All the features taken away from us is because we the gamers didn't want them there
I'd say they were taken away because the non-gamers didn't want them there.
There just happened to be a lot more non-gamers than gamers for companies to capitalize on.
Those non-gamers then became the modern-day "gamers" leaving us old gamers in a completely separate, and largely neglected, category.
No
It's pretty simple really. People back then were fed up with the then current systems of doing things. Everybody was a real gamer back then. MMOs weren't mainstream so those that played were fans of a relatively new genre. The majority back then were fed up with timesinks and every negative aspects of the games.
The whining and complaing came from both the top of the crop of hardcore raiders to the casual weekend warrior.
The people today looking back wishing it was 99' all over again, are the same people who complained back then. The only difference is they the gamers, had no idea what they were asking for. They thought they could retain all the positive aspects of a real MMO, while do away with all the bad. Problem was, a lot of those things walked hand in hand. People had fun in East Commonlands while selling stuff because there were no auction house, people developed tight bonds with eachother because death penalties were unforgiving forcing you to stick to people you knew could play. No xp quest system meant you sat still in one spot with a group for hours, while chatting and getting to know each other because you were bored.
All the negative crap people say they hope never come back spawned a whole host of positive things too you will never get back as well
This is one of the main reasons why developers shouldn't take directions from gamers. They often ask for things they don't see the full ramifications of.
Considering gamers have been complaining about the "dumbing down" of MMORPGs since it first began happening (Think EQ PoP/Luclin/LDoN), I would say you are mistaken, sir.
Considering gamers have been complaining about the "dumbing down" of MMORPGs since it first began happening (Think EQ PoP/Luclin/LDoN), I would say you are mistaken, sir.
Need maybe some graphics upgrading. But it is the best MMO I ever played. Alas it wont run on newer computers. Please Turbine..make an upgrade. I dont need state of the art graphics..but hey you guys made the perfect MMO.....
Instead of slower leveling I'd prefer no levels at all and tons of skills to aquire instead. I agree that quick leveling like in SWTOR is pointless - today you get that über armor and tomorrow you have outleveled it. Five levels higher green is better than this purple. And yes, I want bigger worlds and less instances. Technology has become so much better over the last 10-15 years but all MMOs have somehow gone backwards. Maybe it's because of suits that run MMO companies these days instead of guys creating their dream game. I don't know but I get more and more bored of this genre.
Again, this sort of mechanic would work great in a single player RPG, but it would be a real problem for MMOs. You would inevitably end up with characters that can do everything. This lessens the reason to group when everyone's class is "god".
It would take about 25years to max out every skill in EvE. No one is "god"
I liked the way Sword of the New World handled their dungeons. The only thing that was instanced was the boss everything else was open and pretty damn big. I'm not saying the game was great but that aspect of it was.
Instead of slower leveling I'd prefer no levels at all and tons of skills to aquire instead. I agree that quick leveling like in SWTOR is pointless - today you get that über armor and tomorrow you have outleveled it. Five levels higher green is better than this purple.
And yes, I want bigger worlds and less instances. Technology has become so much better over the last 10-15 years but all MMOs have somehow gone backwards. Maybe it's because of suits that run MMO companies these days instead of guys creating their dream game. I don't know but I get more and more bored of this genre.
Again, this sort of mechanic would work great in a single player RPG, but it would be a real problem for MMOs. You would inevitably end up with characters that can do everything. This lessens the reason to group when everyone's class is "god".
It would take about 25years to max out every skill in EvE. No one is "god"
I'll admit I haven't properly tried EvE. To be honest I'm not particularly into sci-fi to begin with, but I played the game for about half an hour and just ended up floating around in space completely clueless as to what I was supposed to do or how to play. Seemed pretty dull, so I decided to drop it.
I have been curious to try it again and give it more time...maybe soon.
Personally I loved Lineage II and Vanguard, but both have 2 bad things atm. - Lineage II: new players can do now within 1 month what took me over 3 years to accomplish: level 85 and awakening. Not to mention, L2 is now so much different than it was before GoD, that I left - Vanguard: hosted by SOE (nuf said), and player base is too small to actually pay for it.
About TERA and hitting cap in 2 weeks... Yes that was at release and I heard that the grind has been added later on. Right now I've played it for about 5 hours (leveling, not counting exploration time), and I'm level 11. I'm not sure how things go from here, but with the same playstyle in most other MMOs, I'd be a lot higher already.
Your point about Aion is valid, but it's too PvP centered for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I do like PvP, but not as it's done in Aion (I like old-school L2 PvP more...)
The op discribes the early Aion (well just without the instanced dungeon), and we know how bad it failed cause ALL people were whining how hard the grind is and how low the droprates are.
Face it, this kind of mmo dont work for western games...
I think its partly because MMOs have been made more fast paced to make it more of an action/adventure game rather then an RPG game. Not saying thats a bad thing, but some people, I think OP included may prefer the slower paced combat system. The reason I say this is in games like EQ, it took a little longer to kill a mob then it does in say, WoW. Even an even coned or yellow coned mob took the effort of the entire group beating down/tanking/healing to kill it. Having an add may require having CC since 2 and espically 3 mobs were going to overwhelm the group.
What that means is for the most part, there was no soloing or efficent soloing.(Magicians, Necromancers, Druids and I believe later Wizards excluded if they knew what they were doing.) Some may have felt that it wasn't very heroic for it to take five adventures to kill one undead frogman or whatever else. Nor is sitting around waiting for a named mob to respawn considered exactly heroic. So instead you have mobs which was basically fodder only there to make you feel powerful, interspaced with mobs that it takes about a minute to kill all of them, all leading up to killing some boss with some cool fight mechanics/graphics/dialog/etc.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing, after all it is kind of cool to appear more like some badass hero, but it also means; instanced dungeons, weak mobs, generally fast leveling and little time to chat with other gamers. I include fast leveling because with fast paced combat and slow leveling the game is just considered an Asian grindfest.
I think there is room for a game similar to EQ's style of play, or at least its 1999-2003 playstyle, since I havent played it since then. I rather doubt the game would be as big as WoW, but then again why would it have to be. I still think Vanguard just launched with too many bugs or wasn't optimized enough, I know thats why I quit after 2 days. Regardless both MMO styles are valid since obviously lots of people enjoy the faster paced gameplay, and others may prefer the slower paced(I'm assuming Vanguard players.)
I'm and old school gamer and I don't agree . I like the old school Non instanced dugeons I would love for it to take a year to gain max level . It acutally all sounds really good however , I am glad there is alternatives since I now have a job and a young family so I get maybe an hour a night during the week and a couple hours on the weekend.
I no five or six gamers in the same boat and we are all kinda liking the whole quick mmo thing but thats just us we do wish we had the time to play the likes of L2 and EQ and stuff but we don't
I for one hope you guys get a game soon that fits your bill . Sadly I don't think you will since the entire MMO community is into the fast food stlye of mmo . When they ask you if you want fries with that what they are really saying is do you want to buy our cash shop crap. Do you want it super sized ? which means do you want to spend 25 dollars on a fancier mount .
I'll say this. Most of the things you listed in your "wants" aren't due to suits leading MMO companies, because most of those suits are "Old gamers" themselves. It's actually due to the gaming community at present, and largely in part due to (you knew it was coming) World of Warcraft. As great of a model game as it is, it brought some unwanted attention to the MMO world. Now game developers can't just make their dream game; they also have to cater to the lowest common denominator. I'd say about 50-60% of current MMO players don't have the patience to sit through weeks, days, months of grinding without rage quitting about something. Now I will agree and say that a bit of grind and rng makes you feel more accomplished about what you have, but it wards off everything that the company is trying to reach out to. They put in massive amounts of grind there goes 60% of their market share. They put in lop-sided RNG...there goes another 20%! What's left for them? the 30%(a shrinking margin) of old gamers.
You can see how that could be very unappealing to a publisher like NCsoft or ENmasse or Frogster. NCSoft: "We can make 1 mirrion dollahs on this game...but its too grindy. So lets make it easy! Now we will make 4.5 mirrion!"
As for instancing...its not that tech has stepped forward and devs have stepped backwards...it's that what youre asking for is nearly impossible. Sure it was possible back then, but you have to take into account the recent changes. Graphics have taken HUGE leaps from the old school top down point and click (i.e. astonia 3, or everquest). So with SSAO, crepuscular rays casting, hard ray tracing, SSDO, global illumination, HDR+Bloom shading, cell shading, hard surface rendering, render2texture shaders, refraction and reflection, the list goes on...it gets a bit difficult to keep everything in the same world space. Also with the mountains of code and AI that are tossed into the world that only multiplies that difficulty. So what did they do...they made instances. This allowed them to create more elaborate worlds. Sure the worlds dont FEEL as large as they once did...but once in a while try looking at how much stuff is in these worlds. Quite a bit. Even with a game like Aion - most people will say "oh the world is about a 5 or a 6 on the BIG scale" when theyve realy only seen about half of it (i.e. they play elyos and never saw the asmodian side). Game worlds are still big...just broken into smaller pieces now.
---//END_WALLOFTEXT
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
I'm and old school gamer and I don't agree . I like the old school Non instanced dugeons I would love for it to take a year to gain max level . It acutally all sounds really good however , I am glad there is alternatives since I now have a job and a young family so I get maybe an hour a night during the week and a couple hours on the weekend.
I no five or six gamers in the same boat and we are all kinda liking the whole quick mmo thing but thats just us we do wish we had the time to play the likes of L2 and EQ and stuff but we don't
I for one hope you guys get a game soon that fits your bill . Sadly I don't think you will since the entire MMO community is into the fast food stlye of mmo . When they ask you if you want fries with that what they are really saying is do you want to buy our cash shop crap. Do you want it super sized ? which means do you want to spend 25 dollars on a fancier mount .
I honestly question whether this is true or if its the developers/publishers that are into the fast food style of mmo, and just dont give us any other option.
These MMOs are much easier to make, and much easier to profit on because they're so friendly towards non-gamers. In addition, many of us old gamers will still play them, even if we want something different, just to have something to play.
I really think that if someone took the time to make a well-polished, new, challenging/time consuming MMO that there would be a significant audience for it. Not just old gamers already looking for it, but new gamers that may discover they enjoy more of a challenge also.
So the OP wants a game that rewards time spent over actual skill. The only game out there that I know that can achieve what you want is Sacred 2 , or Diablo 2 which are neither MMOs. MMOs are also supposed to be RPG. MMO itself isnt really a genre thats why its called MMORPG.
The reason why its easier to level these days is because before the game got pretty stagnant when you are killing the same MOB a million times just to level and you have already completed all the quests for your current level.
So the OP wants a game that rewards time spent over actual skill. The only game out there that I know that can achieve what you want is Sacred 2 , or Diablo 2 which are neither MMOs. MMOs are also supposed to be RPG. MMO itself isnt really a genre thats why its called MMORPG.
The reason why its easier to level these days is because before the game got pretty stagnant when you are killing the same MOB a million times just to level and you have already completed all the quests for your current level.
Hmm way to just make stuff up. I dont recall reading anything in his post that says what he wants for grinding other then some decent gear. The games the OP speaks of do not in ANY way relate SKILL to REWARDS. So your point makes no sense its just something that popped into your head and seemed cool to post.
If anything his point is more relevent in that respect, in today games very little effort is required for reward. He is asking for a game that takes the coordination and SKILL of a group of people to accompish tasks.
I have no problem with specific dungeons being instanced. I don't like the current dynamic where the entire game is instanced, every single game area is instanced and you can potentially never share a common area with another player who is on the same server as you. And the zones aren't seamless, with loading screens each time you cross a zone. No feeling of being part of a world. MMO's have devolved from world simulators to just regular video games. Not that there is anything wrong with regular video games but when you expect to be playing simulator and the game is not a simulator, its a little disappointing.
All the features taken away from us is because we the gamers didn't want them there
I'd say they were taken away because the non-gamers didn't want them there.
There just happened to be a lot more non-gamers than gamers for companies to capitalize on.
Those non-gamers then became the modern-day "gamers" leaving us old gamers in a completely separate, and largely neglected, category.
No
It's pretty simple really. People back then were fed up with the then current systems of doing things. Everybody was a real gamer back then. MMOs weren't mainstream so those that played were fans of a relatively new genre. The majority back then were fed up with timesinks and every negative aspects of the games.
The whining and complaing came from both the top of the crop of hardcore raiders to the casual weekend warrior.
The people today looking back wishing it was 99' all over again, are the same people who complained back then. The only difference is they the gamers, had no idea what they were asking for. They thought they could retain all the positive aspects of a real MMO, while do away with all the bad. Problem was, a lot of those things walked hand in hand. People had fun in East Commonlands while selling stuff because there were no auction house, people developed tight bonds with eachother because death penalties were unforgiving forcing you to stick to people you knew could play. No xp quest system meant you sat still in one spot with a group for hours, while chatting and getting to know each other because you were bored.
All the negative crap people say they hope never come back spawned a whole host of positive things too you will never get back as well
This is one of the main reasons why developers shouldn't take directions from gamers. They often ask for things they don't see the full ramifications of.
^^This.
You can take specific areas from nearlly all games and expand them to what is missing. For instance, buffing in a game like SWG, the effort you needed to either goto to be able to give buffs or in a different way obtain them.
Nowadays in mmo's buffing is a matter of pressing a button you either macro for an hourly push or only once every session, no effort at all and as a result it has absolutely no value at all. To this day I still don't understand the principle of buffing yourself in new mmo's. When you break it down why not just have it as a constnt re-inforcement of your stats and anyone in your group? Why? because they want to make you feel like you've done something, despite the glaringly obvious fact you did fck all for it. Such a pointless fuction.
Nearlly all aspects of new to old comparisons run something like this. Something that isn't earned has no value, it's as simple as that. Follow that logic to its conclusion even outside of games and I think it shows much of the reasons for the developed world today.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
instanced dungeons arent by itself a bad idea .....
the last non-instanced game i played is FFXI ,and let me tell u , the endgame sucked because of that , boting was the norm , because claiming the boss vs 3-4 guild (LS) that were there ....was "fun"
grind......why no more grind games? thats simple , because nowadays ppl dont want to level for months , and mmorpgs now u level SOLO , u dont need exp leveling groups anymore (thats the main issue for me in actual mmorpgs)
but yeah the OP got a point , mmorpgs are solo rpgs with chat
oh and mmropgs are now : ME ME ME!!!!! everyman for himself.
So the OP wants a game that rewards time spent over actual skill. The only game out there that I know that can achieve what you want is Sacred 2 , or Diablo 2 which are neither MMOs. MMOs are also supposed to be RPG. MMO itself isnt really a genre thats why its called MMORPG.
The reason why its easier to level these days is because before the game got pretty stagnant when you are killing the same MOB a million times just to level and you have already completed all the quests for your current level.
You realize this takes about an hour in modern-day MMOs, right?
Tastes may differ, but I'd rather kill the same monster a million times and still have new abilities to look forward to than to farm the same instances a million times for a peice of equipment that will never improve any further.
Comments
Considering gamers have been complaining about the "dumbing down" of MMORPGs since it first began happening (Think EQ PoP/Luclin/LDoN), I would say you are mistaken, sir.
My post pretty much explain why that's the case
I would say: Asherons Call is the place to be.
Need maybe some graphics upgrading. But it is the best MMO I ever played. Alas it wont run on newer computers. Please Turbine..make an upgrade. I dont need state of the art graphics..but hey you guys made the perfect MMO.....
Again, this sort of mechanic would work great in a single player RPG, but it would be a real problem for MMOs. You would inevitably end up with characters that can do everything. This lessens the reason to group when everyone's class is "god".
It would take about 25years to max out every skill in EvE. No one is "god"I liked the way Sword of the New World handled their dungeons. The only thing that was instanced was the boss everything else was open and pretty damn big. I'm not saying the game was great but that aspect of it was.
WRONG.
I'm with you OP.
I'll admit I haven't properly tried EvE. To be honest I'm not particularly into sci-fi to begin with, but I played the game for about half an hour and just ended up floating around in space completely clueless as to what I was supposed to do or how to play. Seemed pretty dull, so I decided to drop it.
I have been curious to try it again and give it more time...maybe soon.
Couldn't agree more with OP... Also wrote something similar on my blog a while back (http://www.pagesfromsages.com/?action=showentry&entry=991).
Personally I loved Lineage II and Vanguard, but both have 2 bad things atm.
- Lineage II: new players can do now within 1 month what took me over 3 years to accomplish: level 85 and awakening. Not to mention, L2 is now so much different than it was before GoD, that I left
- Vanguard: hosted by SOE (nuf said), and player base is too small to actually pay for it.
About TERA and hitting cap in 2 weeks... Yes that was at release and I heard that the grind has been added later on. Right now I've played it for about 5 hours (leveling, not counting exploration time), and I'm level 11. I'm not sure how things go from here, but with the same playstyle in most other MMOs, I'd be a lot higher already.
Your point about Aion is valid, but it's too PvP centered for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I do like PvP, but not as it's done in Aion (I like old-school L2 PvP more...)
The op discribes the early Aion (well just without the instanced dungeon), and we know how bad it failed cause ALL people were whining how hard the grind is and how low the droprates are.
Face it, this kind of mmo dont work for western games...
Ok fine, its just him and you then.
Wrong again.
Yes, people actually like stuff you dont like.
I think its partly because MMOs have been made more fast paced to make it more of an action/adventure game rather then an RPG game. Not saying thats a bad thing, but some people, I think OP included may prefer the slower paced combat system. The reason I say this is in games like EQ, it took a little longer to kill a mob then it does in say, WoW. Even an even coned or yellow coned mob took the effort of the entire group beating down/tanking/healing to kill it. Having an add may require having CC since 2 and espically 3 mobs were going to overwhelm the group.
What that means is for the most part, there was no soloing or efficent soloing.(Magicians, Necromancers, Druids and I believe later Wizards excluded if they knew what they were doing.) Some may have felt that it wasn't very heroic for it to take five adventures to kill one undead frogman or whatever else. Nor is sitting around waiting for a named mob to respawn considered exactly heroic. So instead you have mobs which was basically fodder only there to make you feel powerful, interspaced with mobs that it takes about a minute to kill all of them, all leading up to killing some boss with some cool fight mechanics/graphics/dialog/etc.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing, after all it is kind of cool to appear more like some badass hero, but it also means; instanced dungeons, weak mobs, generally fast leveling and little time to chat with other gamers. I include fast leveling because with fast paced combat and slow leveling the game is just considered an Asian grindfest.
I think there is room for a game similar to EQ's style of play, or at least its 1999-2003 playstyle, since I havent played it since then. I rather doubt the game would be as big as WoW, but then again why would it have to be. I still think Vanguard just launched with too many bugs or wasn't optimized enough, I know thats why I quit after 2 days. Regardless both MMO styles are valid since obviously lots of people enjoy the faster paced gameplay, and others may prefer the slower paced(I'm assuming Vanguard players.)
Anyways thats just my take, I could be way off.
A simple concept which is so hard to understand for some people.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty -- Mahatma Gandhi
+1
I'm and old school gamer and I don't agree . I like the old school Non instanced dugeons I would love for it to take a year to gain max level . It acutally all sounds really good however , I am glad there is alternatives since I now have a job and a young family so I get maybe an hour a night during the week and a couple hours on the weekend.
I no five or six gamers in the same boat and we are all kinda liking the whole quick mmo thing but thats just us we do wish we had the time to play the likes of L2 and EQ and stuff but we don't
I for one hope you guys get a game soon that fits your bill . Sadly I don't think you will since the entire MMO community is into the fast food stlye of mmo . When they ask you if you want fries with that what they are really saying is do you want to buy our cash shop crap. Do you want it super sized ? which means do you want to spend 25 dollars on a fancier mount .
---//BEGIN_WALLOFTEXT
I'll say this. Most of the things you listed in your "wants" aren't due to suits leading MMO companies, because most of those suits are "Old gamers" themselves. It's actually due to the gaming community at present, and largely in part due to (you knew it was coming) World of Warcraft. As great of a model game as it is, it brought some unwanted attention to the MMO world. Now game developers can't just make their dream game; they also have to cater to the lowest common denominator. I'd say about 50-60% of current MMO players don't have the patience to sit through weeks, days, months of grinding without rage quitting about something. Now I will agree and say that a bit of grind and rng makes you feel more accomplished about what you have, but it wards off everything that the company is trying to reach out to. They put in massive amounts of grind there goes 60% of their market share. They put in lop-sided RNG...there goes another 20%! What's left for them? the 30%(a shrinking margin) of old gamers.
You can see how that could be very unappealing to a publisher like NCsoft or ENmasse or Frogster. NCSoft: "We can make 1 mirrion dollahs on this game...but its too grindy. So lets make it easy! Now we will make 4.5 mirrion!"
As for instancing...its not that tech has stepped forward and devs have stepped backwards...it's that what youre asking for is nearly impossible. Sure it was possible back then, but you have to take into account the recent changes. Graphics have taken HUGE leaps from the old school top down point and click (i.e. astonia 3, or everquest). So with SSAO, crepuscular rays casting, hard ray tracing, SSDO, global illumination, HDR+Bloom shading, cell shading, hard surface rendering, render2texture shaders, refraction and reflection, the list goes on...it gets a bit difficult to keep everything in the same world space. Also with the mountains of code and AI that are tossed into the world that only multiplies that difficulty. So what did they do...they made instances. This allowed them to create more elaborate worlds. Sure the worlds dont FEEL as large as they once did...but once in a while try looking at how much stuff is in these worlds. Quite a bit. Even with a game like Aion - most people will say "oh the world is about a 5 or a 6 on the BIG scale" when theyve realy only seen about half of it (i.e. they play elyos and never saw the asmodian side). Game worlds are still big...just broken into smaller pieces now.
---//END_WALLOFTEXT
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
I honestly question whether this is true or if its the developers/publishers that are into the fast food style of mmo, and just dont give us any other option.
These MMOs are much easier to make, and much easier to profit on because they're so friendly towards non-gamers. In addition, many of us old gamers will still play them, even if we want something different, just to have something to play.
I really think that if someone took the time to make a well-polished, new, challenging/time consuming MMO that there would be a significant audience for it. Not just old gamers already looking for it, but new gamers that may discover they enjoy more of a challenge also.
So the OP wants a game that rewards time spent over actual skill. The only game out there that I know that can achieve what you want is Sacred 2 , or Diablo 2 which are neither MMOs. MMOs are also supposed to be RPG. MMO itself isnt really a genre thats why its called MMORPG.
The reason why its easier to level these days is because before the game got pretty stagnant when you are killing the same MOB a million times just to level and you have already completed all the quests for your current level.
-I am here to perform logic
Adam your response added nothing of value to the OP thread and it doesnt make you look cool.......even a little bit.
It is not just him by the way. All the OP points are valued and there are a metric crap ton of people that would agree.
Hmm way to just make stuff up. I dont recall reading anything in his post that says what he wants for grinding other then some decent gear. The games the OP speaks of do not in ANY way relate SKILL to REWARDS. So your point makes no sense its just something that popped into your head and seemed cool to post.
If anything his point is more relevent in that respect, in today games very little effort is required for reward. He is asking for a game that takes the coordination and SKILL of a group of people to accompish tasks.
I have no problem with specific dungeons being instanced. I don't like the current dynamic where the entire game is instanced, every single game area is instanced and you can potentially never share a common area with another player who is on the same server as you. And the zones aren't seamless, with loading screens each time you cross a zone. No feeling of being part of a world. MMO's have devolved from world simulators to just regular video games. Not that there is anything wrong with regular video games but when you expect to be playing simulator and the game is not a simulator, its a little disappointing.
I don't mind instanced dungeons. The thing I hate is everything is geared towards raids.
Its either a raiding game or a FFA pvp hot mess of a game. No other options.
^^This.
You can take specific areas from nearlly all games and expand them to what is missing. For instance, buffing in a game like SWG, the effort you needed to either goto to be able to give buffs or in a different way obtain them.
Nowadays in mmo's buffing is a matter of pressing a button you either macro for an hourly push or only once every session, no effort at all and as a result it has absolutely no value at all. To this day I still don't understand the principle of buffing yourself in new mmo's. When you break it down why not just have it as a constnt re-inforcement of your stats and anyone in your group? Why? because they want to make you feel like you've done something, despite the glaringly obvious fact you did fck all for it. Such a pointless fuction.
Nearlly all aspects of new to old comparisons run something like this. Something that isn't earned has no value, it's as simple as that. Follow that logic to its conclusion even outside of games and I think it shows much of the reasons for the developed world today.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
instanced dungeons arent by itself a bad idea .....
the last non-instanced game i played is FFXI ,and let me tell u , the endgame sucked because of that , boting was the norm , because claiming the boss vs 3-4 guild (LS) that were there ....was "fun"
grind......why no more grind games? thats simple , because nowadays ppl dont want to level for months , and mmorpgs now u level SOLO , u dont need exp leveling groups anymore (thats the main issue for me in actual mmorpgs)
but yeah the OP got a point , mmorpgs are solo rpgs with chat
oh and mmropgs are now : ME ME ME!!!!! everyman for himself.
You realize this takes about an hour in modern-day MMOs, right?
Tastes may differ, but I'd rather kill the same monster a million times and still have new abilities to look forward to than to farm the same instances a million times for a peice of equipment that will never improve any further.