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[Column] General: An Open Letter to the Game Industry
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The ongoing conversation among MMO gamers is whether or not their favorite titles have become to "dumbed down" and casual. In an open letter to the gaming industry, we vent on the issues that vex us the most in an attempt to make our voices heard. Read on and then add anything we missed in the comments.
I hope this letter finds you well. I’m not so happy, myself. In fact, I’m downright unhappy; that is to say, vexed, cheesed and more than a little miffed. With you.
Now, we go back a long time, you and I. From those heady early days of Pong, when one could find joy in the movements of rectangles and squares across the TV screen, through text-based adventures, quarter-sucking arcade games and beyond. Today our romance continues through the many-splendored landscape of many an MMO. We’ve had a good ride.
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Fair Game: An Open Letter to the Game Industry.
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Why for you no heal us in last raid?
Comments
OP - in other words - return to the beginning days of MMOs where you had to search all day to find a quest, grind for hour after hour after hour to get resources, spam chat ad nauseum to find a group and make playing much harder. Cheer up, you are getting your wish as I read more and more MMO developers are turning towards exactly what you are suggesting.
Ever since WOW was released it has been a battle between hard core and casual. Casual won out and now the worm is turning. The cost - casuals will start leaving MMOs. The hard core will sing praises in triumph until the game companies start closing MMOs because they are not making enough money. There was a reason why there were so few MMOs before WOW. I hope, for the hard core sake, that the remaining games will be everything that they expect.
a game filled with naked, giggling nymphs who engage in jiggly pillow fights at every level gain, and set it in the magical land of Boobitopia
I'm sorry but where can I download this?
otherwise, I pretty much agree with most of your article. I don't mind added levels though, never have as I (for some reason) enjoy leveling.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well written, and I mostly agree. I don't think adding levels is an issue though, especially if I'm attached to a character. However, it's hard to get attached to a character these days when thinking of the issues you have addressed. I have found almost no games of late that I feel immersed, feel a part of the game landscape and feel like it mattered if my character was there or not.
DCB
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
Well written, extra thanks for the offline leveling part, I'm bashing that concept since AoC introduced the "start at 50" and "offline levels every 4 days" options years ago... (back in the subscription era, before they went f2p)
Too bad the industry won't read it, and what's even worse, I'm not convinced it's not a justified decision if they want their developement money back... I mean no wonder you can see "dumbification" in every genre, and with a massive praise I might add (just look at Last of us, the whole gaming press is in awe - for an interactive movie with a few QTE's...), so probably it's not a coincidence, maybe a big part of the playerbase IS really that dumb.
I was in Neverwinter a lot (good test subject, it's a new game, action game, and free) during the beta-closing event, it was hilarious / shocking a lot of times... I mean, there are threads here about how wikis, guides and other webpages ruined our good old gaming experience - well, turned out many players don't read even those pages. Heck, they don't read what's the game telling and showing them
and Neverwinter does a really good work with hand-helding, the game could be a perfect example for your 3rd paragraph (3. Back away with the training wheels and no one gets hurt. ), so if players have problems in there, then the situation is really really bad.
I'm not sure there's a solution. Companies should go after big numbers, and veteran players became the minority during the years. If the new players want quick and easy fun, the industry will give them, whether we like it or not. Not a bright future I guess...
Well for starters scientists have done studies which have shown that the human race is in fact getting less intelligent as the years march on. So in a sense society has, and will continue to, become increasingly moronic. Unfortunately that is the truth.
The other part to #1 doesn't even have to do with intelligence. It is that so many gamers have become so lazy. If you release an MMO that doesn't put marks over NPCs heads (or on the map) and doesn't tell players exactly where to go for the quest, generally now by showing it on the map, as well as make the goal item or mob glow so as to know exactly which thing to interact with at the area it directed you to.... they would fail. That is right, the game would fail. The companies are held hostage in making games lazy and stupid because they will lose money if they don't. Your letter should be to the current gamers, not the companies. Companies react to the markets. Consumers drive the markets.
Seems legit..
/signed
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
While I sadly agree (and researches agree as well), there was a great german movie toying with the idea of the opposite (Free Rainer - Dein Fernseher lügt).
In it a guy gathered a team and start to manipulate the tv ratings to favor good movies, lectures, and pulling down reality shows, crap talk shows, etc. Sadly it's only fiction and wouldn't work in reality
Just put it here because usually there are opinions that if companies would make better games (as in harder, more thoughtful, more challenging ones), the playerbase would follow. Well, not. They would simply jump onto an easier one which they like. Consumers dictate, especially on a heavily cramped market like mmo's.
I think it is called Scarlet Blade or something. Everyone is a female in skimpy outfits.
Your icon only does one slash and yet an X appears. It has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation, I just thought I'd throw that out there as it distracted me enough to want to post about it.
@OP - I mostly agree with you. I enjoy the exploration that older games. I enjoyed the wonder of finding new lands and not knowing every detail ahead of time. It was nice not having everything spelled out.
The current generation has refined some things however. Namely, developing grouping tools, make character development clearer, and providing a wider variety of content.
There are so many interconnected problems, that it's hard to identify the source of MMORPGs' cultural decline. As you mentioned, the breadcrumb trails and fedex quests are indicative of an impatient culture. Yet, companies keep rewarding it.
It's so odd that you mentioned LoTRO. They are precisiely what's wrong with the genre. It was a great game that's become a nickel-and-diming fest. It's a combination of what's wrong with the old school games - convoluted systems, grindy progression, and what's wrong with the new - paying to advance or have fun.
MMORPGs are turning into casinos. Character development is nill. And we keep paying money for the decline of a genre with great potential.
I am both laughing and crying here. I especially enjoyed the 3 Stooges pic and caption
A great article that I find myself nodding my head more and more the further I read.
Add my sig to the bottom of the letter
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Point 4 really should be about everything not just that one issue you all seem to be so hung up about here. If it's not an open world don't call it an open world. If it's not about pvp don't make it seem like it is.
Trying to fool people into trying a game by making it look like something it's not is only going to give your game more very vocal haters. Focus on what your game is and sell it on that.
And about too easy. I can't really say I hate map markers for quests. If they're going to have boring volume quests I don't want to go find them all. If they had a few quality ones that took time that would be different. but...the games are too damn easy. If I can solo form 0 to max lvl and never go below 50% health your game was built for a retard. So don't be surprised when that's all you end up with as a player base.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
yes. more option and choices is always better. seriously if you dont like a feature dont use it. why punish or deny everyone else because you have no self control
Terra has all of those features. Well, the AI is pretty weak, but improving quickly, give it a few years. Ok if we just stick with the fauna for now?
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.
That is always an extremely wrong way of trying to argue for features.
Players are not going to put themselves at a handicap or detriment when compared to other players. For a lot of MMO gamers there is a level of competing with your fellow player. You will never enforce a harsh death penalty on yourself (deleting items or even rerolling upon death) if others don't have to do it because you will always be far behind them.
Self control has absolutely nothing to do with it at all. Players want an even playing field with other players. It is just that they'd like to see an MMO here or there that has that even playing field including tougher death penalties and no hand holding. In a single player game that kind of stuff happens all the time. A gamer puts harsher penalties on themselves to make the game more interesting. But in an MMO it is rare because it fundamentally doesn't make any sense due to having a world filled with other gamers who can prosper by not using those same self enforced limitations.
As I said before, it won't happen from a major publisher because players have already dictated the market. They went easy as all hell, fully guided, no thought involved games. An indie developer here and there will occasionally try to put out an MMO that is a lot harsher and involves using your brain, but it will always be niche this day and age just like movies that involve any level of intellect.
I'm sorry that's just a cop out and you know it. you have a choice to use these features and saying you can't not use them because other choose to is just silly and shows a complete lack of self responsibility and maturity.