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Lost, and dont know whats next.
cybertrucker
Member UncommonPosts: 1,117
I have to say I think I am lost on what to do about this hobby I have had since the Beta of EQ1. The last few years have been a bit patchy for me in my playing. RL taking alot of time, and just overall just finding more and more about games that annoy me.
Static stupid mobs, that stand there picking their butts while you fight one of their comrades just a few feet a way. Maps that group mobs together that never roam more than a few feet. Undynamic, dynamic lighting that doesnt understand simple things like that dungeons and night time are actually supposed to be dark. Multiplayer gameplay designed more for people to solo than to actually play as a team. Automated features that discourage people to actually do so much as say hello.
Sure the gameworlds look great, but then again so do solo player games. I do not feel I have made a friend in an MMO since Aion.. Yes as bad as many people might have felt that game was. It did actually promote grouping. Even with joining guilds. Most of the members are silent and hardly talk to each other, instead they go about their business soloing their way thru the game, or maybe running with 1 or 2 of their close friends. Yes occasionally you get a group going with them, well sometimes.
What has happened to MMOs? They feel like that PIXAR animation Wall E.. Where everyone has everything done for them so they just dont care anymore. Obvlivious to the fact that there are other people around them in these virtual worlds.
The last game I have been playing is Guild Wars 2. Dont get me wrong I have enjoyed it somewhat. I have played it casually. Gameplay wise I will say its one of the better ones I have played. But even it is missing that magic that kept me to games like EQ1, WOW, hell even Vanguard. Its missing the social interaction. That special something that wants to make you meet new people and explore and adventure with others. Where PUGs were common and people actually enjoyed them (ok WOW that might not have been the case).
Right now I am debating what to do.. Has anyone else felt like this about MMOs lately? I am thinking of going back to TERA.. I did not play it that long when it came out due to RL issues that arose. By the time I had a chance game again. Everyone was all about GW2. However I do remember TERAs dungeons being fun and fairly sociable in my limited time there.
What to do? What to do... I am feeling that unless something changes and moves backwards in this industry, that I may soon give up this hobby. I guess I want the MMO back in my RPG.
I think a better acronym for todays games would be MMOSPG Massive Multiuser Online Single Player Game.
Comments
If you don't like it anymore, do something else. MMORPG is not the only entertainment, not even the only gaming genre.
Read novels. Watch movies. Play PC games .. the list is endless.
Everquests "social activity" was from sitting in one spot and killing the same exact creature over and over again so i dunno wtf people have so much nostalgia for it.
If you want a glorified chat room there is Eve or Second Life.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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Difference is, in EQ you always had tons of different things to do, and you could go camp something else. In todays MMO's you have 1 thing to do, and that is to reach the end, and then repeat the same god damned raid over and over again until they either release different difficulty levels of that same damn raid, or they release another stupid damn raid that you can repeat OVER AND OVER AND OVER. You are getting less content no matter how you look at it. I'd rather have tons of different things to camp then 1-5 raids to repeat over and over and over.
Then again, I was more of UO player and I did whatever the heck I wanted.
Camp is a camp is a camp. Every friggin' one is the same. You're basically doing just one thing. I got bored within the first 2 hours:
"So these are MMORPGs, huh? Well this is shit!" and went back to playing PnP and SRPGs. Yeah, you're a proper adventurer spawncamping those mobs...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Yes, but there were still other things to do. Now a days you can't even explore.
Furthermore, my example was using EQ only. Other games didn't concentrate on camping like EQ did. Also, many movies are the same old stories but changed some, yet people still find entertainment. You can watch Pocahontas, then watch another version of it called Avatar and still come out feeling like you watched something different. Where as in todays games NOTHING changes. Some variation is better than none at all.
Now lets talk games like UO
You never had to camp in that game unless you wanted to. Or you could go be a lumberjack, a miner, a theif, a healer, a ghost whisperer, an alchemist, a mage, a tamer, a woodworker, a fisherman, an explorer, a tracker, a warrior, a defender of the realm, a treasure hunter, a house broker, a trader, a salesman, a seamstress, you could literally role play robin hood if you wanted. And you know what? Out of all I listed, there is still more. Such as a blacksmith or chef. My god... I need to stop myself. New games suck.
I never said anything about mob camping vs dungeon grinding. Actually Aion had a good mix of both, and it worked.. Vanguard the same A good bit of both.
The dungeons these days people run thru and then instant drop from their groups. Sometimes you might get a group that wants to run it multiple times. However.. with all the automated group filing UI.. alot of groups dont even talk. No hello, no good bye...
GW2 the plot for going to a dungeon is actually pretty neat. Each dungeon has stories associated with it. The mobs are a bit crazy...
I dont know the games are just so ME ME ME oriented these days. Soloing is king.
I will continue to look. Maybe even go back to one that offered more of what i liked. I am still Torn with GW2.. Alot of it I do like. The community in game is one of the most silent I have seen.
No suggestions on what to do next. But I'll wish you good-luck in whatever direction you take.
If you want community in GW2 go to the WvW area. There is a lot I can complain about GW2 but that is one of the bright spots, be on a server with server wide mumble/teamspeak. And I do like how GW2 makes you not fight over mobs or nodes.
Now on to the topic in general. I to enjoyed EQ1, but I would have to say in all my years of MMO's I have never maid friends from forced gouping. I really don't think that fosters a community, its more like ok we have to do this lets group up and get this overwith as quickly as possible. At least in my experience.
However, I have made a lot of friends over the years in gaming in open world. I would say yes modern games need to foster community more. Some things that I think help foster community is a need for others to do things, like in EQ, the body retreval or team/server pvp or very difficult mobs/events/dungeons. Speaking of which where the hell did open world dungeons go? Those were great for that, say blackburrow or in AO Temple of the winds. But by far the most active/engaged communities were the ones that ironically choose to kill eachother (aka pvp) from my experience, and this is coming from not a huge pvp fan.
On a side not, I think in the real world people have become more isolated in general and less open/social and some of that is just being reflected in the games. They may have friends but usually only interact with 'their' friends. Again just my opinion.
i never said anything sucked, just that i like massive multiplayer games, just looking for a new breakthrough in mechanics and style for one basically.
in any current mmo i play, i always give a group invite out for non tag sharing games, Gw2, and stuff like that. i like chatting and meeting people just as much as killing a raid boss and getting epic loot. the only reason i even log into gw2 is Wvw and the couple of the i know there that refuse to see the game is a bit shallow. all in all though i think people in mmo's need to just act normal and not so trolly? if that can be a new word for it.
I still have hope that one day we will find a good multiplayer game with a good community of people that actually dont hate on each other but congratulate each other. i mean thats why i like tri faction type games" daoc" and what not because you can get camaraderie with each other in hating on other factions. i honestly think communities need the tweeking not so much some of the games.
Like if Mal'Ganis, my WoW server for 6 years, could have had a better community at the upper levels of a raid progression , instead of being total douchers then maybe id still be happy there, although, i am not a huge fan of the treadmill anymore.
I also said myself that the gameplay can be fun. I have enjoyed some aspects of several games. However why single player minded people are dominating the MMO scene baffles me.
Also while newer games keep getting shinier in graphics, and UIs keep getting more streamlined and automated, the games themselves are losing more and more depth.
I am looking at Archeage currently and waiting to hear more news on Everquest Next. I will probably keep toying around in GW2 or maybe TERA.
I agree. It was boring and there is little challenging. Sure, you can go to another camp .. but waiting is waiting. Staring at a different cave does not help.
I want shadowbane to relaunch.. massive open world pvp with extreme character customization. Get bored, go massacre a group of low levels or go get some people together to try to grab a rune when it spawns.
I wish FFXIV was more like FFXI.. would have a game to play currently =/