The idea that time investment is bad is exactly what ruined Star Wars Galaxies. In pre NGE days to play a Jedi you had to unlock it first by grinding out every class profession to max. It took even hardcore players about a year to achieve. Talking about playing 8hrs a day every day for about 300 days to unlock Jedi. Casuals never got to make Jedi in pre-NGE rules. However getting a Jedi SWG was a huge achievement and massive reward for essentially beating the game. Jedi were 4 or 5 times more powerful than any other character and were essentially god mode in PvP. Then NGE happened and new players were allowed to create Jedi on day 1. It was such a huge slap to face it still stings 8 years later.
Without time investment any type of achievement is pretty much pointless. If everything is handed to you on day one then there is no point in logging in on day two. Also begs the question of why bother with the game all. When things are boiled down most MMOs are NOT fun. Everquest was not fun, WoW is not fun, SWG combat wasn't really all that fun either. If you want fun with no time commitment the XBOX, and Wii are in the living room where you left them. Many people only play MMOs for that sense of achievement. To build a sense of achievement there has to be time investment. It doesn't have to SWG level of time commitment but there should be something that separates veteran gamers who have been playing for years VS new players.
The SWG lessons have always been "Once you have your niche, don't snub it chasing a larger core group by completely changing what your game is" and "Star Wars wasn't a story about Uncle Owen."
Time investment never seemed like a big part of it to me. It might have been one of the details of ways SWG pulled the rug out from underneath its niche userbase, but it could've been any similarly significant change and those users would've left.
As for your second paragraph, nobody's talking aboutzero time investment games. Those don't exist.
What we're talking about are games wheretime isn't intentionally wasted.
The true measure of achievement is the challenge itself, not the timesink.
Nobody would ever seriously tell you, "You played a LoL match where one player took 30 minutes to load? Impressive achievement!"
But someone would definitely tell you, "You played a LoL match against last season's #1 team, and WON!? Impressive achievement!"
The same goes for MMORPGs. The intentional time-wasting doesn't make something an achievement, only the challenges defeated do.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Without time investment any type of achievement is pretty much pointless. If everything is handed to you on day one then there is no point in logging in on day two.
Obviously it is a matter of degree. Asking players for months and years are obviously too much. I don't see anything wrong with something like a good fun week.
Part of the problem is that one person's "waste of time" is another person's "reason for playing the game."
Take crafting. Players who see no reason for it think it is a waste of time to invest time or characters to do crafting. "I care about combat, and since the need to pipeline goods to my combat character is the only reason why I craft, we ought to make the items available without crafting."
And so, you get rid of crafting (and other mechanics crafters need, like decay). And if you play this for the combat, that's a good thing.
And we can say this about many things (housing, social occupations, travel, etc.). But for those who don't care so much about combat, or care about other things as well, the elimination of one person's timesink is the elimination of another reason to play.
Frankly, I think the genre today works really well for, young, male Caucasian and Asian goal-driven FPS vets. But it worked better before for other kinds of people (older gamers, gamers with more mature reasons for playing, women, etc.). And the reason it did is because they made their skills useful; the games gave them a place. These days, if you don't like min/maxing and quest chain completing, you have no place.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Without time investment any type of achievement is pretty much pointless. If everything is handed to you on day one then there is no point in logging in on day two.
Obviously it is a matter of degree. Asking players for months and years are obviously too much. I don't see anything wrong with something like a good fun week.
So you are saying companies should spend years producing a game that provides mere weeks of fun for you? I think those are already ready for you in the form of console games.
Part of the problem is that one person's "waste of time" is another person's "reason for playing the game."
Take crafting. Players who see no reason for it think it is a waste of time to invest time or characters to do crafting. "I care about combat, and since the need to pipeline goods to my combat character is the only reason why I craft, we ought to make the items available without crafting."
And so, you get rid of crafting (and other mechanics crafters need, like decay). And if you play this for the combat, that's a good thing.
And we can say this about many things (housing, social occupations, travel, etc.). But for those who don't care so much about combat, or care about other things as well, the elimination of one person's timesink is the elimination of another reason to play.
Frankly, I think the genre today works really well for, young, male Caucasian and Asian goal-driven FPS vets. But it worked better before for other kinds of people (older gamers, gamers with more mature reasons for playing, women, etc.). And the reason it did is because they made their skills useful; the games gave them a place. These days, if you don't like min/maxing and quest chain completing, you have no place.
Surely you do. There are plenty of indie games like Tales of Desert, and also non-MMOs.
The market supplies what most demands. That is just a fact of life. And sales figure clearly shows that min-maxing combat focus games sell.
Disney/Marvel spent $200M+ on a movie like Avenger, and probably would not spend even $100M on a period drama for a reason. The same reason applies to the MMO market.
Without time investment any type of achievement is pretty much pointless. If everything is handed to you on day one then there is no point in logging in on day two.
Obviously it is a matter of degree. Asking players for months and years are obviously too much. I don't see anything wrong with something like a good fun week.
So you are saying companies should spend years producing a game that provides mere weeks of fun for you? I think those are already ready for you in the form of console games.
Yes. A good fun week is much better than mediocre years. And many companies also do so with great financial success in the form of SP games. MMOs are no different. They are just games. If a shorter time span models work, there is no reason not to do it.
In fact, i read somewhere that most F2P MMOs have player retention in roughly 3 months (i.e. players, on average stays a few months). So MMOs are already moving in that direction.
Heck, MMOs are becoming console games now. What is the problem with a short MMO on a console that you can matched with a massive number of players? I don't see any. Even CCP is doing one such game.
Without time investment any type of achievement is pretty much pointless. If everything is handed to you on day one then there is no point in logging in on day two.
Obviously it is a matter of degree. Asking players for months and years are obviously too much. I don't see anything wrong with something like a good fun week.
So you are saying companies should spend years producing a game that provides mere weeks of fun for you? I think those are already ready for you in the form of console games.
The sort of powergaming, action and achievement-oriented player the industry wanted to attract in the last decade wants that. Which is why every game that has been released in the last few years is marked by a high opening and massive, nose dive churn after a few months. Unfortunately, the business model isn't working very well to sustain their interest. They consume content and get bored faster than the developers can keep up. There's no future in that way of designing games, and I think the outspoken advocates of that style, deep down, know it.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Niche is where it belongs, and is nothing to be ashamed of. Ask Rolls Royce and Farrari if they feel bad about catering to a niche market. I require depth of gameplay and challenging PVE content, and the mass marketed games out recently are lacking in that department.
Without time investment any type of achievement is pretty much pointless. If everything is handed to you on day one then there is no point in logging in on day two.
Obviously it is a matter of degree. Asking players for months and years are obviously too much. I don't see anything wrong with something like a good fun week.
So you are saying companies should spend years producing a game that provides mere weeks of fun for you? I think those are already ready for you in the form of console games.
Yes. A good fun week is much better than mediocre years. And many companies also do so with great financial success in the form of SP games. MMOs are no different. They are just games. If a shorter time span models work, there is no reason not to do it.
In fact, i read somewhere that most F2P MMOs have player retention in roughly 3 months (i.e. players, on average stays a few months). So MMOs are already moving in that direction.
Heck, MMOs are becoming console games now. What is the problem with a short MMO on a console that you can matched with a massive number of players? I don't see any. Even CCP is doing one such game.
It's people like you that are why MMORPG's are now garbage. We are talking about PC MMORPG's, not consoles.
If some want MMORPG's on a console that only provide their short attention span and self entitlement needs with a few weeks of entertainment...more power to them. But despite what you may think is wanted most....many want an MMORPG that has meat to it. One that allows deep character development, meaningful crafting, housing, deep and extended questing systems (If applicable), open and rich worlds to explore.
When I want to play a game that has quick fun, I play them in the form of sports games, FPS games, and action games like Mark of the Ninja, Orcs Must Die, Supreme Commander, etc etc. That's what they are made for and why there are different genres after all...you should really try grasping that.
Part of the problem is that one person's "waste of time" is another person's "reason for playing the game."
Take crafting. Players who see no reason for it think it is a waste of time to invest time or characters to do crafting. "I care about combat, and since the need to pipeline goods to my combat character is the only reason why I craft, we ought to make the items available without crafting."
And so, you get rid of crafting (and other mechanics crafters need, like decay). And if you play this for the combat, that's a good thing.
And we can say this about many things (housing, social occupations, travel, etc.). But for those who don't care so much about combat, or care about other things as well, the elimination of one person's timesink is the elimination of another reason to play.
Frankly, I think the genre today works really well for, young, male Caucasian and Asian goal-driven FPS vets. But it worked better before for other kinds of people (older gamers, gamers with more mature reasons for playing, women, etc.). And the reason it did is because they made their skills useful; the games gave them a place. These days, if you don't like min/maxing and quest chain completing, you have no place.
Surely you do. There are plenty of indie games like Tales of Desert, and also non-MMOs.
The market supplies what most demands. That is just a fact of life. And sales figure clearly shows that min-maxing combat focus games sell.
Disney/Marvel spent $200M+ on a movie like Avenger, and probably would not spend even $100M on a period drama for a reason. The same reason applies to the MMO market.
There aren't as many as you think, nariussen. You see, I'd be fine with that if the games they found satisfaction in actually lasted. But even when they make more than they cost (meaning, they make a profit), they are still closed down for reasons that they aren't fashionable enough for the people they like better (your kind).
What gives me hope is that there are several, very bad and exploitive games (like Farmville) that are making cash hand over fist with 43 year old women and non-typical gamers. And the ironic thing about Farmville is that the gameplay isn't anything that MMOs haven't done before and haven't done better.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
GET THE FUCK OUT MY GENRE YOU FUCKING VAPID 12 year old
nich game ftw
I think you have that reversed:
Vapid 12 year olds have abundant time and no concept of the value of their time.
Established older gamers have less time, and a better understanding of what their time is worth.
So established gamers tend to demand more meat out of their gaming time investment, as opposed to vapid 12 year olds who actually are fine wasting time frivolously because they have no concept of using time efficiently.
Mostly true...but not in all cases.
I am an older gamer. I have a job, a daughter, a grandmother I take care of, friends I visit or hang out with, and many other responsibilities. I like MMORPG's and would LOVE to see one like EQ again but updated with modern graphics, UI systems, and modern era MMORPG combat.
I know the time needed for such games, and I know what my time constraints are for such games. I don't need to feel some sense of big accomplishment in one sitting...hell or even one or two hours to feel the game is worth it or my time is worth it. Knowing every little bit I do is another step towards a future accomplishment is enough for me. Getting half a bar of xp towards a level, getting a few items I needed for a particularly longer quest, or exploring a small portion of a given area is gratifying.
Sadly though, it seems most need to feel they conquered the world in an hour or two or else they feel their time was wasted, or the game isn't worth playing. IMO and from some personal observation.
Exactly.
Look y'all, I've played those old "grindheavy, hardcore, timesink" games we like to bash. And you know what? I met housewives there. I met grandparents there. I met lawyers and accountants there. And you know, they didn't play much....and that was okay for them.
They were satisfied dancing in the cantina for an hour or so. Or stocking some supplies on the market. Or designing a new outfit. Or RPing at the town.
Because, for adults, it's not about the level bar, or the loots, or the quest chains. It's about having a purpose, having a source of meaning, and having a platform for self-expression.
That's why Farmville is making a killing with the demographics this genre has left behind...specifically those "busy adults" that don't have a lot of time. Because if they are truly busy, and truly adults, they are above such juvenile stuff like levels and loot. What they do want is something meaningful, something they can create.
Which is why these "casual friendly" MMOs that make leveling and loot acquisition a priority offer nothing for them. Because it was never about the loots and levels. It was about context and meaning...the very things that has been taken out in favor of "fast action combat" and "no timesinks between Quest A and B."
I'm totally with this guy...When I played UO, I would go out hunt dragons and such for loot and money , and you know what I would do for hours after making some cash?
Remodel my large house for hours!! Yeah I never have understood why the focus on raiding and such to the exclusion of everything else that can make a good mmo.
Great crafting and the relative ease of getting materials for crafting NOT involving going on raids for those ingredients. Being able to accomplish more through other means other than quests. And so on and so on.
MMOs have not lost their appeal, the money we gamers have to spend on them had dropped. In '06 I had 11 subs @ $15.00 a month, and I paid that for 3 years. Today I have 1 sub, because my company has had a salary freeze sine '07.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
The SWG lessons have always been "Once you have your niche, don't snub it chasing a larger core group by completely changing what your game is" and "Star Wars wasn't a story about Uncle Owen."
Time investment never seemed like a big part of it to me. It might have been one of the details of ways SWG pulled the rug out from underneath its niche userbase, but it could've been any similarly significant change and those users would've left.
As for your second paragraph, nobody's talking aboutzero time investment games. Those don't exist.
What we're talking about are games wheretime isn't intentionally wasted.
The true measure of achievement is the challenge itself, not the timesink.
Nobody would ever seriously tell you, "You played a LoL match where one player took 30 minutes to load? Impressive achievement!"
But someone would definitely tell you, "You played a LoL match against last season's #1 team, and WON!? Impressive achievement!"
The same goes for MMORPGs. The intentional time-wasting doesn't make something an achievement, only the challenges defeated do.
Zero time investment games certainly exist. Try GW2 some time, it's core game can be completed in about a day or two. After that you are just stuck going through different starting areas.
Then there is your favorite game SWTOR which all my friends completed in a week and then we moved on before our free month was even up. GW2 is buy to play so they don't have incentive to keep people playing forever but what is TOR's excuse?
Any MMO that gives less than a month worth of content isn't even worth looking at. Personally I prefer the old school games that last 6 months to a year. Slow leveling, dungeon crawls, camping rare bosses, single quests that took a week to complete; that is what MMOs used to be about. We not talking about a casual 30 minute League of Legends session here.
Here is a better analogy. What feat is something to be more proud of: Reading the entire 1000+ page Lord of the Rings Books or watching the movie Trilogy. There is no right or wrong answer here but I guess you would just watch the movie. I will take the book thank you very much.
Zero time investment games certainly exist. Try GW2 some time, it's core game can be completed in about a day or two. After that you are just stuck going through different starting areas.
Then there is your favorite game SWTOR which all my friends completed in a week and then we moved on before our free month was even up. GW2 is buy to play so they don't have incentive to keep people playing forever but what is TOR's excuse?
Any MMO that gives less than a month worth of content isn't even worth looking at. Personally I prefer the old school games that last 6 months to a year. Slow leveling, dungeon crawls, camping rare bosses, single quests that took a week to complete; that is what MMOs used to be about. We not talking about a casual 30 minute League of Legends session here.
Here is a better analogy. What feat is something to be more proud of: Reading the entire 1000+ page Lord of the Rings Books or watching the movie Trilogy. There is no right or wrong answer here but I guess you would just watch the movie. I will take the book thank you very much.
Zero time investment means (...wait for it...) zero time investment. All games take time. Therefore zero time investment games don't exist.
You still need to learn the difference between facts and opinions.
Your opinion that SWTOR is bad doesn't change the fact that it was financially successful.
When I stated the fact that SWTOR was financially successful, that's not the same as my opinion of SWTOR.
SWTOR is by no means my "favorite game" just because I stated facts about it. It's an average MMORPG with a few key shortcomings.
So far the discussion is more about criticizing intentionally time-wasting MMORPGs. Which is different from trying to make excuses for short MMORPGs. Games with things like travel which are just arbitrarily long time-sinks are what's mainly being criticized.
That said, I'm happy to point out that short games can be tons of fun and completely worth the time and money investment. While I'd love for more MMORPGs with the depth and design quality of WOW to be released which keep me playing for years, a short GW2 which keeps me playing 80-100 hours for $60 is totally worth my time and money.
Remember, EQ1's designer wasn't leveling up in pre-release EQ1 one day saying to himself, "You know what would make this more fun? Doubling the time it takes to level!"
Instead, he was forced to make it take long to level by content constraints and the business model (keeping players subscribed.) Today he'd probably laugh at the irony of players defending a design decision forced upon him by business constraints, which he knew wouldn't actually make the game more fun.
Lastly, you would barely be more proud of someone who read Lord of the Rings than who watched the movies, because neither task involves much challenge. Nobody's going to say, "Sure you took home three Olympic gold medals, but you only spent 40 minutes in total across your events. But my friend spent 2 years reading Lord of the Rings! Much bigger accomplishment"
A challenge which requires a lot of skill is an accomplishment. Time investment is an almost inconsequential factor by comparison.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Arclan Niche is where it belongs, and is nothing to be ashamed of. Ask Rolls Royce and Farrari if they feel bad about catering to a niche market. I require depth of gameplay and challenging PVE content, and the mass marketed games out recently are lacking in that department.
Amen to that.
Double amen to that,
I look forward to the time when geeks play mmorpg's again, and not gamers.
There are quite a few games on the market that require "geek level" of time commitment - I wonder, why aren't you guys playing them? I actually don't really wonder... but still asking out of curiosity ;-)
Great question, I think it's not only the geek level of time commitment, but the community that's involved.
Originally posted by Xssiv Looking at the success of MOBA's and FPS games like Call of Duty, it's pretty clear that a very large portion of gamers enjoy competitive online gaming.
The other common denominator is the fact that these games do not require a huge time investment to get started or to stay viable.
In my opinion, the huge time investment is what's causing MMO's to lose their popularity at an alarming rate. People will say it's because no "good" MMO's have come out in years and while this may be part of the reason, it's clearly a subjective excuse for the dwindling subscription numbers and rise in F2P titles.
We're also seeing a significant change in focus from the big game companies like EA and Blizzard, neither of which has any plans to release a new MMO style game at this point in time.
Even Trion, who once touted End of Nations as an RTS MMO, is now changing the game into a MOBA in order to salvage the project.
In my opinion, the upcoming big budget MMO's (Wildstar, TESO, AA, and EQN) will most likely be the last round of AAA quality MMO's that will follow the traditional MMO concepts.
From there, I believe that the MMO as we know it now will fall back into obscurity with niche games from small developers providing the last resemblance of what the genre once was.
I disagree. The downfall with mmos is that they stopped being their own unique genre and tried to emulate every other genre. They lost their identity.
What is the one defining feature that and mmorpg can do that no other genre can? Its not the ability to have a bunch of people playing online together. Every other genre is doing that already. Its not pvp, esport, combat, not even crafting. Its the only genre that can cultivate an ecosystem and uses actual people to do it.
So instead of embracing the only truly unique thing an mmo can do, developers have gone the polar opposite. All an mmo is now is an online version of every other genre out there.
Time investment, community, economy, collaboration. These are what made these games their own genre. The massively multiplayer was never going to be an exclusive feature.
The downfall of mmos was when developers forgot what made these games their own genre.
Your opening statement is backwards Single Player games are trying to emulate MMO's because of the rampant success of the genre and the higher profits it brings in. And how is it a downfall? MMO's are very very successful that's why companies are trying to emulate them within the single player experience they've realised that players are willing to continue paying after their initial purchase of the game.
The "cocoon" many MMO vets live in is hilarious the reason MMO's are they way they are today is because the veteran playerbase voted for it, look at the moaning that happens if x feature is left out, look at the moaning when Arenanet try to innovate and put out their own version of the "trinity". I think many posters around here should look closer to home to see why the MMO genre is the way it is and not constantly blame the developers. I do feel for vets on here it must be a lonely and frustrating life constantly being disappointed though misery does love company a seen by the constant "downfall of MMO's" threads and posts that appear daily.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
It seems to me time investment is just a side effect.
The real culprit is that developers keep making MMORPGs in to competitive games, via grind, when they are best as purely cooperative games.
As competitive games MMORPGs suck.
Look at board games - cooperative games are some of the most popular games and they can be hard as hell, since the reward for your time spent is having fun with the other people playing instead of racing for a reward.
Of course really hard PvE in today MMORPGs just can't exist in games geared towards advancement via rewards/drops.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Looking at the success of MOBA's and FPS games like Call of Duty, it's pretty clear that a very large portion of gamers enjoy competitive online gaming.
The other common denominator is the fact that these games do not require a huge time investment to get started or to stay viable.
In my opinion, the huge time investment is what's causing MMO's to lose their popularity at an alarming rate. People will say it's because no "good" MMO's have come out in years and while this may be part of the reason, it's clearly a subjective excuse for the dwindling subscription numbers and rise in F2P titles.
We're also seeing a significant change in focus from the big game companies like EA and Blizzard, neither of which has any plans to release a new MMO style game at this point in time.
Even Trion, who once touted End of Nations as an RTS MMO, is now changing the game into a MOBA in order to salvage the project.
In my opinion, the upcoming big budget MMO's (Wildstar, TESO, AA, and EQN) will most likely be the last round of AAA quality MMO's that will follow the traditional MMO concepts.
From there, I believe that the MMO as we know it now will fall back into obscurity with niche games from small developers providing the last resemblance of what the genre once was.
we started in niches, and we have no prob ending there again.
games were totaly different when we had 200players online max at night, when we knew who we where fighting and who's lord's we were killing!
uh, and btw. you forgot to mention titan. blizzard does not produce niche games :P
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Umm cough, cough. D3 has just fake challenge at higher settings, mobs will just hit harder and have more health and thats it. Blizzard even said they made it by design that you nearly cant dodge / evade something like spears and other projectiles because they think its unfun for the player /wtf ?
In D2 even with crap gear I could kill for example hell meph with skill with dodging, teleporting around and stuff but if I got hit I could be 1-2 hit and dead. D2 had more challenge than D3, D3 is just fake, you only need better gear to survive and not dodging skills. Sometimes you can dodge but mostly even if you dodge and stand miles away from a flying spear you still get hit. And like Ive said even Blizzard said they made it by design because they think its unfun for players /sigh ...
Well so maybe games have challenge but made the wrong way, I want challenge where I have to think about strategies, need to dodge in the right moment etc. and not just have a mob that has some 00000 more HP and takes forever to kill thats just fake and lazy design IMO.
Or lookt at GW2, leveling was the best experience Ive had in a MMO. No goddamn quest hubs, events going on on map and if you did everything on the map with sightseeing points etc. you had alot to do. But the endgame was just boring because there was no real progression, sadly.
What I want would be Skyrim as MMO, I know TESO is coming and Iam really hoping for it but we will see how it turns out. Iam fearing that Bethesda will turn around and change designs and make it more WoW like later on.
What I also really miss is like in D2 where you died and could loose some EXP, maybe there could be something in between. If you die in a MMO you will lose EP but if you get your body back you will get the FULL ep back.
I just dont like it how dying doesnt mean anything anymore in games, everything is just dumbed down so much, made so easy that even your grandma could play it.
Best example would be RIFT, omg that game was so easy that I just quit at lvl43 ... Its so unfun if you just 1-2 shot everything with just instants and put alot of skills just into 1 macro. I mean seriously wtf ? ...
Zero time investment means (...wait for it...) zero time investment. All games take time. Therefore zero time investment games don't exist.
You still need to learn the difference between facts and opinions.
Your opinion that SWTOR is bad doesn't change the fact that it was financially successful.
When I stated the fact that SWTOR was financially successful, that's not the same as my opinion of SWTOR.
SWTOR is by no means my "favorite game" just because I stated facts about it. It's an average MMORPG with a few key shortcomings.
So far the discussion is more about criticizing intentionally time-wasting MMORPGs. Which is different from trying to make excuses for short MMORPGs. Games with things like travel which are just arbitrarily long time-sinks are what's mainly being criticized.
That said, I'm happy to point out that short games can be tons of fun and completely worth the time and money investment. While I'd love for more MMORPGs with the depth and design quality of WOW to be released which keep me playing for years, a short GW2 which keeps me playing 80-100 hours for $60 is totally worth my time and money.
Remember, EQ1's designer wasn't leveling up in pre-release EQ1 one day saying to himself, "You know what would make this more fun? Doubling the time it takes to level!"
Instead, he was forced to make it take long to level by content constraints and the business model (keeping players subscribed.) Today he'd probably laugh at the irony of players defending a design decision forced upon him by business constraints, which he knew wouldn't actually make the game more fun.
Lastly, you would barely be more proud of someone who read Lord of the Rings than who watched the movies, because neither task involves much challenge. Nobody's going to say, "Sure you took home three Olympic gold medals, but you only spent 40 minutes in total across your events. But my friend spent 2 years reading Lord of the Rings! Much bigger accomplishment"
A challenge which requires a lot of skill is an accomplishment. Time investment is an almost inconsequential factor by comparison.
To be clear, SWTOR didn't meet expectations set (therefore not exactly "successful"), but they did turn out profit nevertheless (so not a complete failure either).
I agree with the rest.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Hmm SWTORs problem was / is the skill delay lag, stiff animations, lifeless world ... only IMO of course. Playing PvP with skill delay lags, which got better since release but are still there is just unfun. Camera is another problem in SWTOR but dungeons in the game are real fun and graphics are nice too.
It just lacks the smoothness in controls and animations IMO and the FPS drops here and there in zones which are annoying.
They shouldnt have put so much effort into voice acting, instead they could have make space missions better. Wouldnt it be awesome to fly yourself in these missions ? Maybe even as a group with friends ? Well it would have been better than having every side quest voice acted which is just annoying.
Game could have been so much better and still could but I dont think they will put real effort into it anymore, what a shame.
I have played a great variety of games throughout my entire life (from chess ot pick-up basketball) and only in MMOs I came across this mad idea, that some players are more worthy than others and that this has to be the central game mechanic. This kind of elitist thinking is lunatic. Most recent example is GW2, where some players cried for "progression" and "a reason to keep on playing". They hated the idea, that all players just could jump in and have fun. Now they have included stupid game mechanics that favour players who spent more time. Which is especially bad in WvW (the seperation in fractals is bullshit, too).
2. Facebook and online game modes of ordinary single player games:
MMOs had always a very important social aspect. Many players liked them, because they could spend some time socialising and gaming with friends. Since MMOs tend sometimes to be a huge grind-fest, people moved on to other things that are just more fun. It is simple as that - people want fun.
3. No RP:
Although the abbreviation MMORPG includes the two letters RP, MMOs do not include RP at all. You spend the whole day analysing stats and guides, how you could do more DPS etc. It would be completely pointless to create a background for your character and think about its "character", because you do not get epic loot with RP. So it is just a waste of time.
4. Stupid content:
Games like WoW really try to challenge the players with fresh boss-mechanics to make combat fun. However, it does not change the core problem of MMOs today: there is only combat and nothing else. Ok, I forgot another thing: loot. MMOs consist of killing and looting, this has a certain addictive effect. But sooner or later it gets boring and people move on.
5. Fear:
Although these forums are full of threads, where players demand new ideas, the reality shows that games like TSW and GW2 that really try to do things differently earn a lot of criticism. Eventually we get only MMOs that are all the same since.... hm... EQ1? This is sad, because a project like DayZ shows that you can achive so much with a clever combination of a few little ideas
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
MMOs aren't losing their popularity at an alarming rate. More MMOs are coming out now than I can ever remember. What we may be seeing now is how popular MMOs really are, without WoW in the picture. It's the unreasonable expectations that are being pushed out the door, not the popularity of MMOs.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
The SWG lessons have always been "Once you have your niche, don't snub it chasing a larger core group by completely changing what your game is" and "Star Wars wasn't a story about Uncle Owen."
Time investment never seemed like a big part of it to me. It might have been one of the details of ways SWG pulled the rug out from underneath its niche userbase, but it could've been any similarly significant change and those users would've left.
As for your second paragraph, nobody's talking about zero time investment games. Those don't exist.
What we're talking about are games where time isn't intentionally wasted.
The true measure of achievement is the challenge itself, not the timesink.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Obviously it is a matter of degree. Asking players for months and years are obviously too much. I don't see anything wrong with something like a good fun week.
Part of the problem is that one person's "waste of time" is another person's "reason for playing the game."
Take crafting. Players who see no reason for it think it is a waste of time to invest time or characters to do crafting. "I care about combat, and since the need to pipeline goods to my combat character is the only reason why I craft, we ought to make the items available without crafting."
And so, you get rid of crafting (and other mechanics crafters need, like decay). And if you play this for the combat, that's a good thing.
And we can say this about many things (housing, social occupations, travel, etc.). But for those who don't care so much about combat, or care about other things as well, the elimination of one person's timesink is the elimination of another reason to play.
Frankly, I think the genre today works really well for, young, male Caucasian and Asian goal-driven FPS vets. But it worked better before for other kinds of people (older gamers, gamers with more mature reasons for playing, women, etc.). And the reason it did is because they made their skills useful; the games gave them a place. These days, if you don't like min/maxing and quest chain completing, you have no place.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
So you are saying companies should spend years producing a game that provides mere weeks of fun for you? I think those are already ready for you in the form of console games.
Here you go...you seem confused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
Surely you do. There are plenty of indie games like Tales of Desert, and also non-MMOs.
The market supplies what most demands. That is just a fact of life. And sales figure clearly shows that min-maxing combat focus games sell.
Disney/Marvel spent $200M+ on a movie like Avenger, and probably would not spend even $100M on a period drama for a reason. The same reason applies to the MMO market.
Yes. A good fun week is much better than mediocre years. And many companies also do so with great financial success in the form of SP games. MMOs are no different. They are just games. If a shorter time span models work, there is no reason not to do it.
In fact, i read somewhere that most F2P MMOs have player retention in roughly 3 months (i.e. players, on average stays a few months). So MMOs are already moving in that direction.
Heck, MMOs are becoming console games now. What is the problem with a short MMO on a console that you can matched with a massive number of players? I don't see any. Even CCP is doing one such game.
The sort of powergaming, action and achievement-oriented player the industry wanted to attract in the last decade wants that. Which is why every game that has been released in the last few years is marked by a high opening and massive, nose dive churn after a few months. Unfortunately, the business model isn't working very well to sustain their interest. They consume content and get bored faster than the developers can keep up. There's no future in that way of designing games, and I think the outspoken advocates of that style, deep down, know it.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Amen to that.
It's people like you that are why MMORPG's are now garbage. We are talking about PC MMORPG's, not consoles.
If some want MMORPG's on a console that only provide their short attention span and self entitlement needs with a few weeks of entertainment...more power to them. But despite what you may think is wanted most....many want an MMORPG that has meat to it. One that allows deep character development, meaningful crafting, housing, deep and extended questing systems (If applicable), open and rich worlds to explore.
When I want to play a game that has quick fun, I play them in the form of sports games, FPS games, and action games like Mark of the Ninja, Orcs Must Die, Supreme Commander, etc etc. That's what they are made for and why there are different genres after all...you should really try grasping that.
There aren't as many as you think, nariussen. You see, I'd be fine with that if the games they found satisfaction in actually lasted. But even when they make more than they cost (meaning, they make a profit), they are still closed down for reasons that they aren't fashionable enough for the people they like better (your kind).
What gives me hope is that there are several, very bad and exploitive games (like Farmville) that are making cash hand over fist with 43 year old women and non-typical gamers. And the ironic thing about Farmville is that the gameplay isn't anything that MMOs haven't done before and haven't done better.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I'm totally with this guy...When I played UO, I would go out hunt dragons and such for loot and money , and you know what I would do for hours after making some cash?
Remodel my large house for hours!! Yeah I never have understood why the focus on raiding and such to the exclusion of everything else that can make a good mmo.
Great crafting and the relative ease of getting materials for crafting NOT involving going on raids for those ingredients. Being able to accomplish more through other means other than quests. And so on and so on.
I say let mmo's go into niche settings, please.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Zero time investment games certainly exist. Try GW2 some time, it's core game can be completed in about a day or two. After that you are just stuck going through different starting areas.
Then there is your favorite game SWTOR which all my friends completed in a week and then we moved on before our free month was even up. GW2 is buy to play so they don't have incentive to keep people playing forever but what is TOR's excuse?
Any MMO that gives less than a month worth of content isn't even worth looking at. Personally I prefer the old school games that last 6 months to a year. Slow leveling, dungeon crawls, camping rare bosses, single quests that took a week to complete; that is what MMOs used to be about. We not talking about a casual 30 minute League of Legends session here.
Here is a better analogy. What feat is something to be more proud of: Reading the entire 1000+ page Lord of the Rings Books or watching the movie Trilogy. There is no right or wrong answer here but I guess you would just watch the movie. I will take the book thank you very much.
Zero time investment means (...wait for it...) zero time investment. All games take time. Therefore zero time investment games don't exist.
You still need to learn the difference between facts and opinions.
So far the discussion is more about criticizing intentionally time-wasting MMORPGs. Which is different from trying to make excuses for short MMORPGs. Games with things like travel which are just arbitrarily long time-sinks are what's mainly being criticized.
That said, I'm happy to point out that short games can be tons of fun and completely worth the time and money investment. While I'd love for more MMORPGs with the depth and design quality of WOW to be released which keep me playing for years, a short GW2 which keeps me playing 80-100 hours for $60 is totally worth my time and money.
Remember, EQ1's designer wasn't leveling up in pre-release EQ1 one day saying to himself, "You know what would make this more fun? Doubling the time it takes to level!"
Instead, he was forced to make it take long to level by content constraints and the business model (keeping players subscribed.) Today he'd probably laugh at the irony of players defending a design decision forced upon him by business constraints, which he knew wouldn't actually make the game more fun.
Lastly, you would barely be more proud of someone who read Lord of the Rings than who watched the movies, because neither task involves much challenge. Nobody's going to say, "Sure you took home three Olympic gold medals, but you only spent 40 minutes in total across your events. But my friend spent 2 years reading Lord of the Rings! Much bigger accomplishment"
A challenge which requires a lot of skill is an accomplishment. Time investment is an almost inconsequential factor by comparison.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Amen to that.
Double amen to that,I look forward to the time when geeks play mmorpg's again, and not gamers.
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
Great question, I think it's not only the geek level of time commitment, but the community that's involved.Does that make sense?
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
Your opening statement is backwards Single Player games are trying to emulate MMO's because of the rampant success of the genre and the higher profits it brings in. And how is it a downfall? MMO's are very very successful that's why companies are trying to emulate them within the single player experience they've realised that players are willing to continue paying after their initial purchase of the game.
The "cocoon" many MMO vets live in is hilarious the reason MMO's are they way they are today is because the veteran playerbase voted for it, look at the moaning that happens if x feature is left out, look at the moaning when Arenanet try to innovate and put out their own version of the "trinity". I think many posters around here should look closer to home to see why the MMO genre is the way it is and not constantly blame the developers. I do feel for vets on here it must be a lonely and frustrating life constantly being disappointed though misery does love company a seen by the constant "downfall of MMO's" threads and posts that appear daily.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
It seems to me time investment is just a side effect.
The real culprit is that developers keep making MMORPGs in to competitive games, via grind, when they are best as purely cooperative games.
As competitive games MMORPGs suck.
Look at board games - cooperative games are some of the most popular games and they can be hard as hell, since the reward for your time spent is having fun with the other people playing instead of racing for a reward.
Of course really hard PvE in today MMORPGs just can't exist in games geared towards advancement via rewards/drops.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
we started in niches, and we have no prob ending there again.
games were totaly different when we had 200players online max at night, when we knew who we where fighting and who's lord's we were killing!
uh, and btw. you forgot to mention titan. blizzard does not produce niche games :P
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Umm cough, cough. D3 has just fake challenge at higher settings, mobs will just hit harder and have more health and thats it. Blizzard even said they made it by design that you nearly cant dodge / evade something like spears and other projectiles because they think its unfun for the player /wtf ?
In D2 even with crap gear I could kill for example hell meph with skill with dodging, teleporting around and stuff but if I got hit I could be 1-2 hit and dead. D2 had more challenge than D3, D3 is just fake, you only need better gear to survive and not dodging skills. Sometimes you can dodge but mostly even if you dodge and stand miles away from a flying spear you still get hit. And like Ive said even Blizzard said they made it by design because they think its unfun for players /sigh ...
Well so maybe games have challenge but made the wrong way, I want challenge where I have to think about strategies, need to dodge in the right moment etc. and not just have a mob that has some 00000 more HP and takes forever to kill thats just fake and lazy design IMO.
Or lookt at GW2, leveling was the best experience Ive had in a MMO. No goddamn quest hubs, events going on on map and if you did everything on the map with sightseeing points etc. you had alot to do. But the endgame was just boring because there was no real progression, sadly.
What I want would be Skyrim as MMO, I know TESO is coming and Iam really hoping for it but we will see how it turns out. Iam fearing that Bethesda will turn around and change designs and make it more WoW like later on.
What I also really miss is like in D2 where you died and could loose some EXP, maybe there could be something in between. If you die in a MMO you will lose EP but if you get your body back you will get the FULL ep back.
I just dont like it how dying doesnt mean anything anymore in games, everything is just dumbed down so much, made so easy that even your grandma could play it.
Best example would be RIFT, omg that game was so easy that I just quit at lvl43 ... Its so unfun if you just 1-2 shot everything with just instants and put alot of skills just into 1 macro. I mean seriously wtf ? ...
To be clear, SWTOR didn't meet expectations set (therefore not exactly "successful"), but they did turn out profit nevertheless (so not a complete failure either).
I agree with the rest.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Hmm SWTORs problem was / is the skill delay lag, stiff animations, lifeless world ... only IMO of course. Playing PvP with skill delay lags, which got better since release but are still there is just unfun. Camera is another problem in SWTOR but dungeons in the game are real fun and graphics are nice too.
It just lacks the smoothness in controls and animations IMO and the FPS drops here and there in zones which are annoying.
They shouldnt have put so much effort into voice acting, instead they could have make space missions better. Wouldnt it be awesome to fly yourself in these missions ? Maybe even as a group with friends ? Well it would have been better than having every side quest voice acted which is just annoying.
Game could have been so much better and still could but I dont think they will put real effort into it anymore, what a shame.
There are several reasons:
1. The stupid hard core versus casual dispute:
I have played a great variety of games throughout my entire life (from chess ot pick-up basketball) and only in MMOs I came across this mad idea, that some players are more worthy than others and that this has to be the central game mechanic. This kind of elitist thinking is lunatic. Most recent example is GW2, where some players cried for "progression" and "a reason to keep on playing". They hated the idea, that all players just could jump in and have fun. Now they have included stupid game mechanics that favour players who spent more time. Which is especially bad in WvW (the seperation in fractals is bullshit, too).
2. Facebook and online game modes of ordinary single player games:
MMOs had always a very important social aspect. Many players liked them, because they could spend some time socialising and gaming with friends. Since MMOs tend sometimes to be a huge grind-fest, people moved on to other things that are just more fun. It is simple as that - people want fun.
3. No RP:
Although the abbreviation MMORPG includes the two letters RP, MMOs do not include RP at all. You spend the whole day analysing stats and guides, how you could do more DPS etc. It would be completely pointless to create a background for your character and think about its "character", because you do not get epic loot with RP. So it is just a waste of time.
4. Stupid content:
Games like WoW really try to challenge the players with fresh boss-mechanics to make combat fun. However, it does not change the core problem of MMOs today: there is only combat and nothing else. Ok, I forgot another thing: loot. MMOs consist of killing and looting, this has a certain addictive effect. But sooner or later it gets boring and people move on.
5. Fear:
Although these forums are full of threads, where players demand new ideas, the reality shows that games like TSW and GW2 that really try to do things differently earn a lot of criticism. Eventually we get only MMOs that are all the same since.... hm... EQ1? This is sad, because a project like DayZ shows that you can achive so much with a clever combination of a few little ideas
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
MMOs aren't losing their popularity at an alarming rate. More MMOs are coming out now than I can ever remember. What we may be seeing now is how popular MMOs really are, without WoW in the picture. It's the unreasonable expectations that are being pushed out the door, not the popularity of MMOs.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.