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I feel like the new generation missed the "Point"
BearKnight
Member CommonPosts: 461
As the title says, I feel as if there is a newer generation of gamers, old and new of age, that just missed the point completely about MMO gaming. Not because it wasn't floating right in their faces, but because the point was made 10years ago with the original onset of MMOs, but then big companies got wind of the profits to be made and decided to come in guns blazing with fireworks, explosions, and boobs flailing everywhere in the glistening sunlight to get said market interested in their products.
What am I rambling on about?
Well, on a daily basis I see people talking about "Solo vs Group this or that", "PvP vs PvE this or that", "Instanced vs Open World this or that", and "Quests vs Questless Design this or that" etc etc.
It isn't about being one against the other. The "Older Generation" of MMOs that started the whole thing showed us a long time ago that it's about COMBINING everything into one package that spreads the amount of activities available to you so you're never bored of feel as if you've nothing left to accomplish. This also diversifies the population so that everyone has something they like. Crafters get their in-depth crafting system. Explorers get their fix for awesome dungeons almost no one goes to and barely understands how to traverse. Competitive players get their fix from highly engaging PvP that is linked in with PvE for armor, weapons, and supplies (aka: DAOC, Shadowbane, SWG, etc), and Carebears (not used in a derogatory sense) get their love from the PvE part of the game. This also leads to different mindsets trying out other types of gameplay they never thought they'd care about.
I used to be a hardcore Carebear back in my EQ days, but after playing DAOC i learned i love BOTH worlds, but only when done correctly where both feed off each other!
The mixtures of highly important PvP with a world comprised mostly of PvE in an otherwise Questless design with some side-quests available by choice all the while having some instancing and a lot of open world gameplay that had a relatively in-depth crafting system is what made DAOC such the juggernaut, relatively speaking for its time, that it was. Did you guys forget this or was it not part of your "Generation" of gaming that you missed out? I hear quite a bit that people "Missed out" so they never understood how awesome DAOC really was (since it is a flaming pile of poo now after all the things Mythic/EA did to it).
The same goes for EQ, SWG, and all those other "Epic" MMOs of the past 14years. Hell, I even miss when an MMO wasn't labeled strictly a "Sandbox" or "Themepark" and had a mix of the two (Again, talking about DAOC here) which gave you quite a lot more to do without getting bored.
I just think both the player-base AND the developers of today are far too tunnel-visioned to actually "get" what an MMO was originally meant to be, and it most certainly wasn't supposed to be 99% instanced with little social interaction and no real difficulty involved to "achieve" things (aka: SWTOR is a prime example of what's wrong with today's "MMO").
I'd also like to make the point that it is impossible for people to "outgrow" a specific genre or activity that they truly enjoy. What has happened is that the industry has changed too much from its original intent into something only about money now, and not so much about building living, breathing, socially driven worlds that actually matter beyond the first 3 months.
/end-lackOfCoffee-rant
Sincerely,
Bear
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May be impossible for you, certainly not for me. Or may be i don't enjoy it that much in the early days.
Don't sound as if the original intent is not about money .. it is always about finding an audience. If "living, breathing, socially driven world" is not as fun as instanced solo-able co-op RPGs for most of the audience, then it no longer will be a focus.
You cannot make money without providing fun to the audience in the entertainment business.
Pretty much this.
Original intent is irrelevant to me. I want my games fun, not needing to adhere to some ancient "intent".
I think you're missing the point completely then, because an MMO is very specific in nature, and it has been bastardized by big company producers thinking they can get away with labeling their product an MMO without it actually being one.
Diablo 3 is one of these games, as is "World of Tanks" of which I play but I know it isn't an MMO.
Standards are set so that people can't just go "Oh hey, I want a cat to be a squirrel now, it's going to happen because I say so". That's the point, and MMOs recently have been failing left and right because they've strayed too far from the original intent of what an MMO is, and was. This is also why producers throwing money at new products can't seem to understand why they can't match WoW.
Not anymore ....
I played EQ and DAoC for many years. Bought DAoC 3 days after it was released even.
I loved those games but I am glad the genre evolved some. I do not miss spawn camping hours and hours, waiting in line for rare mobs, exp. grinding for hours on end. Half the time spent socializing was due to there being nothing else better to do while you waited 8 hours for your turn at the rare.
Those type of games were great for the time, but it isnt that time now. Me and all my DAoC buddies couldnt put in the sheer amount of time and effort to play something like that today. Hell I need a more casual MMO to play just due to real life adult responsibilities. Gone are the days of having to spend 40 hours a week to barely keep up in an MMO.
I have many great memories from those games as I am sure many do. There are games like that still running if you want to play them. Simply put most people have neither the time nor desire to commit that much time & effort into a video game. Casual MMOs draw a bigger crowd, just the way it is.
I do miss the community of DAoC, the realm pride, defending the relics, knowing your enemies from other realms, being in a guild that actually felt like a family rather than the guys you raid with every M / W / F. For me that was the best time I have ever had in a game period. It was as much a time in my life as it was the game. Everyone I knew that played hardcore has gown up and have families, full time jobs, ect.
Only a small niche could or would actually put the time required by a game like EQ1 or DAoC on release. Why make a game for 100k when you could make one Millions play and enjoy? Not for love I can tell you that. At the end of the day game making is a business.
Impartial observation: Do you think that since there are so many other online social media outlets that people can fill makes people not care about having that part missing from their online games? It was easy to feel like that was the "point" of MMOs back then, when there were so few online social outlets, especially for gamers, to live and share experiences.
Understandable: The genre has "lost it's way" so to speak but hopefully we will see a return of virtual worlds and player interaction again. EQ2NL and on
A little long winded mate, but I generally agree with you. Especially this part I'm highlighting.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
yeah umm...no.
Ultima Online, Trammel and the ensuing outrage over "protecting" players ...I should say /thread here but I want to go on.
The Internet Flame wars of 1999/2000, the flame war that was so bad it carried over to nearly a dozen sites and created all these wonderful Nazi forums rules we have on every single forum today. What was it about? Well, it STARTED out with one member of the Black Knights shooting down some new forum member for mention getting ganked and then camped by a higher level player in Asherons Call and it turned into over 100 members of that same guild posting and basing everyone...everywhere.
Its where the term "Carebear" comes from...
As for "companies" stepping in for money.
Asherons Call, made by Turbine, produced and distributed by Microsoft.
EverQuest...partly funded and distributed by SONY.
Lastly, you missed the boat. First MMOs were not a decade ago...more like TWO. Ultima Online wasn't even close to being the first, it missed that by 6 years and a half dozen games.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
This has certainly influenced development of games. The earliest MMORPGs were very much social networks but without the range of social possibilities that something like Facebook has. It didn't matter "back then", because they were feature rich when they released. Now social networks like Facebook or even Reddit are very feature rich while MMORPGs are still the same social networks they've always been. Now MMORPGs are very poor social networks. I would be surprised if very many people considered them social networks at all.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
sorry Bear but this is basic philosophic essentialism, ie., that things have an intended essence and that they are that thing no matter what.
that doesn't work. either in the real world or the mmo world apparently. its certainly not the best basis for science or rational discussion beyond a certain point.
perhaps it would simply be better to state: what we originally experienced in mmo's is gone and that's not a good thing.
i do think your comments about variety in one game are spot on. the more choice a player has, within reason, the more they have to do in a game, the more they will tend to stick around i believe.
the only real thing i miss from days of yore is the virtual world. i really thought that 15 years down the road our virtual worlds would be so highly evolved that they'd be amazing.
instead im staring at indie dev after indie dev on Steam make platform sidescrollers cuz its hip.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I'm not so sure this is entirely accurate information. Total number of MMO players is going down while the number of games has gone up. Also most of them have gone F2P within 12 months (if not earlier) of lauch day. If the current trend in MMO design really was what the majority of gamers wanted, most of them would still be P2P and have raising sub numbers. Even WoW, despite of its age, would have kept its sub base steadier and even gain some more compared to f.ex the early WotLK if this was true.
Oh, and i agree with OP.
Well ... I have to agree with the OP to some extent.
MMORPG may have changed meanings, but I feel the entire point of what it was meant to be was missed entirely.
It's like an archer aiming at a target with the intent of hitting the center, but instead turns entirely around and shoots a random person.
People here are correct though, times have changed, and not much can really be done about it.
It's to bad.
That part in red....is bullshit.
I miss so much gearing up in PVE for PvP !!!
Only one armor for both !!!
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
That example ... I don't find makes much sense. Then again ... not much of a car person.
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
This also doesn't really make much sense. Things don't need to be told to the entire world for a specific intent to exist.
This is a horrible example, cars still have break and gas and clutch pedals, and steering wheels, and 4 wheel/tires, and 1 engine, and 1 transmission.
What has happened to the MMO has been a Car being turned into a freaking 5 wheeled 3 seated, joystick operated, water and land craft that tries to do everything but pretty much fails miserably at everything it tries to do.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Yeah, there was, held it on Genie and Compuserv but you were too young and missed it.
No Internet either so can't post you any links, sorry, you'll just have to take our word on it.
"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
. . . but the OP knows the intent. How does he know what their intent was?