, CoH, Eve... have all held fairly steady for many years at 100-300,000 subscribers each. So those games alone rival pre-wow, now add in 100+ other western type games that have held steady at 5000-100,000 and you have a market many many many times the size of the market pre-wow, even when your remove.
Now there is an argument that a particular game was more successfull, but the market today (with wow removed) still has many many many more subscribers, there are many many many more games - all measures of a healthy and successfull genre.
Lets look at early/mid 2004:
EQ: 450k
DAoC: 250k
UO: 200k
SWG: 300k
EvE had been out over a year and had only 50k at that point
CoH had just launched and had 175k, but not really counting it.
Now we have
EvE: 400k (but its a pre-WoW game)
Rift: 300k (best guess, but its somewhere between 200k and 400k)
Yes, I left out SWToR. Why? because its population is in a freefall, and its been out only 6 months.
pre WoW: 5 games were released that had spans where they were over 200k for 2 or more years
post WoW: 1 game (LOTRO) with a possibility of 2 more, but I think its very unlikely Rift will make it and while SWTOR may because of the IP, but the odds arent in its favor.
Im not going to dispute there is more players, especially since f2p has muddied the waters. But games were clearly more successful back then, and Im not buying its because the market is saturated.
The fact he doesnt see the difference between pre-WoW and post-WoW MMORPGs means he really shouldn't be wasting his time writing uninformed garbage. Now if he wants to talk specifically about the WoW type of theme park, thats fine, but he is lumping the UO/EQ/AC/DAoC/AO/FFXI/SWG/EQOA/EVE era of MMORPGs when the genre was highly creative with the current crop is ridiculous.
What so many people seem to forget is that, at least in the west, is that if you remove WoW from the picture, the genre was more successful pre-WoW than post-WoW.
I don't think so at all. EQ peaked at 450k subscribers and was by far the most successful western type MMO before wow. UO I'm told got close, DAOC, AO,AC did not get close. ao maybe a 1-1.5 players total spread among 5 games (assumming that people didn't flow back and forth between them which did happen).
Today there are hundreds of games boasting anywhere from 5000 to 300,000 subscribers. Swtor alone beast the entire western market pre wow. Lotro, EQ2, CoH, Eve... have all held fairly steady for many years at 100-300,000 subscribers each. So those games alone rival pre-wow, now add in 100+ other western type games that have held steady at 5000-100,000 and you have a market many many many times the size of the market pre-wow, even when your remove.
Now there is an argument that a particular game was more successfull, but the market today (with wow removed) still has many many many more subscribers, there are many many many more games - all measures of a healthy and successfull genre.
Lets look at early/mid 2004:
EQ: 450k
DAoC: 250k
UO: 200k
SWG: 300k
EvE had been out over a year and had only 50k at that point
CoH had just launched and had 175k, but not really counting it.
Now we have
EvE: 400k (but its a pre-WoW game)
Rift: 300k (best guess, but its somewhere between 200k and 400k)
Yes, I left out SWToR. Why? because its population is in a freefall, and its been out only 6 months.
pre WoW: 5 games were released that had spans where they were over 200k for 2 or more years
post WoW: 1 game (LOTRO) with a possibility of 2 more, but I think its very unlikely Rift will make it and while SWTOR may because of the IP, but the odds arent in its favor.
Im not going to dispute there is more players, especially since f2p has muddied the waters. But games were clearly more successful back then, and Im not buying its because the market is saturated.
Some of those games were more successfull. CoH at release broke 250, it stabilized to this day at abotu 150. Thats comparable to your UO and Daoc.
Swtor still has 1.3 million subs as stated by them just a little while ago.
Today post wow - Eve 300,000, CoH, 150,000, lotro ~300,000, EQ2 ~100,000, Swtor 1.3 million and tens of thousands more scattered among hundreds of games.
Thats the difference. A game may be better or worse, the genre by every measurable data is better.
And market may or may not be saturated by you cannot deny there is a 100 fold increase in the number games and that significantly changes things.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
MMORPGs as a whole got shafted when every dev team out there got jealous of WoW's success in 2004 and decided to try to get a pice of that WoW Pie.
I don't blame Blizzard at all, actually. Blizzard set out to make their first MMORPG ever and they got a monstrous hit. It's all the dev teams out there that are trying to chase that very same success that screwed over diversity and innovation in MMORPGs. I'll say that all the dev teams are shaking with tears in their diapers on the very idea of trying to stray from WoW's formula.
Look at SWTOR.
Hell, look at the recently announced TESO (The Elder Scrolls Online), which completely forsakes the sandboxyness of its SPRPG roots, for themepark mechanics.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I already explained before why ive been turned off from MMORPGs... i want to play a particular (MMO)RPG for its unique feeling it have, not for it being another 'but it have a light sabers/flying steampunk ships/t**s and a**es/Frodo and the Ring/[insert here whatever is a trademark to particular franchise]' clone game.
This very well have a lot to do with Elder Scrolls MMO announcement. I played TES games for its unique gameplay styles and way of immersion which can exist only in Single Player RPG. I am sure that there will be many who will like 'but it is put in most popular CRPG setting ever' thing, however same old with TES label will not be enough. They will need to try a lot more than that.
Sorry for TES argument but the need to put it here was stronger than me :P
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2 Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
Yet look at the really old MMOs. M59, UO, EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, CoH, SWG - all so different from one another. Then along came WoW, opening the genre up to millions of new players, and instead of taking advantage of that, devs have been squandering the opportunity by making one sub-par WoW clone after another. Maybe what the genre really needs is to get back to its pre-WoW roots, to start growing again.
The biggest problem is the length of development. Most "WOW clones" went into development shortly after WOW and EQ2 released. The games that are different or slightly different, started production a couple years later (as an example GW2). No one or at least very few seem to acknowledge this.
Why was every AAA MMO from 07-09 very similar to WOW? Because they were picking up on features that showed to be popular when they entered conception. Once those systems started growing old, companies started shifting to other ideas. Now those games being announced and shown of, have different focuses, such as dynamic content, full voice overed questing, some with no quest hubs at all, actiony combat (Tera, GW2). Three way PVP is also being incorporated now into a few.
Those we don't know about yet (started development after 09) are probably even farther away from WOW.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Personally I think that was a biased post. It was written by someone who has never had a love for MMO's period. He has always hated MMO's.
Though he made a few valid points I think it was extremely one-sided. I'm not ready to bring my old MMO's out back to shoot em just yet as well. If it werent for the old times I don't think I would appreciate the newer mmo's such as GW2.
He puts EQ & WoW into one group of MMO and puts them against Tera & GW2.
"Upcoming games like Tera and Guild Wars II are even better reference points: both MMOs in that they're designed to be played by large groups of people, but both offering radical departures from Everquest and WoW's tired old formula"
WoW and EQ are pretty different games, one is an inclusive game with thousands of quests, the other a very exclusive game that is purely a mob grind.
And Tera and GW2 do not seem all that different to the concept of EQ and WoW when you put them in the same category, they're still level grind games.
I don't really agree with him, I agree that MMO need to change and offer something new, but he doesn't use very convincing arguments.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
I only count on Kotaku for one thing nowadays: Trolling. They've made a habit out of taking the piss out of whatever situation they feel like and running contrary to it to gin up viewers and arguing in the comments. Did the same thing with Mass Effect 3 and more of the articles lately can be summed up as "u mad, bro?"
It's interesting how the writer says that the 25% drop in The Old Republic is a sign that "people are moving away from the genre," which has been said for every single MMO since World of Warcraft, with slight variations. A 75% retention rate in the first few months is not unexpected, and many developers would probably love to see that high of a retained user base.
The writer says he hates MMOs and it is clear from his writing that he hasn't taken a decent look into the genre for several years, as he still thinks free to play is just that place MMOs go to as a last ditch before they die.
"I'm one of those people who doesn't find anything interesting at all in leveling up, finding a +3 sword or paper-dolling a character with a purple cloak. That doesn't appeal to me in any way as a human being. Put that all together and the play experience of MMOs is on par with roleplaying back in ‘87."
"Now hold my money while I throw out my years of experience and make this terrible Mickey game."
I think the article is spot on. The mmo as a whole just fails because they keep pushing out Everquest/WoW generic mmos. A perfect example of this will be Elder Scrolsl Online. Yet another copy/paste mmo with a popular ip on top of it. We have been playing the same mmo since Everquest launched. Time for a change, time to move forward instead of backwards. Here is a nice quote from the article...
Everquest was released in the 20th century. World of Warcraft came out in 2004. Yet when Old Republic, the most expensive MMO of all time, hit shelves in late 2011, it was structured...almost exactly the same as World of Warcraft. Joel's great post on that game last year sums up my own thoughts on that crushing disappointment: in seven years, and with the most popular fictional universe on planet Earth as a hook, the best BioWare could do was copy WoW?
Article kinda lost all credibility when it stated that TERA offers a radical departure from WoW's tired old formula.
From everything I've seen, I agree with this. Sure, combat's a bit different....yay. Questing system is identical. That one thing alone has kept me away from TERA. GW2 has more different from WoW than TERA does. Admittedly, I'm going from reviews of TERA and TERA videos on YouTube, I have not played it. But I have played 3 days of beta for GW2. To me, it seems much less "WoW-like" than other games.
Oh....and this is problematic to me: This is an interview with a self-professed HATER of MMOs. He hates them. He hates the entier premise of MMOs. I mean is there any chance in hell he's going to have anything good to say about any of them really? I played Deus Ex and System Shock 2 back in the day.....great games, amazing games, BUT....they're action adventure games. So really he's no kind of expert on MMOs, that's for certain. I'm not sure what kind of weight I should place on an article written about MMOs by someone who says they hate them. ???
Well, tbh, the last person I would ask for an opinion of the genre is someone who professes to hate it, admits a grudge against it, and says he never engaged with a community in one (and therefore missing the entire point of the actual games and the only thing that lifts them above solo player games for many).
MMORPGs have always been about the communities, the people, the friendships. He never was part of that, and so he will never get it.
His view is also jaundiced as only an outsiders can be when talking about something they don't understand (and therefore 'don't like'). He comes from a very limited place and is applying a very wide false logic to a very narrow set of objects.
Therefore, opinion discarded.
Where to begin...
First, I do not believe in "haters" or "fanbois". To me it is irrelevant wether someone loves or hates something, I care only about the logic of the argumentation. Either critique (which can be good or bad one) is valid or it isn't; the mentality and feeling of the person is of zero consequence to me. I judge the critique itself, not the person saying it. On top, if we want to see something like the MMO genre improved, I think we can learn more from someone who has a negative attitude, than someone who is too much inside. A "hater" will see flaws those who are too long with the MMO scene for years overlook. So he may open our eyes about things we MMO gamers overlook or ignore, or even flaws we are so used to we no longer see. And that the MMO genre needs to evolve and change is something hardly anyone here disputes, I assume.
Second, I don't see myself as MMO gamer, I see myself as GAMER. I don't play MMO games, I play good games! That's a huge difference. So I measure all games, single player or multiplayer by the same measure: does it offer quality gaming?
Now your argument is, that the MMO value is raised because of the social component, because we play it with friends. This is a true and valid critique towards the article, to which I agree. However, in our days the community is clearly declining. A lot. I recall how strong communities were in SWG days, and others may recall EQ1 and DAoC and whatever was in the past. In our days, games like SWTOR have almost no community anymore at all! MMO gamers seemed to change into a sort of autistic soloers, monadic people only circling around themselves. I haven't experienced any meaningful community in a MMO for years. And friends only make up so much for flaws of games.
Third and finally: I think after UO and SWG, MMOs developed into a COMPLETELY wrong direction. I do not mind quests and stories. But since UO and SWG, EVERY OTHER sphere of MMO gaming was dropped. The idea to make worlds to live in has be abandoned, the idea to have more than combat and kill stuff has been abandoned. MMOs now solely revolve around kill X amount of Y and grind better loot, and turn it as you want: that is a VERY primitive sort of entertaining, even within gaming. That hasn't anything to do with community, because UO showed very good the many things you can do in a community when the vision of the MMO is broad. So from my perspective, MMOs did not only fail to evolve, they degenerated. They fell back lightyears behind the original concepts, each new generation of MMOs has been worse and more reduced in scope. So these days where communities are rare, the social bonus has become pretty thin, IMVPO.
The entire MMO situation is bad. And my point is, we have not questioned way too many MMO habits and ideas. We take this idea that a MMO needs gear grind, needs combat only and needs dailies and hardmode dungeons. It doesn't matter what quality the content has anymore, and quality of content is not improved AT ALL by a nice story, when the content itself remains mindless and dull. If the quest still is "go kill 10 rats for the Sword +3", I don't care at all that his voice over backstory is cool and interesting. THAT is not quality gaming. That is bullshit with a bit cream upon it. MMOs are stuck in bad habits and bad ideas, and companies more and more reduced MMOs to gear grinders. I find the situation of MMOs dire, and in sore need to question the very fundamentals.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think the decline of the social aspect of MMO's is a direct result of certain successful MMO's having not fostered a social experience due to being too limited in scope to facilitate a free and open atmosphere. So they attract and propagate narcissistic personalities and actions as opposed to social ones, simply due to the fact that the games themselves are based around constantly feeding the individual ego instead of encouraging cooperation and an open attitude toward others. Even raids, which require cooperation, end up just being competitions and outlets for people's frustrations because their design fosters that kind of an environment.
I place the blame squarely on developers' shoulders for taking the ostensibly easy road rather than putting real thought and effort towards providing true open-ended multiplayer experiences. The strength of MMO's when compared to other genre's is their ability to create and continuously expand upon virtual worlds full of other people and possibilities. Freedom and community should be the hallmarks of the MMO genre by all rights, not the accumulation of gear and proving you're 'the best'.
Originally posted by Elikal ... I think after UO and SWG, MMOs developed into a COMPLETELY wrong direction. I do not mind quests and stories. But since UO and SWG, EVERY OTHER sphere of MMO gaming was dropped. The idea to make worlds to live in has be abandoned, the idea to have more than combat and kill stuff has been abandoned. MMOs now solely revolve around kill X amount of Y and grind better loot, and turn it as you want: that is a VERY primitive sort of entertaining, even within gaming. ...
Just to make a point here. You write "MMOs" but you mean "AAA themeparks". It's almost as if you think there cannot be other games than AAA themeparks. Sure, you complain about them - but I suspect you buy them, every single one of them, sorry.
It seems to play a AAA themepark is more important for many people than to play a game that has the features they're looking for.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
One of the worst articles I have read in a very long time.
How is someone who admits to hating something qualified to comment on the merits of its existence ? I mean, I dislike rap music, but I dont have to listen to it, that doesnt mean that I should be advocating that it should cease to exist and that those who enjoy it should be deprived of their preferred form of musical entertainment.
Its not as if he is forced to play MMO's and is attempting to rally people to his cause so that he can break the chains of his subjugation at the hands of evil MMO X.
This is an article written by someone who doesn't enjoy playing MMOs stating that something that other people enjoy, without doing him any harm at all, should be eliminated.
The author essentially states that he personally is more important than millions of others combined and that he alone is qualified to decide what other people should and should not be allowed to enjoy.
Is that the normal quality of the articles on that site ?
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
I think after UO and SWG, MMOs developed into a COMPLETELY wrong direction. I do not mind quests and stories. But since UO and SWG, EVERY OTHER sphere of MMO gaming was dropped. The idea to make worlds to live in has be abandoned, the idea to have more than combat and kill stuff has been abandoned. MMOs now solely revolve around kill X amount of Y and grind better loot, and turn it as you want: that is a VERY primitive sort of entertaining, even within gaming.
...
Just to make a point here. You write "MMOs" but you mean "AAA themeparks". It's almost as if you think there cannot be other games than AAA themeparks. Sure, you complain about them - but I suspect you buy them, every single one of them, sorry.
It seems to play a AAA themepark is more important for many people than to play a game that has the features they're looking for.
No. Just no.
You see THAT is exactly the sort of false thinking we MMO gamers are caught in. We think there are categories of MMOs. There are not. There ARE no such things as sandbox or themepark MMOs. There just GOOD and BAD (and maybe mediocre) MMOs.
The term Themepark was just coined by MMO developers to sell their simplistic, narrowed down games. THAT is the wrong perspective that just has to die, that a reductionist, de-volution is "another type of MMO aka themepark". It's a hoax. The point is, you as individual can very much enjoy that reduced, devolved MMO like a "themepark", but people also love Burger or Pizza, and junk food STILL is junk food. You see, this isn't to critizise anyone's personal taste. If you like, you are free to eat Burgers all day. I don't care at all. But when Burgers become the ONLY food available, I am going to protest! And that's whats going on here. Devs started only to sell Burgers and renamed junk food into "themepark". It's a swindle.
Making this kind of MMO aka Themepark cuts away 90% of a real, full fledged MMO and caters only one sort of gamer, while the rest stands in the rain. The entire sandbox VS themepark debate is a ghost debate! Besides "pure" sandboxes don't exist either, with the execption of Second Life maybe. Sandbox just describes some freedom elements. Even UO or SWG had quests, just they didn't make up 95% of the game!
Sorry, but people who attack the article are still just caught in the web of deceit woven by developers who want to sell us reductionist, devolved, narrowed down trash games as "just another concept". That has to go!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think after UO and SWG, MMOs developed into a COMPLETELY wrong direction. I do not mind quests and stories. But since UO and SWG, EVERY OTHER sphere of MMO gaming was dropped. The idea to make worlds to live in has be abandoned, the idea to have more than combat and kill stuff has been abandoned. MMOs now solely revolve around kill X amount of Y and grind better loot, and turn it as you want: that is a VERY primitive sort of entertaining, even within gaming.
...
Just to make a point here. You write "MMOs" but you mean "AAA themeparks". It's almost as if you think there cannot be other games than AAA themeparks. Sure, you complain about them - but I suspect you buy them, every single one of them, sorry.
It seems to play a AAA themepark is more important for many people than to play a game that has the features they're looking for.
No. Just no.
You see THAT is exactly the sort of false thinking we MMO gamers are caught in. We think there are categories of MMOs. There are not. There ARE no such things as sandbox or themepark MMOs. There just GOOD and BAD (and maybe mediocre) MMOs.
The term Themepark was just coined by MMO developers to sell their simplistic, narrowed down games. THAT is the wrong perspective that just has to die, that a reductionist, de-volution is "another type of MMO aka themepark". It's a hoax. The point is, you as individual can very much enjoy that reduced, devolved MMO like a "themepark", but people also love Burger or Pizza, and junk food STILL is junk food. You see, this isn't to critizise anyone's personal taste. If you like, you are free to eat Burgers all day. I don't care at all. But when Burgers become the ONLY food available, I am going to protest! And that's whats going on here. Devs started only to sell Burgers and renamed junk food into "themepark". It's a swindle.
Making this kind of MMO aka Themepark cuts away 90% of a real, full fledged MMO and caters only one sort of gamer, while the rest stands in the rain. The entire sandbox VS themepark debate is a ghost debate! Besides "pure" sandboxes don't exist either, with the execption of Second Life maybe. Sandbox just describes some freedom elements. Even UO or SWG had quests, just they didn't make up 95% of the game!
Sorry, but people who attack the article are still just caught in the web of deceit woven by developers who want to sell us reductionist, devolved, narrowed down trash games as "just another concept". That has to go!
I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. Sandbox and themepark are not good or bad, they are different categories. MMO is not one thing only, there are different categories. Some people like to do their own thing, some don't, some like to be guided, some don't, many like to do both.
In many themeparks there is a heck of a lot more stuff you can do than in many sandbox. WoW vs Ryzom - Wow has many many many more things to do than Ryzom.
By and large games today offer far more choice and far more activity, than MOST (not all) but most games in the past.
The article was one guy who doesn't like MMO's expressing dissatisfaction with MMO's (big surprise) and offering his ideas on how to improve them (fair enough). If those changes are made, nothing will change in the MMO genre, some will like them, some won't, we'll still be talking about different categories of MMO's.
MMO is just an umbrella term thats it - nothing more. It means a lot of people getting online and playing a game. Sports, fps, rpg, sb, tp.... they are all categories of types of MMO. Even club penguin is an MMO.
edit - I'm also fairly sure it wasn't a dev that first used the term themepark or sandbox. reasonaly certain it was a gamer.
edit - as has been discussed in the past, many themepark games offer more choice, more flexiibily in your character and how you play than some sandbox. However they do not let you impact the world. That is really the only differece. Tp can have skills or different make up of the same classes, terrtory control, decent crafting, housing. And sandbox can have loads of quests, even quest hubs. However in one your actions can affect the whole game/game world, in the other they can't or at best they are very temporary.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
The gimmick in TERA is VERY flashy, I'm sure it's not hard to be confused...
I don't think so at all. EQ peaked at 450k subscribers and was by far the most successful western type MMO before wow. UO I'm told got close, DAOC, AO,AC did not get close. ao maybe a 1-1.5 players total spread among 5 games (assumming that people didn't flow back and forth between them which did happen).
Today there are hundreds of games boasting anywhere from 5000 to 300,000 subscribers. Swtor alone beast the entire western market pre wow. Lotro, EQ2, CoH, Eve... have all held fairly steady for many years at 100-300,000 subscribers each. So those games alone rival pre-wow, now add in 100+ other western type games that have held steady at 5000-100,000 and you have a market many many many times the size of the market pre-wow, even when your remove.
Now there is an argument that a particular game was more successfull, but the market today (with wow removed) still has many many many more subscribers, there are many many many more games - all measures of a healthy and successfull genre.
Edit - I also think the genre is just as creative. The problem is people are being selective in the games they look at. They look at wow like games and say all post games post wow are identical, the genre is less creative and ignore all the other games that are nothing like wow.
There were 5 titles that had some differences, a lot of similarities but some key differences. Today there are over 400 MMO's on this site alone, there are more than 5 that are significantly different.
Hmm, an article by a person who states they hate MMO's, from what he writes doesn't really understand them all that well (especially from their early days) and somehow people consider his viewpoint valid?
I'm not disagreeing that MMO's need some change, but like most rants/whines on this topic the article is long on complaints however very short on actual ideas on what he would do better to change things.
Sure, some titles are planning to make some changes, but face it, we who enjoy MMORPG's like progression mechanics. We may disagree on how that might best be implemented, but a MMORPG without a decent form of progression would be sort of like.... GW2 I suppose.
Not so much an MMORPG anymore.
OK, just kidding, but seriously, are we really looking for an Adventure game MMO, where people just live in the world? I'm not, I like killing stuff and getting rewarded for (the key point), just killing stuff for the fun of it isn't, well, fun.
So yes, I'd like to see more radical departures from the standard theme park formula (and no TERA is not one, though it has its moments of enjoyment) but like the author of the article, I'm not really full of any new, good ideas, most of mine are retreads from earlier days that I think could use a revist.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"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 old mmo's are fine. The newer ones have deliberately delivered a shallower, highly segmented experience that caters to solo play. Of course there is lack of interest.
The mmo as a world simulator was the expectation. The expectation that the simulation would have greater fidelity and depth as the genre matured. Instead the simulation was tossed and we ended up with rpg's with multiplayer. Which is fine, but its not worth a monthly fee to belong to.
Once WoW hit it big, the rest of the development world (or rather the investors who fund them) slammed on their breaks and ceased looking ahead and only looked to the side, and then backwards and said "I want to make THAT much money!"
The MMO genre is fine, just no one making them anymore. Just making knockoffs, and calling them MMO's
i think the quote he used about not liking character advancement at all was even more telling than his i hate MMOs statement. Even if you agree with the premise of the article that 'traditional' (read wow - clone since that seems to be what he means) MMOs are over done, which I do, I hardly want this guys input as he dislikes the most fundementally important aspect of an MMO.
This post is the also my opinion on what is wrong the industry.
AKA Turbine's make of AC2. When AC1 was much finer example of a game, and AC2 a mimickery of easy-mode gaming.
MMO's got shit on by Sony with EQ.
Root of evil stuff Sony.
Lets look at early/mid 2004:
EQ: 450k
DAoC: 250k
UO: 200k
SWG: 300k
EvE had been out over a year and had only 50k at that point
CoH had just launched and had 175k, but not really counting it.
Now we have
EvE: 400k (but its a pre-WoW game)
Rift: 300k (best guess, but its somewhere between 200k and 400k)
Yes, I left out SWToR. Why? because its population is in a freefall, and its been out only 6 months.
pre WoW: 5 games were released that had spans where they were over 200k for 2 or more years
post WoW: 1 game (LOTRO) with a possibility of 2 more, but I think its very unlikely Rift will make it and while SWTOR may because of the IP, but the odds arent in its favor.
Im not going to dispute there is more players, especially since f2p has muddied the waters. But games were clearly more successful back then, and Im not buying its because the market is saturated.
Some of those games were more successfull. CoH at release broke 250, it stabilized to this day at abotu 150. Thats comparable to your UO and Daoc.
Swtor still has 1.3 million subs as stated by them just a little while ago.
Today post wow - Eve 300,000, CoH, 150,000, lotro ~300,000, EQ2 ~100,000, Swtor 1.3 million and tens of thousands more scattered among hundreds of games.
Thats the difference. A game may be better or worse, the genre by every measurable data is better.
And market may or may not be saturated by you cannot deny there is a 100 fold increase in the number games and that significantly changes things.
I think differently.
MMORPGs as a whole got shafted when every dev team out there got jealous of WoW's success in 2004 and decided to try to get a pice of that WoW Pie.
I don't blame Blizzard at all, actually. Blizzard set out to make their first MMORPG ever and they got a monstrous hit. It's all the dev teams out there that are trying to chase that very same success that screwed over diversity and innovation in MMORPGs. I'll say that all the dev teams are shaking with tears in their diapers on the very idea of trying to stray from WoW's formula.
Look at SWTOR.
Hell, look at the recently announced TESO (The Elder Scrolls Online), which completely forsakes the sandboxyness of its SPRPG roots, for themepark mechanics.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Nice read...
I already explained before why ive been turned off from MMORPGs... i want to play a particular (MMO)RPG for its unique feeling it have, not for it being another 'but it have a light sabers/flying steampunk ships/t**s and a**es/Frodo and the Ring/[insert here whatever is a trademark to particular franchise]' clone game.
This very well have a lot to do with Elder Scrolls MMO announcement. I played TES games for its unique gameplay styles and way of immersion which can exist only in Single Player RPG. I am sure that there will be many who will like 'but it is put in most popular CRPG setting ever' thing, however same old with TES label will not be enough. They will need to try a lot more than that.
Sorry for TES argument but the need to put it here was stronger than me :P
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
The biggest problem is the length of development. Most "WOW clones" went into development shortly after WOW and EQ2 released. The games that are different or slightly different, started production a couple years later (as an example GW2). No one or at least very few seem to acknowledge this.
Why was every AAA MMO from 07-09 very similar to WOW? Because they were picking up on features that showed to be popular when they entered conception. Once those systems started growing old, companies started shifting to other ideas. Now those games being announced and shown of, have different focuses, such as dynamic content, full voice overed questing, some with no quest hubs at all, actiony combat (Tera, GW2). Three way PVP is also being incorporated now into a few.
Those we don't know about yet (started development after 09) are probably even farther away from WOW.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
This thread is amusing, people who know only daoc, eq, swg and wow bashing a guy who knows only wow
Carry on!
Personally I think that was a biased post. It was written by someone who has never had a love for MMO's period. He has always hated MMO's.
Though he made a few valid points I think it was extremely one-sided. I'm not ready to bring my old MMO's out back to shoot em just yet as well. If it werent for the old times I don't think I would appreciate the newer mmo's such as GW2.
Yeah, very amusing to say the least. I'll grab some popcorn for this comedy.
He puts EQ & WoW into one group of MMO and puts them against Tera & GW2.
"Upcoming games like Tera and Guild Wars II are even better reference points: both MMOs in that they're designed to be played by large groups of people, but both offering radical departures from Everquest and WoW's tired old formula"
WoW and EQ are pretty different games, one is an inclusive game with thousands of quests, the other a very exclusive game that is purely a mob grind.
And Tera and GW2 do not seem all that different to the concept of EQ and WoW when you put them in the same category, they're still level grind games.
I don't really agree with him, I agree that MMO need to change and offer something new, but he doesn't use very convincing arguments.
I only count on Kotaku for one thing nowadays: Trolling. They've made a habit out of taking the piss out of whatever situation they feel like and running contrary to it to gin up viewers and arguing in the comments. Did the same thing with Mass Effect 3 and more of the articles lately can be summed up as "u mad, bro?"
It's interesting how the writer says that the 25% drop in The Old Republic is a sign that "people are moving away from the genre," which has been said for every single MMO since World of Warcraft, with slight variations. A 75% retention rate in the first few months is not unexpected, and many developers would probably love to see that high of a retained user base.
The writer says he hates MMOs and it is clear from his writing that he hasn't taken a decent look into the genre for several years, as he still thinks free to play is just that place MMOs go to as a last ditch before they die.
"I'm one of those people who doesn't find anything interesting at all in leveling up, finding a +3 sword or paper-dolling a character with a purple cloak. That doesn't appeal to me in any way as a human being. Put that all together and the play experience of MMOs is on par with roleplaying back in ‘87."
"Now hold my money while I throw out my years of experience and make this terrible Mickey game."
I think the article is spot on. The mmo as a whole just fails because they keep pushing out Everquest/WoW generic mmos. A perfect example of this will be Elder Scrolsl Online. Yet another copy/paste mmo with a popular ip on top of it. We have been playing the same mmo since Everquest launched. Time for a change, time to move forward instead of backwards. Here is a nice quote from the article...
Everquest was released in the 20th century. World of Warcraft came out in 2004. Yet when Old Republic, the most expensive MMO of all time, hit shelves in late 2011, it was structured...almost exactly the same as World of Warcraft. Joel's great post on that game last year sums up my own thoughts on that crushing disappointment: in seven years, and with the most popular fictional universe on planet Earth as a hook, the best BioWare could do was copy WoW?
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
From everything I've seen, I agree with this. Sure, combat's a bit different....yay. Questing system is identical. That one thing alone has kept me away from TERA. GW2 has more different from WoW than TERA does. Admittedly, I'm going from reviews of TERA and TERA videos on YouTube, I have not played it. But I have played 3 days of beta for GW2. To me, it seems much less "WoW-like" than other games.
Oh....and this is problematic to me: This is an interview with a self-professed HATER of MMOs. He hates them. He hates the entier premise of MMOs. I mean is there any chance in hell he's going to have anything good to say about any of them really? I played Deus Ex and System Shock 2 back in the day.....great games, amazing games, BUT....they're action adventure games. So really he's no kind of expert on MMOs, that's for certain. I'm not sure what kind of weight I should place on an article written about MMOs by someone who says they hate them. ???
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Where to begin...
First, I do not believe in "haters" or "fanbois". To me it is irrelevant wether someone loves or hates something, I care only about the logic of the argumentation. Either critique (which can be good or bad one) is valid or it isn't; the mentality and feeling of the person is of zero consequence to me. I judge the critique itself, not the person saying it. On top, if we want to see something like the MMO genre improved, I think we can learn more from someone who has a negative attitude, than someone who is too much inside. A "hater" will see flaws those who are too long with the MMO scene for years overlook. So he may open our eyes about things we MMO gamers overlook or ignore, or even flaws we are so used to we no longer see. And that the MMO genre needs to evolve and change is something hardly anyone here disputes, I assume.
Second, I don't see myself as MMO gamer, I see myself as GAMER. I don't play MMO games, I play good games! That's a huge difference. So I measure all games, single player or multiplayer by the same measure: does it offer quality gaming?
Now your argument is, that the MMO value is raised because of the social component, because we play it with friends. This is a true and valid critique towards the article, to which I agree. However, in our days the community is clearly declining. A lot. I recall how strong communities were in SWG days, and others may recall EQ1 and DAoC and whatever was in the past. In our days, games like SWTOR have almost no community anymore at all! MMO gamers seemed to change into a sort of autistic soloers, monadic people only circling around themselves. I haven't experienced any meaningful community in a MMO for years. And friends only make up so much for flaws of games.
Third and finally: I think after UO and SWG, MMOs developed into a COMPLETELY wrong direction. I do not mind quests and stories. But since UO and SWG, EVERY OTHER sphere of MMO gaming was dropped. The idea to make worlds to live in has be abandoned, the idea to have more than combat and kill stuff has been abandoned. MMOs now solely revolve around kill X amount of Y and grind better loot, and turn it as you want: that is a VERY primitive sort of entertaining, even within gaming. That hasn't anything to do with community, because UO showed very good the many things you can do in a community when the vision of the MMO is broad. So from my perspective, MMOs did not only fail to evolve, they degenerated. They fell back lightyears behind the original concepts, each new generation of MMOs has been worse and more reduced in scope. So these days where communities are rare, the social bonus has become pretty thin, IMVPO.
The entire MMO situation is bad. And my point is, we have not questioned way too many MMO habits and ideas. We take this idea that a MMO needs gear grind, needs combat only and needs dailies and hardmode dungeons. It doesn't matter what quality the content has anymore, and quality of content is not improved AT ALL by a nice story, when the content itself remains mindless and dull. If the quest still is "go kill 10 rats for the Sword +3", I don't care at all that his voice over backstory is cool and interesting. THAT is not quality gaming. That is bullshit with a bit cream upon it. MMOs are stuck in bad habits and bad ideas, and companies more and more reduced MMOs to gear grinders. I find the situation of MMOs dire, and in sore need to question the very fundamentals.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I agree Elikal.
I think the decline of the social aspect of MMO's is a direct result of certain successful MMO's having not fostered a social experience due to being too limited in scope to facilitate a free and open atmosphere. So they attract and propagate narcissistic personalities and actions as opposed to social ones, simply due to the fact that the games themselves are based around constantly feeding the individual ego instead of encouraging cooperation and an open attitude toward others. Even raids, which require cooperation, end up just being competitions and outlets for people's frustrations because their design fosters that kind of an environment.
I place the blame squarely on developers' shoulders for taking the ostensibly easy road rather than putting real thought and effort towards providing true open-ended multiplayer experiences. The strength of MMO's when compared to other genre's is their ability to create and continuously expand upon virtual worlds full of other people and possibilities. Freedom and community should be the hallmarks of the MMO genre by all rights, not the accumulation of gear and proving you're 'the best'.
That's my take on it anyways.
Just to make a point here. You write "MMOs" but you mean "AAA themeparks". It's almost as if you think there cannot be other games than AAA themeparks. Sure, you complain about them - but I suspect you buy them, every single one of them, sorry.
It seems to play a AAA themepark is more important for many people than to play a game that has the features they're looking for.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
One of the worst articles I have read in a very long time.
How is someone who admits to hating something qualified to comment on the merits of its existence ? I mean, I dislike rap music, but I dont have to listen to it, that doesnt mean that I should be advocating that it should cease to exist and that those who enjoy it should be deprived of their preferred form of musical entertainment.
Its not as if he is forced to play MMO's and is attempting to rally people to his cause so that he can break the chains of his subjugation at the hands of evil MMO X.
This is an article written by someone who doesn't enjoy playing MMOs stating that something that other people enjoy, without doing him any harm at all, should be eliminated.
The author essentially states that he personally is more important than millions of others combined and that he alone is qualified to decide what other people should and should not be allowed to enjoy.
Is that the normal quality of the articles on that site ?
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
No. Just no.
You see THAT is exactly the sort of false thinking we MMO gamers are caught in. We think there are categories of MMOs. There are not. There ARE no such things as sandbox or themepark MMOs. There just GOOD and BAD (and maybe mediocre) MMOs.
The term Themepark was just coined by MMO developers to sell their simplistic, narrowed down games. THAT is the wrong perspective that just has to die, that a reductionist, de-volution is "another type of MMO aka themepark". It's a hoax. The point is, you as individual can very much enjoy that reduced, devolved MMO like a "themepark", but people also love Burger or Pizza, and junk food STILL is junk food. You see, this isn't to critizise anyone's personal taste. If you like, you are free to eat Burgers all day. I don't care at all. But when Burgers become the ONLY food available, I am going to protest! And that's whats going on here. Devs started only to sell Burgers and renamed junk food into "themepark". It's a swindle.
Making this kind of MMO aka Themepark cuts away 90% of a real, full fledged MMO and caters only one sort of gamer, while the rest stands in the rain. The entire sandbox VS themepark debate is a ghost debate! Besides "pure" sandboxes don't exist either, with the execption of Second Life maybe. Sandbox just describes some freedom elements. Even UO or SWG had quests, just they didn't make up 95% of the game!
Sorry, but people who attack the article are still just caught in the web of deceit woven by developers who want to sell us reductionist, devolved, narrowed down trash games as "just another concept". That has to go!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. Sandbox and themepark are not good or bad, they are different categories. MMO is not one thing only, there are different categories. Some people like to do their own thing, some don't, some like to be guided, some don't, many like to do both.
In many themeparks there is a heck of a lot more stuff you can do than in many sandbox. WoW vs Ryzom - Wow has many many many more things to do than Ryzom.
By and large games today offer far more choice and far more activity, than MOST (not all) but most games in the past.
The article was one guy who doesn't like MMO's expressing dissatisfaction with MMO's (big surprise) and offering his ideas on how to improve them (fair enough). If those changes are made, nothing will change in the MMO genre, some will like them, some won't, we'll still be talking about different categories of MMO's.
MMO is just an umbrella term thats it - nothing more. It means a lot of people getting online and playing a game. Sports, fps, rpg, sb, tp.... they are all categories of types of MMO. Even club penguin is an MMO.
edit - I'm also fairly sure it wasn't a dev that first used the term themepark or sandbox. reasonaly certain it was a gamer.
edit - as has been discussed in the past, many themepark games offer more choice, more flexiibily in your character and how you play than some sandbox. However they do not let you impact the world. That is really the only differece. Tp can have skills or different make up of the same classes, terrtory control, decent crafting, housing. And sandbox can have loads of quests, even quest hubs. However in one your actions can affect the whole game/game world, in the other they can't or at best they are very temporary.