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New MMORPG's becoming falling stars?
THEchad88
Member Posts: 38
- A new MMO is set to release.
- Features are highlighted.
- The community gets excited, you get excited, the game releases, you buy it and play it.
- At first you are giddy and excited and enjoying your time in the game.
- A month or two goes by.
- Things become the norm. Things which bother you begin boiling to the surface and your interest starts to fade.
- Your shiny new mmo is now a slow falling star....
I'm am soooo frustrated by this newly realized process of emotional waxing / waning that I've felt toward all new mmo's within the past 2 years.
Does the community also feel these things?
Why aren't these new mmo crops holding our attention like the mmo's we love to reminisce about did?
What are they lacking to really hook us?
These are questions I'm sorely trying to get answers to as an individual gamer who loves mmo's and maybe if other gamers are feeling the same way we can reason this out as a community.
What do YOU think?
Comments
Sad part is that same MMOs are among longest and most expensive games to develop. Yet they burn and die in 2 months.
All due to fact that each new MMO is pretty much same as previous just with few new features and different graphic (some even copy same graphic)
MMO genre is pretty much dead until something really new doesnt come out.
Last time I did that was for Aion,in fact Aion was the last game i fell for the hype.On saying this it was my own fault because i bought it with little - no research and hated it within 5 hours.Now I research all games and never get that feeling you get for 1-2 months because I know the games are $*"$&8 so I have no need to buy them.
One way you can help is by not buying every piece of crap that gets released and eventually maybe the developers will make a game that lasts years instead of weeks?
I totally agree with researching. I've been doing this with all new MMO's as of late. A good example of this was a game called STATE OF DECAY. I was so hooked on lots it had to offer until I saw that it was only a single player game. I said WTF?! Thus my purchase was crossed off the list.
For the last two years? It seems like it's getting very close to ten years for me. Although that's not quite 100% true. I played an obscure Japanese MMORPG not so long ago (Uncharted Waters Online) that I ended up enjoying very much. I stuck with it for about a year, and would still be playing it today if I hadn't accidentally deleted my best "aide". And rage - at myself- quit.
But other than that, pffft. Nothing played over 2 or 3 months since Pre-Cu Star Wars Galaxies.
Prior to this most MMOS would start a bit slower, build up over a year or two, level off for a time and then slowly decline until the Devs decided to do some ill conceived design change to kill their game off.
It's the way they are all designed, too closely along the standard theme park model, inevitably being compared to WOW, and falling hopelessly short in most every case.
Until someone comes along and delivers a significantly different playing experience that players really like and encourages them to stick around, we are not likely to see this pattern change any time soon.
But then again, I am not sure the largest portion of the player market wants this to change, they seem to prefer games they can complete in a month or so, so they can move on to the next one.
"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
What are you on about? Darkfall, Mortal Online, Fallen Earth, Xsyon... There have been tons of games launched after WoW which weren't nowhere close to being themepark but failed still.
Games don't fail because of theme park design, they fail because they're bad games.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Makes me ponder how many times I've quit games over what was in essence a fairly trivial issue (not belittling your situation). I cannot remember all but I know my friends tease me about that. "You're going to play a game one month, maybe one week, and you'll quit over one thing," they say. I remember I stopped playing Neverwinter do to glitches / bugs. I don't have the patience to go back and see if they ever fixed them.
So pretty much I don't stay with games that do not fix their bugs fast enough or don't listen to their community on legitimate buggy issues (like crafting being out of wack). It feels to me a game is done, released, then a 2nd hand crew is hired to keep it running but not FIX it. That's a big turn off.
I think the issue is that an MMO is such a large entity it is very hard to get all the components together to make it suitable for a large audience, which will have diverse expectations and requirements, over a long period.
Vanilla MMOs concerned with levelling, treasure, resources, crafting, trading and possibly politics (and role-playing) probably almost need a "staff" of players in order to retain a wider audience.
That wider audience will probably be levelling and unless they are hooked during the time they reach max level or a number of other natural stopping points they probably won't stay. Essentially they need to be integrated into fabric of the game in that run through period, might might even be the "two months" period suggested by the OP.
As well as players there is also the game itself, from which unforeseen "emergent behavior" might arise as a result of unrelated design choices interacting with each other. The more creative side of this coin is whether the setting and mechanics of the game actually combine into a coherent whole.
Also there are issues connected with crowded markets, differing ways to make money from MMOs (which may or may not be intrusive to gameplay) and simply getting noticed by players.
I am not surprised that many games "fail" and this can apparently do odd things to devoted players of such failed games.
You answered it in your first sentence. "large audience" the decade long trend has been to unrealistically target wildly differing demographics and try to cram them all into the same game with incompletely built feature sets due to trying to do to much with to little over too limited a time frame.
My beef with most new MMOs is...too much focus on levelling content that people like me and my guildies blow through. We get to endgame and well...there's shit all to do. If I feel there's promise to the game, I still play a while, but usually expansions don't really deliver -> guildies quit, I quit, game over.
If devs would put half less effort in making levelling content and put it in to endgame, well, who knows. I for one would be happier. Let's take FF:ARR as latest example. You have dungeons like every 4-5 levels+guildhests. Then u hit 50...and what do you have, not much. 1 8man instance that u speedrun (Castrum), 1 4 man instance that's worth it (AK), Primals (need only do once, unless u really want the weapons), 1 8 man instance that you need dedicated 8 man group for if u want to progress.
And after you get your philosophy tokens for the gear (not hard if u play a bit more)...well, all you're left with is the 8-man Coil, and perhaps some runs of AK to cap weekly tokens. A joke of an endgame really.
Or SWTOR...the biggest disappointment ever. You had zillion million miles of areas. At 50...few instances, few raids, broken pvp, class imbalances, space combat that was a joke. That game could've been so much awsome with the sheer amount of money they had.
GW2...well, thankfully I'm into pvp, so that lasted me a while. If there was no SvSvS then it would be meh...went to instances, got geared in a week...what now...no awsome hard PVE, no real gear grind (except legendaries for the looks)...so PvE wise it kinda sucked.
Aion...if it wasn't for so much RNG I'd prolly still be playing it. But RNG and some other silly stuff made me quit after 2+ years of playing. Oh...and Gameforge...lol company. But again, if not for PvP, I wouldn't play nearly as long.
tldr: My beef is: too much levelling content, not enough interesting and varied stuff to do in endgame and lack of decent PvP.
witch re-inforces my argument that too many differing demographics keep getting targeted. I personally know dozens in real life (work, friends ect) who feel the exact opposite of you. Just like companies keep trying to combine pve content and pvp into the same game then either shutting down or saying F%^$& it and going to the 90/10 ratio default that you can limp along with.
Nothing is real until it exists.
To find fun you must be fun.
You being less experienced.
Koster's theory about what makes games fun: Learning something you did not know.
I think it's a theory that works; we've got a growing number of exceedingly jaded players, all attempting to recapture their past. Can't be done because of several factors==the biggest being "been there, done that".
The mechanics, the gameplay, the pretty graphics--you've seen all of them before, there's nothing new to learn.
Oh no, it can't be me, several million players cry out as one, creating a Disturbance in the Force.
Let's find Something Else To Blame (justification, humanity's defining ability).
It's Instances. It's PVE. It's Themepark. It's Lazy Devs. It's This New Generation. It's Lack of Community. It's eleventy thousand different things that bug me, or several, or all of them.
Could that spell "you're just done with MMOs" any more clearly?
Ennui appears to be an insufficient explanation. Even when it's most likely the simplest one. "I'm not burned out on this activity I've been doing non-stop for a decade plus, oh no."
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.
One small quibble: a person blaming an external force is more likely to tell the world about it than when they blame themselves. Reading forums gives a biased view of what's going through the average gamer's mind.
( and this also ends up punishing people who do have a nice balance view of internal and external factors in their unhappiness, causing them to get flamed indescriminately when they do bring up a grievence, making them less comfortable to come forward ... which then only amplifies the effect )
^That's it in a nutshell.
Plus the OP's list is hilarious:
Maybe you as a gamer personality has changed ?
As a child the simpliest things like a pencil could be the most entertaining thing on planet earth, because the pencil is a catakyzer for your imagination which evolves with age and is under changing effects every second or so, maybe...
*edit* wups, my forgoing poster has summed it all up
I disagree completely.
My beef is that it's too easy to level. That and most MMOs are solo games until you get to endgame content.
In my opinion it should take several months to hit the level cap. Along the way there needs to be content to do to keep people engaged.
EQ1 had many flaws that would never be acceptable in today's market, but with their game design, they fostered server community growth. A LOT of people knew each other on those servers. Reputation actually mattered. It was also nice to be able to hang out in a group for a couple hours and just kill mobs while you socialized.
see now when you talk about leveling content and the focus on it
just get rid of levels
Oh for certain, it's definitely me, I am totally burned out on standard theme parks that have be shoveled at us for the past 8 years or so.
But that's where I draw the line and Ralph and others are full of crap because they are basically saying there are no new playing experiences out there, which is just plain false.
I was coming off 2 years of WOW, followed by Vanguard/LOTRO and was pretty tired of this standard model and I decided to give EVE a try. Totally different game play experience, and I enjoyed it so much I played it on and off for over 4 years in paid sub time, for up to 4 accounts at a time.
Where is my DAOC2 clone (no GW2 isn't , nor was WAR), or my fantasy version of EVE? Or perhaps a well funded revival of UO, or AC1, or even Shadowbane?
If someone made MMO's like these I'm pretty sure I wouldn 't be tired of them at all, in fact, I've been playing a 2003 version of DAOC for the past 5 months, and still not bored of it, despite playing that game almost 3 years in the long distant past?
Yes, I know, it's too small of niche for developers to aim for, so we won't likely be seeing anything like what I want, but don't point at me and say it's my fault, it's not, create the game with the mechanics I want, and I'll play it. (and yes, I realize developers are under no obligation to cater to my tastes, but it does mean they won't be getting any part of my money)
Keep shoveling out subtle variants of standard theme park MMO's, and you are correct, I won't play them.
If I'm guilty of anything, it's not being willing to adapt and learn to enjoy modern MMOs as they are designed and presented today, and for that I make no apology.
It really isn't me, it's definitely them.
"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
Cmon, if we're going to have a discussion you have to compare apples to apples, well funded AAA MMO's such as WOW, LOTRO, SWTOR, TSW, FFXIV to each other, and not try to rationalize their success or failure as compared to the underfunded indy titles you've referenced.
In fact, while none of those indy titles were huge hits, their budgets largely limiting their commercial success potential, they all are still in business and people apparently are playing them. So you could say they achieve their goals at the end of the day, and met the expectations people had for them.
Where as with AAA titles, everyone is expecting them to dethrone WOW, or at the very least tack well against it by retaining some substantial number of subs, say over a million and most can't even match EVE's 500K figure without going to F2P models to remain viable.
BTW, Fallen Earth was actually a very fun game, had I found a decent number of people playing in the upper levels I would have stuck with it. It is a great example of a title that almost made it, and perhaps with just a bit more funding and vision, would have retained an EVE like history of success. So close, yet so far.
"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
Moo
Partly also the fault of you gamers/consumers you have learn and been spoon fed for past 30 years to consume faster and faster so this is result of capitalism make money by indoctrinate the masses to consume all products fast. In old days we played with toys or devices for years our parents stick with furniture for 15years sometimes even longer.
But whole society is CONSUME CONSUME FAST FAST we want it now, that bring us to today, you new genrations are bored fast want it all now and when you easly have you also bored fast and go to next big hyped thing.
Its not only games its whole system which it seems many don't even realise lol.
Dont blame the game developers the gamers are MAIN COUSE of the demise of toys lasting not long.
This will only getting worse becouse the industrie knows this so they accomidate you demanding consumers give them toys that have a short lifespan, they make fast money and you fast consume.
A phone, watch shoes, clothes or tablet how long they last 6 months a year?
As long all you brainswashed consumer tools, stay like this don't exspect long lasting toys you would scream hell and damnation demanding new stuff NOW.
I consumed also alot mmo's fast but at least most i stick with for year or even 2 years find ways to enjoy.
But gamers and developers many times find ways to ruin games so fast its sad you then start crying and blame others.
You all should realy learn to analyse yourselfs and be honest and open how you think and life then make a conclusion on do i want this fast consuming life or not its not only sad way of living in process it also destroying our beloved planet.
I remember when so many curse sony and everquest 2 or games they released and see they comesmartly with marketing stragey and all you folks are all over it even before you kenw nothing lol your all so predictable and they know it haha
So its your own fault, be quiet or deal with it.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Games don't fail because of theme park design, they fail because they're bad games.
I know its useless reply to your comments here, but i still feel the need to do so.
Darkfall was not bad game it failed on cheating macroing and bad discisions by makers at the time they made many huge mistakes as small indie FIRST TIME COMPANY thats why game failed. Darkfall was superb game specially for hardcore but majority could not resist cheating so game failed misrable plus the fact splitting up community way to soon in 2 different servers was the downfall of darkfall.
I blame the gamers mainly for failing darkfall not developers there where a small indie team with limited experience and fundings.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
An interesting thought, and while I think combat will always have a place, does it have to be the primary mechanic for "levelling" if indeed you level at all?
I find the best part of most MMOs are the first 20 levels where you are learning new things, progressing relatively fast, not repeating the same quests with a different named monster, so for me, that learning process needs to continue all the way to end game.
That's why I quite like FFXiV get a bit bored, switch to crafting etc.
I agree with all you say but I think this highlights the OP's original question. Where are the new fresh idea's to get us old school players re-invested in the genre? We do have a been there done that mentality and with all the new "cutting edge OMG Amazing" tech coming out companies are simply putting out what seems to be more of the same old same old with new graphics.
I also agree with others about the fact that the broad spectrum of players MMO's are trying to hit being to much. Sometimes you have to just pick a demographic/play style and go for it. Look at the FPS games out there that succeed with every release. They do one thing extremely well and satisfy the players they aim for. Well done.
I also think that the developers are missing the mark on the leveling process. Some have complained that there is so much invested into the leveling and the end game is crap and I disagree. I never logged 8 hours a day in any game but not once in 15 years of playing MMO's have I ever hit max level in 30 days until game after game started offering XP boosts, this boost, that boost etc. My first lvl 60 in Vanilla WoW took me almost a year of casual, a few nights a week gaming. It was a recurring joke on the WoW forums back then that getting from lvl 52 to lvl 60 was going to take you just as long as lvl 1 to lvl 52 and it was true.
To me it was also awesome. The content was there and you had to do it in order to hit max level unless you had the friends to run dungeons with constantly. These days every MMO is so simplified and streamlined that even solo you can be at the end game in a month. To me, this is the main detractor of MMO's released and invalidates the idea that all of the focus is on leveling. They have lost the art of telling a story you want to enjoy and savor lvl by lvl. Once the focus for the player base became all End Game End Game and the players raced to get there the genre was doomed.
*EDIT* - Let me amend this and also say it is our fault as players too. I have a few friends that skip dialogue during lvling and simply click where they have to, skip what is offered and then look at their map, go kill what they need to and com back to turn it in. We as players are ruining our own enjoyment.