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MMOs - Lack of community and mere grinding?

Hey,



I've been looking around these forums for the past month or so and I'm noticing quite a few people who play MMOs but get bored quickly of grinding and having the same experience everyday and start alts, which lead to more alts. Well, I am one of those, but I can't help myself in loving MMORPGs. I've played Dransik, UO, WoW, EVE online, Archlord and EQ2 and it is always the same. I'm all excited for about a week (except for Archlord, which was about 1 minute). Dransik (in 2002) sustained my interest for the longest period of time, due to the thriving community and continuous socialising, as playing the actual game was not the most important part of the game.



But today, and many may agree, the major MMOs are either based on grinding with little community based elements such as those amusing weddings, funerals, trading, crafting and so on. Yes, most of those happen in nearly all MMOs, but it doesn't have the sense of true interacting; just a part of the long and weary path to the top level. Also, many MMOs that claim that they have a community like this, but are very unfriendly to beginners in their immersiveness, for example EVE online.



So to wrap up, I have two questions:



1. What drives you people who get to the top level (and several times)? Doesn't grinding and the hollowness of social interactions bother you?



2. And the inevitable "recommendation" question, which always sparks arguments ( ) : Is there a MMO out there that has a strong, mature community, which is not miniscule? Is this MMO relatively friendly for beginners and includes minimal amounts of soulless grinding?



I know I am being a bit idealistic in the second question, but I am only curious as to if there is a game, which resembles that?

Comments

  • HeroSmeroHeroSmero Member Posts: 2

    I'm actually quite excited that after looking throught specific game forums, I've found someone who has the same question as I.  Unfortunately, no one has answered.  I am a little worried that this will turn into a fight over which game is the best, just like every other forum I've seen to date, so I would ask anyone who does decide to answer this:  try and keep to the game they would recommend and why they would make said recommendation.  I am asking for a comparison to WoW, but only because it is the only MMO i really know. 

    Right now to me it seems like there really isn't an amazing game out there right now.  I would like a game that I can start, enjoy playing, find people who also enjoy playing, and not have to worry about racing to lvl or be required to farm gear just to have fun.  Although I haven't spent a lot of time looking, just browsing through magazines and websites over the last few months, I haven't really seen anything that really excites me.  I am considering cancelling my WoW account and looking to the games in the future, maybe one that isn't out yet will have what I am looking for.

    At this point I have played WoW for three months and enjoy certain aspects of the game.   The graphics are good, and that makes the game more enjoyable.  The fact that you can solo many parts of the game also adds to the fun.  Sometimes I just don't want to group, but then I always have to avoid the random groups of mobs, and those are those ones that usually have the best things.   At the moment I have 2 toons, a 47 rogue and a 32 priest.  I still consider myself new to the game, but sometimes it amazes me how many people who have been playing for long periods of time are either way too into getting Tier 1 sets or they are still noobs.  Don't people ask questions anymore?  I have a decent understanding of WoW only because I am constantly asking questions about my classes, other classes, mobs, instances, endgame, and anything else i can think of.

     

    The things that I do not enjoy about WoW are:

    The lack of mature players in the community

    The complete lack of depth or story

    The difficulty finding decent groups of players who enjoy every aspect of the game, not just Grinding, PVP, and Raiding

    The seeming repeditiveness of the game

    The lack of RP feel, most of the time i have to listen to people talk about random things that have nothing to do with in game, and I've been told the RP servers are no better.  I used to play muds and rpgs, is there an MMO that really is an MMORPG?

     

    At the moment, I am downloading FFXI, maybe it will be the one I want. 

     

  • iddmitriiddmitri Member UncommonPosts: 671
    http://secondlife.com/. I've heard you can paint your own pictures upload them to the server and invite people to your house for exhibition and of course these people can buy stuff from you for real $$$. I'm sure most children don't play these games and it is your best bet.
  • HeroSmeroHeroSmero Member Posts: 2
    Not quite what i was looking for....
  • b0rderline99b0rderline99 Member Posts: 1,441

    this kind of has to do with the topic, but i think that most of this is due to the scaling up of graphics and scaling down of content

    Its a lot easier to have a comunity feel when everything isnt based on a single level (i.e. combat level)

    Think of WoW (or basically 90% of the MMO's out their who ahve a similar style), everthing is based on the combat level.  To get new content you raise your conbat level, you are defined by your combat level. 

    Now think of games where their are many different skills which you can raise and any one of them may define you (often times these are older games such as UO).  Now who is to say how different skills match up with one another, i have level 10 skill x, 20 skill y, and 50 skill z, while someone else has 30 skill x, 20 skill y, and 30 skill z, It is not clear who is the "higher up player". 

    A system such as was described here can better contribute to community, because players are not restricted to one skill which defines them, so their is no feeling of "i am better than you but worse than you", everyone is basically the same. 

    This also helps with the grinding aspect, although moreso just making it less noticable.  In a system where there is no single defining skill, there is less pressure to spend those hours upon hours grinding that skill.  Yes their will still be a grind, but when you get bored you can always just quit and it will not affect you socially at all, no one will take notice.

    I think most of this is to blame on graphics, although better graphics are of course better than bad graphics, better graphics means that it will take more time to impliment everything.  Every new skill means more animations, models, and development time, and having better graphics makes this increase expidentially.  having lots of content in a 2D or isometric game takes a lot less time that it does if you were to use the unreal 3 engine, and having a 10+ year development timeframe is just not practical at all.  So the rising graphical standard in games is giving rise to games with less content and overall less creativity and most importantly community

  • End_of_a_eraEnd_of_a_era Member Posts: 527

    We once had a game of what you ask;

    - weddings

    - Great crafting

    -  trading

     etc.

    Everything was absed around socialising, it was called SWG then they ruined it and its no longer that.

    imageimage

  • Nerf09Nerf09 Member CommonPosts: 2,953
    If I want, "Community" I'll join a forum somewhere and blab my brains out.



    If I want to, "Grind," I'll get a job.







    I just bought Medieval Total War 2, good game.  PLaying that now instead of MMO's.
  • i think we just have to wait for the next big thing.



    Like many of us we all share the same frustration as you, but there seems to be no visible resolution at hand. I guess the target audience for gaming companies are younger these days, and they seem to prefer cool action over community
  • rungardrungard Member Posts: 1,035

    your gonna have to wait about 10 years.

    mmo's evolve very slowly.

  • MiNaAuMiNaAu Member Posts: 382
    Originally posted by rungard


    your gonna have to wait about 10 years.
    mmo's evolve very slowly.
    MMO's evolve slowly? Ever tried waiting for humans to evolve? But I do agree that you will have to wait ages for developers to catch on that games that includes mindless grinding and bad community don't interest us anymore.
  • HENDOGHENDOG Member Posts: 1

    Gotta say i agree with a_new_era swg was 1 of a kind until they fired the head dev (who is making a brand new game that will own SOE's SWG) and that before too much longer there should be a pre cu swg emu server out there for those that still wanna play! and yes it its totally legal. I guess all the games have come down to nothing but grinding now days and due to that its less about each other and more about the next level, sad sad times for the mmo world that once was great.

     

    Peace out,

    HENDOG

  • CleffyIICleffyII Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,440

    Uhm, those games you mentioned aren't built like community games.  Infact there are alot of functions in place to limit player interaction.  Such as EVE has plenty of things that really make you feel alone, and no one ever talks in that game.  Same with Ultima Online.  WoW's community is a bit immature, but light years ahead of those 2.  EQ2 is the same kinda community as WoW and just like it limits its community through relatively low pop servers (like 3k max).

    There have actually been a slew of mmo's that were made to be community builders, not just tossed in as a feature filler.  The Sims Online and Ragnarok Online really showed this concept in action first.  Then there is There and Second Life now.  However, these games have been around too long and the community has grown AFK which is something that affects anygame, only in these types the decline has been slower.  There are only a couple community builder mmo's coming out next year, Ragnarok Online 2 and Project Wiki.

    image

  • RanddRandd Member Posts: 409
    Originally posted by End_of_a_era


    We once had a game of what you ask;
    - weddings

    - Great crafting

    -  trading

     etc.


    Everything was absed around socialising, it was called SWG then they ruined it and its no longer that.
    I agree with End. You should add in player cities where guildies would host there own events and just hang around. Never got the feel of a community that i had in my time with swg.
  • ShanniaShannia Member Posts: 2,096

    Over the past 10 years, the player base has changed more than the MMOG games themselves.  Back in the day when UO and EQ first came about, you had to go out of your way to even find those games.   It was all about the real gamers back then.  Fast forward 11+ years and now MMOGs are in every department store and you can easily order them off of thousands of different websites.  Back then the games were huge time sinks that required dedicated armies of guildmates to achieve.   Today, while it is true you needs large groups for most of these games, most of them can be done with pickup groups.  Today's gamer is no longer the "computer geek" of yester year.  Today, MMO gamers come from all walks of life of all ages.  That said, the industry really dumb downed what gaming was all about.  Proof being that you can pick EQ2, WoW, or any new game and a total noob can go from 0-max level all by themselves without ever grouping.  That by itself leads to a very anti-social climate.  Saying that, it was a good thing.  The more gamers we have the more chances companies will take in delivering us new games in different genres. 

    Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

    "Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."

  • SubuSubu Member Posts: 18
    Ragnarok online an community game? I found it quite the opposite, that game absolutely hated typing while adventuring. It was first animelike MMO and loads of fans just  sat in town and  chatted, but you can do that in every MMO.



    Why I hate wow is becouse of the instances, in old MMO's  you could actually meet new people while adventuring, but in wow endgame experience basically only involves meeting with same people all the time in similar enviroment. Instanced games are huge setback for the whole MMORPG market, and now basically every new one has instances to save on the server costs. Instances are degenerating MMO's . Even WAR is planned to have instanced RvR (read battleground >< )
  • LordSlaterLordSlater Member Posts: 2,087
    Im guessing the op when he joind eve joined a bad corp and left after that judging the thousands of corps in eve based on that 1 corp.

    image

  • XApotheosisXXApotheosisX Member Posts: 277

    unfortunately you have a very vocal group that think the game should be played thier way and only thier way. And no im not talking about PVPers, I am talking about the self labelled "hardcore" gamers. You know the guild that needs you to play 50+ hours a week and has to be the first to kill everything.

    then when they do burn through all the content, they come to the forums and say "god this game is boring what else is there to do?!?! add some more high level content". Also unfortunately you have alot of people who play these games for JUST the gratification, there has to be a reason for them to do something or they wont do it.

    Developer: "slay the incoming giant horde and protect the city!"

    Gamer: "cool .... what kind of loot do they drop?"



    Developer: "were adding PVP!"

    Gamer: "awesome ... what do i get if i kill someone"

    god forbid if there is no carrot the content will never be done.

    And here is the really bad news ... with the success of the crap that is WoW, nothing will change soon. Developers will just come up with larger raid content with more uber loot to pull some of WoWs customers away.

  • brostynbrostyn Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,092
    Free MMOs will always have crap communities. DAoC and EQ are two games that have a decent community. DAoC does have its elitist as does EQ, but that comes from putting up with n00b after n00b. Ones patience tends to get a little worn. WoW and EQ2 are two p2p games that probably have some of the worst communities around. Maybe because there isn't much interaction needed amongst each other.



    I'd be willing to bet the more interdependence needed, the better the community.
  • KaptainZergKaptainZerg Member Posts: 322

    Game publishers learned through trial and error that to encourage community/socializing was a financial mistake. Atomizing players keeps them all much more manageable. Alone, players aren't able to make demands of the publisher that need to be addressed because individuals can be ignored forever, they have very little weight. But there is no easy solution to a server-wide "strike" by players who are already organized through social activities. Lead by recognized players leaders, organized players can demand that the publisher actually fix a problem, deliver interesting content, or anything else that the publisher doesn't want to do because it costs money. These players have weight and energy to press home their demands; they are a game publisher's worst nightmare.

    It's similar concept in the workplace: without a union to rally employees against an abusive employer (and, they all will abuse you if there's nothing to stop them), you, the individual worker, are at the mercy of the employer. 99% of the time this means you will be told to do more work during your shift, and workplace conditions, benefits and pay raises will be completely controlled by the company.

    Games aren't like a workplace, exactly, but there are some striking similarities that have to do with the vast, untapped power of organized groups vs. the weakness of an individual against the game publisher's efforts to deliver the bare, minimum, pos product.

    Game publsihers realized something else when they began designing games that tended to atomize players. They found that a new layer of gamers were attracted to games that could be "won" or dominated by persons who weren't able to understand the social aspect of MMORPGs and , therefore, did not want one in order to play. All these morons wanted was to be able to "pwn" fellow players and talk in chat about armor stats! lol. You know who I am talking about, right? These idiots were easily drawn away from classic FPS shooters to a new type of FPS shooter disguised as a RPG, which seemed more interesting on the surface but at the core were simply a shoot 'em ups. These halfwits view any game as a series tactical situation and they bristle at the very mention of a social aspect because they're too dumb to participate in it.

    We won't see game publishers designing games for we community types until the economic advantage of eliminating it goes away. I don't see how that can happen at the moment because no one will walk away from profits.

  • NilatNilat Member Posts: 4
    Yeah, I've heard that SWG had a very rich community. The only game with a rich community, that I have played, was dransik during its golden years. Maybe some people have never understood what a 'rich community' means, but it is when you log in the game and you are in the main city and you see loads of people talking about things about the game and other things. Guilds have official wars between eachother (no factions in dransik) and allies. Sometimes there would be large guild wars outside the main city and we would watch them. After the battle a GM would come in and begin attacking the city and we fight back. After that we hang around the bank, discussing about what has happened and maybe leave to get an item we promised to get for another guild as a peace offering.



    This is just a small part of what it was like and this, I think, has fully dissapeared in a larger scale. Why would there be MMOs if community is not important? I think Oblivion has a richer community than many MMORPGs! :D Of course, somebody will say to this comment that: "why don't you go into a chat room lol". Well, it isn't the same, because there isn't any graphical interaction, wars and events.



    I agree witht he last point about the community based MMO being economically unprofitable for the companies. They have the resources and talent to create a MMORPG that gives incentives to interact with other players (more than just trading, flaming and "LFG"). I bet we, the "community gamers", will never become a majority which saddens me.
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