I totally agree with the original poster. My faith in the genre and its initial promise is being restored. It's still possible to make a world that's huge and that feels alive and has depth and tons of things to do (with REAL cities). It's still possible to create visuals and music that leaves me in awe, even after 13 years. It actually is still possible to surprise me with elements that I never thought I'd see, and little details that nobody else has bothered building into their game.
I loved EQ, but it was my first love, and a lot of people said there would never be another feeling like that because everything was new back then. They said it wasn't as good as I remembered, because I was seeing it through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. In some ways I was beginning to believe those people...beginning to think that the genre had strayed to far down a single path towards games that I didn't enjoy and would never move in any other direction.
But I'm falling in love again, and it feels like the first time.
Good to see this post. EQ1 was my first mmo as well and lots of disappoints after that. Looking forward to checking out GW2. Thanks!
I come from a long line of MMO history dating back to M59 and muds before that. I am one of those "old and obsolete" mmo gamers that the young crowd likes to make fun of. So right off the bat I am going to disagree with the OP. This game, like GW1 is not what I would consider an MMORPG so there is no way it can restore faith in them. With that said though, This IS a very good game!
This is the first game that I have played in a long time that gives me the feeling of just being lost, having no idea what you are supposed to be doing and just general chaos and I love it! I am almost level 30 now and the game has really hooked me. This is the first game in years that I want to blow off my daily real life duties and actually play more of. That is a rare feeling in todays games and I give them big kudos for that! I have not even touched on the PVP or WvW aspect of the game, this is just purely from a pve experience.
I think the world they have created has been pretty interesting thus far. The under water areas are amazing and I must say, almost breathtaking and I don't know if they took this from EQ1 but they actually seem harder then when on the surface world.
I played GW1 and must say that the only real thing that I liked from it was the story itself. With that said, the personal story in GW2 has been absolutely fantastic and I couldn't be happier. I still don't know if I like the story board feel of the cutscenes but I do enjoy the whole plot and it is what drives me to level. I just can't wait to see what is next in my story!
So given all that, what about it makes you not consider it an MMORPG? What box isn't it ticking? Are you thinking that only sandboxes are "true MMOs" or something like that?
Because your description makes it sound like an MMORPG to me.
Well it is and it isn't. If you compare it to the originals, its not, simply because of instancing. Since instancing has become popular in todays society, most will consider it as an MMORPG. The problem in GW2's game is that instancing is also the downfall for the party system. It is very difficult to be in a party and do any traveling what so ever. The overflow queue is proof of that failure. Mostly for me, it depends on how instancing has been implemented in the game. GW1, not an MMO. DDO, not an MMO. City of heros, not an MMO. Basically anytime you have more than 1 instance of a world it has now become a hybrid if you will. So in other words, any game I have to ask my group, what world or zone number are you in, it has lost its MMORPG status in my opinion.
Well of course you're entitled to your opinion but I think that's too restrictive a definition of MMORPG, especially nowadays when you have a lot more complex world-building going on with higher graphics requirements. It's easy to have a single unified world in a text game, but not so easy to have a single unified world when everything actually has to be designed, rendered, and work over the internet to co-ordinate everyone. Look at the problems Vanguard had with that, and on the highest technology game engine at the time. Also nowadays there's an expectation that there will be some at least some solo content where you're the hero of your own story set in a larger world.
I think it's enough for an MMORPG to have a persistent world. That can bear some instancing. Of course there's a fuzzy area when you get to games like DDO, GW1 and CoH (although of the three CoH does have more of a persistent world feeling despite the instancing, since the instancing is only in missions, the rest of the world is proper big zones). And some multiplayer games are definitely on the other side of that (i.e. where the persistent world is totally vestigial and just a lobby for multiplayer instances).
But at the end of the day, all games can do is give you an illusion of a persistent world (even big zones are really just big multiplayer instances), and so long as that illusion is of a persistent world where many people interact, then it's an MMORPG. It doesn't really matter how they handle it technically IMHO. For example EVE feels like a single unified world, but its dirty little secret is that it's actually probably the most heavily instanced MMORPG of them all Actually all that's in the same single virtual space is the chat system, the rest is just a very clever illusion of vast space. But you can't pull off the same kind of trick when a huge zone of earth, mountains, trees, etc., all have to be rendered and realized for a bunch of players to be in together.
Having said that, I think the way DEs are handled is very much like the definition you're working with - after all, there's not really much functional difference between an open dungeon in Vanguard and a DE really, is there? Except DEs are more dynamic (not like a cave that just sits there with set content) and there's no kill stealing
I come from a long line of MMO history dating back to M59 and muds before that. I am one of those "old and obsolete" mmo gamers that the young crowd likes to make fun of. So right off the bat I am going to disagree with the OP. This game, like GW1 is not what I would consider an MMORPG so there is no way it can restore faith in them. With that said though, This IS a very good game!
This is the first game that I have played in a long time that gives me the feeling of just being lost, having no idea what you are supposed to be doing and just general chaos and I love it! I am almost level 30 now and the game has really hooked me. This is the first game in years that I want to blow off my daily real life duties and actually play more of. That is a rare feeling in todays games and I give them big kudos for that! I have not even touched on the PVP or WvW aspect of the game, this is just purely from a pve experience.
I think the world they have created has been pretty interesting thus far. The under water areas are amazing and I must say, almost breathtaking and I don't know if they took this from EQ1 but they actually seem harder then when on the surface world.
I played GW1 and must say that the only real thing that I liked from it was the story itself. With that said, the personal story in GW2 has been absolutely fantastic and I couldn't be happier. I still don't know if I like the story board feel of the cutscenes but I do enjoy the whole plot and it is what drives me to level. I just can't wait to see what is next in my story!
So given all that, what about it makes you not consider it an MMORPG? What box isn't it ticking? Are you thinking that only sandboxes are "true MMOs" or something like that?
Because your description makes it sound like an MMORPG to me.
Well it is and it isn't. If you compare it to the originals, its not, simply because of instancing. Since instancing has become popular in todays society, most will consider it as an MMORPG. The problem in GW2's game is that instancing is also the downfall for the party system. It is very difficult to be in a party and do any traveling what so ever. The overflow queue is proof of that failure. Mostly for me, it depends on how instancing has been implemented in the game. GW1, not an MMO. DDO, not an MMO. City of heros, not an MMO. Basically anytime you have more than 1 instance of a world it has now become a hybrid if you will. So in other words, any game I have to ask my group, what world or zone number are you in, it has lost its MMORPG status in my opinion.
Well of course you're entitled to your opinion but I think that's too restrictive a definition of MMORPG, especially nowadays when you have a lot more complex world-building going on with higher graphics requirements. It's easy to have a single unified world in a text game, but not so easy to have a single unified world when everything actually has to be designed, rendered, and work over the internet to co-ordinate everyone. Look at the problems Vanguard had with that, and on the highest technology game engine at the time. Also nowadays there's an expectation that there will be some at least some solo content where you're the hero of your own story set in a larger world.
I think it's enough for an MMORPG to have a persistent world. That can bear some instancing. Of course there's a fuzzy area when you get to games like DDO, GW1 and CoH (although of the three CoH does have more of a persistent world feeling despite the instancing, since the instancing is only in missions, the rest of the world is proper big zones). And some multiplayer games are definitely on the other side of that (i.e. where the persistent world is totally vestigial and just a lobby for multiplayer instances).
But at the end of the day, all games can do is give you an illusion of a persistent world (even big zones are really just big multiplayer instances), and so long as that illusion is of a persistent world where many people interact, then it's an MMORPG. It doesn't really matter how they handle it technically IMHO. For example EVE feels like a single unified world, but its dirty little secret is that it's actually probably the most heavily instanced MMORPG of them all Actually all that's in the same single virtual space is the chat system, the rest is just a very clever illusion of vast space. But you can't pull off the same kind of trick when a huge zone of earth, mountains, trees, etc., all have to be rendered and realized for a bunch of players to be in together.
Having said that, I think the way DEs are handled is very much like the definition you're working with - after all, there's not really much functional difference between an open dungeon in Vanguard and a DE really, is there? Except DEs are more dynamic (not like a cave that just sits there with set content) and there's no kill stealing
I agree and dont mind "some" instancing but gw2 is not just some instancing, its a whole bunch of instances within instances just like DDO is, they just did a little better job of it then DDO did it. Oh and as for COH, the entire world is instanced, you just dont see it happen much anymore with the lower population. Every outdoor area was a zone and a new instance would pop up when a certain number of people entered the area. I also wouldn't call EVE instanced as there is never more than 1 instance of a given area, but you are right in that if nobody is in an area, that area doesn't exist until someone gates into it but that is about as invisible as you can get to the players.
As for just "having a persistent world" is enough to say its an mmo is being way to easy on the developers. If that was the case, the world I ran in Never Winter Nights would have been considered an mmo as the world was persistent and it was far from an mmo. It was fun, but not really an MMO. I am being more harsh on the developers. Games don't have to have 10 million people playing to make good money, EVE is a good example of that. Do I think GW2 is a good game? Yes I do! They could have made it much better if they had done some things better. I just can't call it an MMORPG with the way they have done this overflow system and the lack of better grouping mechanics. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of solo stuff, but the grouping in this game is horrible if you have to start moving around the maps via waypoints and that is something that should never have been a problem in the first place, unless, grouping was a complete after thought. Heck at least in GW1, your group was all in the same insance when you went into one. How could they have screwed that up so badly now?
Anyways, its a fun game and I am enjoying it, even with all the problems they are having.
No? I'm not talking about the product staying online, the original fucking Everquest is still online. I'm talking about retaining interest and providing longevity, long term goals to work toward or some hint that this isn't as shallow as the mechanics read on paper. What is there for MMO players who aren't just looking for "fun"?
What are you looking for in a video game if not "fun"? If you mean a pointless gear grind, there are games with that, and games on the horizon with that. Is it logical to inherently doubt the success of something because it's different? I don't know, seems like foggy crystal ballin' to me.
The doubt doesn't stem from the product being different, but rather too much of the same. Also, I play single player games for fun. I play lobby based multiplayer games, or FPS's with friends, if I want to have fun. Fun is fleeting, and it doesn't last. The reason I play MMO's is for the competitive nature of the environment, and knowing that I have something to attain for a long period of time. That doesn't necessarily distill strictly into a gear grind, but could come in the form of territorial control, politics or the economy, and countless other mechanics I'm sure exist but I'm not imaginative enough to come up with. PvE and realm vs. realm simply isn't enough for me, which is why I originally asked the question: where's the longevity, and what mechanics specifically from GW2 do you think gives the product a chance to stay relevant?
All that stuff you play MMOs for could very well develop over time, in fact I'm 100% certain it will on many servers. For a server to rank well on the WvW tables, it needs an organised and effective WvWing community which is where all that other stuff comes in. It could be like DAOC became, where the mechanics of RvR were almost secondary to the planning and organisation that went on behind it.
Or it might not, it's hard to say at them moment with GW2 only being a couple of weeks old and most of us are still figuring out the basics. Give it a few months and the dynamics will change. One thing though, it's never going to be a personal or guild competition like most other MMOs, all that is to be inter-server - at least for the successful WvW servers anyway.
Originally posted by Jeff7477 You are going to be quite disappointed.
Been playing GW2 since BWE1...still waiting for that disappointment to hit. My guess is that I will realize how disappointed I am after I play the game for 3 years.
LOL RIGHT?! same here. Everyone's like (just wait) well i've been playing for over a week. still no disappointment hmmm. Maybe we should stop listening to these haters who don't play the game or have never bought the thing or will never buy it or play it. That might give us some peace of mind.
Originally posted by MrReality Glad you like it OP but it is just a little over a week old. Jumping the gun much ?
Yes and no. It's more than enough time to see that it's a much better game (IMHO) than a lot of other recent MMOs. AoC? WAR? Aion? Rift? Tera? TOR? TSW? No contest, even if it doesn't last. I hope it turns out to have some longevity too.. but even if it doesn't, it's still way ahead of the competition.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Originally posted by MrReality Glad you like it OP but it is just a little over a week old. Jumping the gun much ?
Yes and no. It's more than enough time to see that it's a much better game (IMHO) than a lot of other recent MMOs. AoC? WAR? Aion? Rift? Tera? TOR? TSW? No contest, even if it doesn't last. I hope it turns out to have some longevity too.. but even if it doesn't, it's still way ahead of the competition.
Well I just agree with GW2 so much. I can find things I agree with everywhere. The things that I disagree with are few and spaced out. For me in the games that you listed it wasn't like that.
Dark Age of Camelot releases some time in 2001. Awareness to the existence of MMORPGs for the first time is formed. Immediately fallen in love.
Dark Age of Camelot releases Trials of Atlantis in 2003. Game turns into a raid-a-holic atmosphere. Faith in MMORPGs begins to diminish. Quit playing.
World of Warcraft releases in 2004. Hopes begin to rise. Hits 60 and realizes the game is about an end game gear grind. Quit playing except for new expansions.
Faith in MMORPGs dies in 2005.
Many MMOs come out using the same gear grind systems between 2004 and now.
Arenanet says they will make an MMORPG that fixes common MMORPG problems with Guild Wars 2.Guild Wars 2 releases. Faith in MMORPGs (and humanity) is restored.
Originally posted by Creslin321 Originally posted by Jeff7477 You are going to be quite disappointed.
Been playing GW2 since BWE1...still waiting for that disappointment to hit. My guess is that I will realize how disappointed I am after I play the game for 3 years.
LOL RIGHT?! same here. Everyone's like (just wait) well i've been playing for over a week. still no disappointment hmmm. Maybe we should stop listening to these haters who don't play the game or have never bought the thing or will never buy it or play it. That might give us some peace of mind.
Don't forget that if you get GW2-ed out, you'll have to keep playing, or you'll waste money because of monthly subscription fees!
Dark Age of Camelot releases some time in 2001. Awareness to the existence of MMORPGs for the first time is formed. Immediately fallen in love.
Dark Age of Camelot releases Trials of Atlantis in 2003. Game turns into a raid-a-holic atmosphere. Faith in MMORPGs begins to diminish. Quit playing.
World of Warcraft releases in 2004. Hopes begin to rise. Hits 60 and realizes the game is about an end game gear grind. Quit playing except for new expansions.
Faith in MMORPGs dies in 2005.
Many MMOs come out using the same gear grind systems between 2004 and now.
Arenanet says they will make an MMORPG that fixes common MMORPG problems with Guild Wars 2.Guild Wars 2 releases. Faith in MMORPGs (and humanity) is restored.
You make note of a single problem - raiding/gear grind. You suggest that GW2 fixes this. Hrmmmm, well....
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Dark Age of Camelot releases some time in 2001. Awareness to the existence of MMORPGs for the first time is formed. Immediately fallen in love.
Dark Age of Camelot releases Trials of Atlantis in 2003. Game turns into a raid-a-holic atmosphere. Faith in MMORPGs begins to diminish. Quit playing.
World of Warcraft releases in 2004. Hopes begin to rise. Hits 60 and realizes the game is about an end game gear grind. Quit playing except for new expansions.
Faith in MMORPGs dies in 2005.
Many MMOs come out using the same gear grind systems between 2004 and now.
Arenanet says they will make an MMORPG that fixes common MMORPG problems with Guild Wars 2.Guild Wars 2 releases. Faith in MMORPGs (and humanity) is restored.
Dam, 2005. That's crazy. I've been playing a lot of MMOs since then and ended up quitting a lot. Some good MMOs were RuneScape, Final Fantasy XI Online, and that's it. So yeah Guild Wars 2 will be my first MMO that I'll be playing for longer than 6 months. SW:TOR was my first in a long time that I hit the 6 month mark and plan to go back to it.
Comments
Good to see this post. EQ1 was my first mmo as well and lots of disappoints after that. Looking forward to checking out GW2. Thanks!
Or you are for not playing!
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Well of course you're entitled to your opinion but I think that's too restrictive a definition of MMORPG, especially nowadays when you have a lot more complex world-building going on with higher graphics requirements. It's easy to have a single unified world in a text game, but not so easy to have a single unified world when everything actually has to be designed, rendered, and work over the internet to co-ordinate everyone. Look at the problems Vanguard had with that, and on the highest technology game engine at the time. Also nowadays there's an expectation that there will be some at least some solo content where you're the hero of your own story set in a larger world.
I think it's enough for an MMORPG to have a persistent world. That can bear some instancing. Of course there's a fuzzy area when you get to games like DDO, GW1 and CoH (although of the three CoH does have more of a persistent world feeling despite the instancing, since the instancing is only in missions, the rest of the world is proper big zones). And some multiplayer games are definitely on the other side of that (i.e. where the persistent world is totally vestigial and just a lobby for multiplayer instances).
But at the end of the day, all games can do is give you an illusion of a persistent world (even big zones are really just big multiplayer instances), and so long as that illusion is of a persistent world where many people interact, then it's an MMORPG. It doesn't really matter how they handle it technically IMHO. For example EVE feels like a single unified world, but its dirty little secret is that it's actually probably the most heavily instanced MMORPG of them all
Actually all that's in the same single virtual space is the chat system, the rest is just a very clever illusion of vast space. But you can't pull off the same kind of trick when a huge zone of earth, mountains, trees, etc., all have to be rendered and realized for a bunch of players to be in together.
Having said that, I think the way DEs are handled is very much like the definition you're working with - after all, there's not really much functional difference between an open dungeon in Vanguard and a DE really, is there? Except DEs are more dynamic (not like a cave that just sits there with set content) and there's no kill stealing
I agree and dont mind "some" instancing but gw2 is not just some instancing, its a whole bunch of instances within instances just like DDO is, they just did a little better job of it then DDO did it. Oh and as for COH, the entire world is instanced, you just dont see it happen much anymore with the lower population. Every outdoor area was a zone and a new instance would pop up when a certain number of people entered the area. I also wouldn't call EVE instanced as there is never more than 1 instance of a given area, but you are right in that if nobody is in an area, that area doesn't exist until someone gates into it but that is about as invisible as you can get to the players.
As for just "having a persistent world" is enough to say its an mmo is being way to easy on the developers. If that was the case, the world I ran in Never Winter Nights would have been considered an mmo as the world was persistent and it was far from an mmo. It was fun, but not really an MMO. I am being more harsh on the developers. Games don't have to have 10 million people playing to make good money, EVE is a good example of that. Do I think GW2 is a good game? Yes I do! They could have made it much better if they had done some things better. I just can't call it an MMORPG with the way they have done this overflow system and the lack of better grouping mechanics. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of solo stuff, but the grouping in this game is horrible if you have to start moving around the maps via waypoints and that is something that should never have been a problem in the first place, unless, grouping was a complete after thought. Heck at least in GW1, your group was all in the same insance when you went into one. How could they have screwed that up so badly now?
Anyways, its a fun game and I am enjoying it, even with all the problems they are having.
All that stuff you play MMOs for could very well develop over time, in fact I'm 100% certain it will on many servers. For a server to rank well on the WvW tables, it needs an organised and effective WvWing community which is where all that other stuff comes in. It could be like DAOC became, where the mechanics of RvR were almost secondary to the planning and organisation that went on behind it.
Or it might not, it's hard to say at them moment with GW2 only being a couple of weeks old and most of us are still figuring out the basics. Give it a few months and the dynamics will change. One thing though, it's never going to be a personal or guild competition like most other MMOs, all that is to be inter-server - at least for the successful WvW servers anyway.
LOL RIGHT?! same here. Everyone's like (just wait) well i've been playing for over a week. still no disappointment hmmm. Maybe we should stop listening to these haters who don't play the game or have never bought the thing or will never buy it or play it. That might give us some peace of mind.
Yes and no. It's more than enough time to see that it's a much better game (IMHO) than a lot of other recent MMOs. AoC? WAR? Aion? Rift? Tera? TOR? TSW? No contest, even if it doesn't last. I hope it turns out to have some longevity too.. but even if it doesn't, it's still way ahead of the competition.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Yes and no. It's more than enough time to see that it's a much better game (IMHO) than a lot of other recent MMOs. AoC? WAR? Aion? Rift? Tera? TOR? TSW? No contest, even if it doesn't last. I hope it turns out to have some longevity too.. but even if it doesn't, it's still way ahead of the competition.
Well I just agree with GW2 so much. I can find things I agree with everywhere. The things that I disagree with are few and spaced out. For me in the games that you listed it wasn't like that.
Ah, the honeymoon phase.
Been playing GW2 since BWE1...still waiting for that disappointment to hit. My guess is that I will realize how disappointed I am after I play the game for 3 years.
LOL RIGHT?! same here. Everyone's like (just wait) well i've been playing for over a week. still no disappointment hmmm. Maybe we should stop listening to these haters who don't play the game or have never bought the thing or will never buy it or play it. That might give us some peace of mind.
Don't forget that if you get GW2-ed out, you'll have to keep playing, or you'll waste money because of monthly subscription fees!
You make note of a single problem - raiding/gear grind. You suggest that GW2 fixes this. Hrmmmm, well....
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Dam, 2005. That's crazy. I've been playing a lot of MMOs since then and ended up quitting a lot. Some good MMOs were RuneScape, Final Fantasy XI Online, and that's it. So yeah Guild Wars 2 will be my first MMO that I'll be playing for longer than 6 months. SW:TOR was my first in a long time that I hit the 6 month mark and plan to go back to it.