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MMO'ers are spoiled these days.
Lurv
Member UncommonPosts: 409
In ther early days of games like Guild Wars, WoW, SWG, FFXI, we embraced our MMO's. We understood the flaws here and there but we still played. We appreciated it. These days almost every MMO gets bashed. It'll be the talk of the threads. Then a month or two later the game dies. Is it the companies fault? Sure.....but not entirely. They say that the devs don't listen. Well the community isn't exactly proactive enough to convey the things they don't like about a game. Why did the golden age of MMO's do so well with like WoW for instance? Well we didn't have a vast variety of games like we do now. We embraced what we did have and enjoyed it. But now standards are set and not ONE MMO has lasted AND stood out for a long duration. Many are still around, but the communities for a good amount of them are decreasing or already dead. Sure we all have our own ideas on this and that, but in the end the market doesn't exactly KNOW what players want. They don't exactly sit there and spend their time reading in these forums and others. I like Tera. It has a few things I would like fixed here and there but overall I'm staying for the long haul. But players are decreasing. The community is less active. It's like music these days. People will embrace or rather become infatuated with new artists and the a month or two later they move on to the next new thing. The same with MMO's. I guarantee that the newest most hyped game in development that everyone is talking about is having a lot of people in this mindset of "This game is going to be a WoW killer." "Awe man this one beats all the others blah blah blah." ANd then the $@^% game is nothing more than $20 boxes sitting on the shelf at Gamestop collecting dust. WoW still has a decently active community. But players support the game not just monetarily but voicing their opinions as well. And everyone else should too when it comes to the games they pay money for. Be active. Go to the company sites and provide input. If 100,000 of a game's playerbase has ideas and they all take the time like 5 mins on the internet to provide feedback, most likely they'll be more open to resolve issues and know what the players want. If this offends anyone or people disagree with any of this then oh well. I tend to call it like I see it. So please stop killing games just because you either didn't like it off the bat or you didn't see enough changes in direction because you chose not to be part of an active community.
Getting too old for this $&17!
Comments
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
2005 is rarely considered 'early days' in these parts. Just, you know, bound to come up.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Um, I embraced SWG and only SWG in that group you listed. Not even sure why you placed SWG in that group because it was NOTHING like the others.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Er... Guild Wars 1 wasn't an MMO. And I bashed the hell out of WoW when it launched because it was just a dumbed down worse version of EverQuest. I also bashed FF11 a little bit for its wonky controls and SWG for its horribly laggy launch and GOD AWFUL Jedi system.
It's not a new thing. It's just modern MMOs have so much more to complain about than MMos of the past. You couldn't play something like SWG or DAoC and say "Man this game is just a clone" because MMos were unique back then.
Now? Not so much.
Our expectations are high because we know they can do better but they're not trying.
I blame the division between creator and producer. It is seen in everything. Doctors don't do as good as they would if they were not being bossed around by the hospital management; yet doctors cannot afford to open a private business because they need "the man's" money. Game makers would probably create awesome games if given free range and endless time tables; but that is just not practical nor does it turn a buck. There has to be "the man" investing in the game's launch, seeing it has servers, demanding timely updates, and NOT letting the creators have free reign and endless time tables.
What hurts me most is when I see a beautiful fantasy world created only to get scrapped because they forgot a few minor points necessary to compete. GAWD, DOESN'T ANYONE REALIZE GAMES ARE WORKS OF ART?!?! I have played a few dozen that are now shut down forever and I feel sad that work went to waste. It's not like they can be placed in a museum somewhere.
So we bitch and complain as stress release. And wish enough someones would agree so word will make it's travel back to "the man's" ear. He can then say to creators, "The people will pay for this, do it this way." No one voice is going to get this done. It will be the sum of all our voices eventually reaching higher ups. In the mean time we argue what idea would stand out as most important if we could bend "the man's" ear to hear it.
That is where you get the idea we are fighting but it's more like productive arguing. Yeah, there's some poo flinging, but it's just healthy sibling rivalry. Nothing to worry about.
I don't know about other MMOS but in case of GW2 it is more apparent because Anet painted themselves on back after making that famous 'manifesto' video. So yeah expectations were high and now when people realised that everything is not what it seems they are upset.
GW2 has lots of problems and shortcomings. it is not about being spoiled it is about being naive enough to take too much confidence into marketing PR of the companies.
This^^^
No game even comes close to what SWG had and so many like these horrible games that i do not consider true mmo's.
But spoiled? No, just tired of piss poor excuses of mmo's being released.
Sums up my feelings perfectly. When I first started playing MMORPG's I had hoped/expected them to evolve in an entirely different direction than what actually ended up happening.
So I'm not spoiled, just bitter over the lost opportunities that this genre could have explored and the entertainment possibilities lost.
These games (and I mean that in every since of the world) are just not the virtual world experience I had hoped for (think Caprica) so I'm come across as a cranky old cynic. (which I most certainly am)
The good news is that all is not lost, through all of it I still find enjoyment in a title such as EVE and it will keep me largely content for the foreseeable future.
Oh yeah, one final thing, prior to 2006 I used to bitch over on official forums, so this is nothing really new for me, I just prefer the greater freedom this site offers.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Ummmm...They can be rather communist on here sometimes...has gotten a lot more strict than in the early days...but it is better than most official forums and such..
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Getting too old for this $&17!
i'd say it's a lot about being spoiled.. you can't have a single one time event without pissing off a ton of people you can't have unique content without pissing off a ton of people you can't make anything without making it accessable to most people without seeing a hundred whine threads all over the forum... just imagine how much bitching would go on if a dragon in GW2 took over divinities reach and tore a section out of it during an epic one time battle.. imagine the outrage on the forums the next day when people found they missed it...
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
"In the early days of games like Guild Wars, WoW.." I stopped reading there. I was spoiled by Dark Age of Camelot. She had three factions, each a different leveling and end game experience, and has 44 classes and 24 races...with at least 30 classes and 18 races at launch (which was deemed a perfect launch, btw, by IGN). This was November of 2001.
This is the game that spoiled me because today we just have 5 same same races, with no concept of separation between anything - it's just one salad bowl, tossed around for good measure. In Dark Age it was truly an us vs THEM vs THEM experience - you actually fought (and here's something you might not understand)...you fought people who had different races and classes than you.
Try to find this sort of title in today's market and you'll have to wait for Elder Scrolls Online - no one yet has come close to this much in depth detail and imagination.
There seems to be a large contingent (myself included) of MMO players who are highly dissatisfied with most games that have come out lately. Those of us who are the most displeased tend to vent displeasure in/on forums such as this one. There is one thing, though... there are also lots of players who are perfectly happy with the games that are out.
They don't say anything on forums such as these because they're happliy MMOing away in their chosen universe.
All of this dissatisfaction and displeasure is relative. Out of the 1,916,000ish members on MMORPG.com, how many post on a regular basis? And of those, how many post about the horrid state of the games coming out today? Compared to the overall number of members here, not many.
Yes, to me, most games that have come out in the past few years have been duds. But my duds are someone elses, um, un-duds.
Mmorpg's are not designed with what I prefer. It does not make diffrence if there are 10 mmorpg's that are not of design I like or if there are 1000 of them.
^ this... truth is even though many want(including me) a nice sandbox hyrid and more comminity oriented game MANY enjoy the types of MMOs that are released now.. like it or not that is the reality of things...
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I believe the industry (most of it, rather) assumes we are too undereducated or too juiced up on god knows what in our mom's basements that we no longer need in depth mmorpgs with vibrant, intelligent and supportive communities.
If a game is designed well it will endure through the years. Sadly, many games are not designed well.
Also, I think there is a fundamental flaw that occurs even before many games begin, and that is mmos are being designed with gameplay in mind, as opposed to escapism. Games in general tend to have a short lifespan unless they resonate with the fans, and even then newer iterations come out every year or so to replace those games. Therefore, modern mmos are really not designed to last beyond a year or so.
In contrast, mmos with escapism as a central focus, ie virtual world or sandbox, encourages gameplay by utilizing a more organic design theory that encourages participation more than the sum of it's parts. Games like UO, DAOC, SWG, and Eve Online are much deeper and richer experience because it taps into something more intriguing than a simple game ever could.
WOW I think resonated for a different reason. It became the exception to the rule, but so successful a lot of people in the gaming industry thought it was 'the rule'. And because of that we've seen a lot of emulation in one direction when we should have been going in another direction...at least some of the time. Half assed attempts at sandboxes don't count, because as a concept it is like a house of cards and if it's implemented without care or deep thought it comes crashing down.
So I would not blame the players. But I think the designers and developers are to blame, catering to the gamer market instead of the escapist market.
Actually there where Eq, Uo, Ac and DAoc way before that...
Compared to the slang they threw at mmo fans a few years ago(aoc, war, and such) last 2 years releases where quite good, i enjoyed a 1 time play through in Dcuo, Rift, swtor and Tsw... And Gw2 is just huge and here to stay.
Problem is people expecting real virtuall worlds, where the current mmos are nothing more but games
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Let me correct some things for you. At no time has Blizz under the direction of Ghostcrawler ever listened to the players needs. (except this one time when they lost 2 mil subs all at once, and then they appealed to the RPer's with transmog suddenly after 6 years of requests) that's number 1
number 2 games where the community is listened to and the game adjusted have survived just fine. (Rift)
number 3 games with subs are the only ones dying off left and right. And it's only due to the WoW clone-esc genre techniques and the required monthly fee to play. THAT'S ALL. none of this people don't request improvements mess....
most successful launches are met with ignored posts by devs because they let their success go to their heads, so our requests go unheeded
I submitted improvements to every game i've played, in the ten years i've played mmo's none of them were put into a game. simple ui stuff. nothing gamebreaking.
LOL this is the first thing that popped into my head when I read the OP's opening statement.
GW, WoW, FFXI.... early day MMO's?
In my mind those titles actually started the shift and decline of the MMO genre.
UO, EQ, AC, DAoC those were early day MMOS. These games laid the groundwork for the above mentioned titles to come along and screw it all up.
Since we all know MMO's started with WoW... /eyeroll
First off, paragraphs are your friend bud. Please use them.
Secondly, I agree with the vast majority of what the OP said. Regardless of what a lot of people try and swear as truth on these forums, we most definitely had 'less' to work with during the 'golden age' of MMOs. Less games, less features, less players.
This didn't stop some of those games from being amazing, but it's also irresponsible of us, as players, to try and pretend like those games were flawless. Or that we stuck with them for as long as we did because the game was so much better built than everything else at launch.
Those days weren't like that at all. It was simply an environment of few games, even fewer expectations, and an attitude of 'lets see what this has to offer'. The atmosphere has done a complete 180 since. I firmly believe that if we had some of those original games release today, with a reskin, most players still wouldn't support them. They'd either hide behind the excuse of 'well, its just not the same', try and find some excuse to say that the reskin is somehow inferior, or just swear off MMOs altogether.
Many people are still having trouble understanding just how different the landscape of todays MMOs are. The market is saturated with games coming out every year. Heck, how many games did we get hyped about this passed year? TSW, GW2, TSO, PS2, Firefall, War Z, Dust, and I know I'm forgetting about at least a couple other ones. In the past we'd maybe have 2 good MMOs to look forward to in the near future.
Furthermore, most of the games we loved didn't have great starts. But we stuck with them. Furthermore we actively worked with the developers & GMs to provide feedback. Especially in games like SWG. Many of these games had huge bugs, minimal content, and horrible balance. But we didn't care back then. We were just happy to have a world to play in, and watch it grow into something truly impressive. Nowadays? We expect these same games to magically launch in a state closest to our top memories of these previous games. It's just not possible.