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Hey dudes, I got this whole mmo's sucking business all worked out
Scottc
Member Posts: 680
It's all so simple you see. MMOs suck right? There's too much grind, there's not enough content, you hate repeating content. Cool. What's the answer? more content? No you fool, content is not the answer, it's expensive to develop and it takes a lot of time. The answer is game mechanics, the shit you do all the time, the gift that keeps on giving, the core underlying systems that you're interacting with on a daily basis. Combat is just one example. That front page article complains about how he'll stop playing a game when it becomes a grind where he's mindlessly killing monsters. But what if killing monsters weren't mindless? What if it were involving and had a lot more player involvement? What if it were exciting? I think that's what's missing from MMORPGs. Interesting deeply involving game mechanics that make the core of the game more interesting.
You know the one important thing that separates RPGs from shooters is that in a shooter, you would be able to approach a situation in a shooter multiple times, and after several failures, you would eventually be able to find a way around it. In an RPG, such a situation would have you dieing repeatedly no matter how many times you attempted until you reach a baseline entrypoint at which you have the capacity to win because your character has leveled up to a certain point and has more powerful gear, at which point it hinges mostly on luck and numbers. This is what makes RPG combat dull, most players simply push through to be told a story. If it were less about the numbers and more about the person playing the game, then the combat could potentially be interesting enough to where a player might even repeat content because he enjoys the challenge of it.
Comments
"A World first, and a game second" imo.
The mundanities of housing, exploration, maintenance/upkeeps and other "little things" make up for much more than the whole of content. Things to do when the things you are *expecting* to do run dry.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Umm those games exist. They are called. WoW, LOTR, AoC and quite a few Free to Plays like Perfect word or Battle of the Immortals.
I can argue that 3 of those 5 suck though.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I'm a bit masochistic when it comes to MMO's. The games that has held my interest the longest where MMO's with long grinds and timesinks coupled with semi forced grouping.
Because levelling and advancing took so long, I appreciated the levels i had gained and saw it as an accomplishment when I reached the last levels. I was proud of it. Because the games had been punishing and unforgiving I appreciated my gear and I feared the content that could get me killed.
I haven't been able to recapture that in any MMO since. They have all been too much about instant gratification making me feel nothing about the character i built up nor his gear. I got hacked one time in WoW and lost a lot on my account. I was able to reclaim it within 10 minutes. I cared about my loss for about 5 minutes then I just continued playing
The hell are you smoking? The player is empowered in none of those, it's all about numbers and content.
Must be neat to consider wasting a load of time an accomplishment. I find things that are actually challenging like completing a difficult logic puzzle or doing something with perfect precision to be an accomplishment. If you find difficult to be synonymous with wasting time you have serious problems you should see a psychiatrist about.
You consider it a waste. I was entertained and looked forward to my next wave of skills and spells which motivated me to continue. I don't think you should try and compare yourself to me or assume what I should feel is a waste of time. That's clearly in the eyes of the beholder. I consider watching a sports game on TV or being there live a waste of time too. I don't presume to claim it really is other than for me personally
If it takes you an hour to do something I could do in 10 minutes then I would consider than an accomplishment. An accomplishment is not completely irrelevant to time.
Insulting random strangers online sounds more like an issue that needs to be looked at If we are to go down that route
I think "time invested" is a very valid part of feeling accomplished. Thats why you see players running around in MMOs showing off their items that are very time-consuming to acheive (hell, these items are sometimes completely useless for anything other than showing off that you completed that feat), and items that are no longer avaliable to new players.
The reasons MMORPGS suck (most dont IMO)
Is because they can release half baked games, and people will flock to it. They will sell a ton of box's and preorders due to the hype. With this money they finish their half baked game. A year later or so (depending on how good launch sales were and player retention) they finally patch the game to what they promised at launch. They release an expansion, people come back, all is well.
The reason so many people just dont like the games that are out, yet are CRAVING mmorpgs, is simply the burnout factor. You have a lot of people who spend 12+ hours a day every day of the week on these games. They burn though all the contnent, they powerlevel. they hit endgame and are bored to tears in a month.
This takes normal people, in most cases, 6 months to a year just to hit endgame. The people who bitch about no content (at least in p2p games, f2p games really dont have much content) are the ones who have never read a single quest text, and just want to know where and what they need to do, as to level the fastest.
If half these players actually took a deep breath, stopped worring about getting their first and dominating, and actually enjoyed the game, they would get much more enjoyed game time. Rather than rushing to the end, buring out, then moving on bitching about a lack of content or some arbitrary side-dish missing from the game.
So either pony up for a good p2p game, wait for the next hyped up AAA game and get a beta at launch, or spend some time actually enjoying the games already out there.
Also stop making judgements on games based on forums like this one, all have trials, give it a try, see which style you like best, then actually enjoy the game rather than make it a job.
If you do decide to move on, the world will not end, the game isnt a failure because you didnt stick with it for 10 years. Have we forgotten what its like to spend $50 on a counsol game and beat it in one week. I dont remember anyone ever bitching about that, it was fun and you enjoyed it, money well spent and you could always come back to it.
Bottom line is that they know you the customer will respond to hype by making purchases. Untill this ends they will continue this as it is profitable. Expect any game launch to be a mess, and unless you can take a rough ride and some dissapointment, why not wait it out a month or two and see how it goes.
Please don't compare television to active entertainment. What you're saying is comparable to saying you feel like you've accomplished something by getting up in the morning and going to school and being given an A simply for showing up and spending time being there. It's nothing to be proud of and it boggles my mind.
I like the part where you come in my thread which is saying content is not the problem and complain about your favorite video game not being fully loaded with content at launch and because of this it sucks.
Absolutely right.
Well what do you want me to compare it with?. I could bring up any number of things I feel is a waste of time that other people do. It's kind of a moot point.
If you want to argue that time spent in a game is no grounds for feeling accomplishment then we just have to agree to disagree.
Time is not something we all have equal of and certainly not willingness to spend in a game. Some will reach the end faster than others and some will never get there. To me it's a perfectly valid indicator of accomplishment. Or at least it used to be in the older MMO's in my opinion.
Go on then.
No, see, the things you bring up as wastes of time wouldn't work at all, I'm simply calling your grindfest games a waste of time because anyone is capable of doing them. The issue here is that you believe that you are special and you take pride in doing something that anyone can do. I mean shit it's like patting yourself on the back for being able to walk, it's really insulting to cripples, and it's depressing for athletes to see, hell it's even depressing for a normal person to see.
Excellent, this calls for a circle jerk.
You only open a thread, you don't own it, MMORPG.com does so please get off that high horse.
It takes a high degree of mindless ignorance to come into a thread and ignore the very premise of the op and post the exact thing he made an example of in it. This thread is to discuss the merits of empowering the player in a game to make the core mechanics that people access the most often more interesting.
You assume too much when you post that's your first mistake. You assume everybody has the same amount of time to put into a game or the willingness to do it. Or the stamina. Then there is the speed of which you reach that goal. Getting through content be it a mindless grind of killing 10.000 rats can be done faster by some again adding an accomplishment for doing it faster than most.
No not everybody can nor wanted to do it. At least not in some of the older titles I have played. Unlike today where most MMO's hand you everything very easily making your point of level progression not being an accomplishment valid.
You are not winning a nobel prize playing a video game if that's your point but that's not what feeling accomplishment is all about. You can feel accomplishment with a lot of things in life including insignificant things. I paralleled parked in a very confined space today first try. I also consider that an accomplishment. Did i win anything? nope. Just got to park my car
Do you seriously believe that game mechanics (coding, scripting, engine design, modeling, animation that are very dependent on particular engine features) is not expensive, an easy task?
WoW, LotRO and PW sucks. There, I said it.
AoC is decent and I never played BotI.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Absolutely. You need to consistently keep pumping out content in an MMORPG, and in a game with poor game mechanics this content is painful to repeat for the player, and so players burn out easier. Once you complete the actual game mechanics all you really have to do is poke at them or tweak them. There isn't much recurring development happening on them. There's a reason that games like Quake and X-Com last for so many years without any patches or additional content.
I like the part where you dont get what i said.
2 parts, the reason for half baked launches, and the reason you cant find any content in the games that are already out.
Content isnt the problem, there is lots of content for those of us who play a few hours a day, more on the weekends and actually play the game, rather than speed leveling to the end.
Ill go out on a limb here and assume that your main goal in a mmorpg is to get to level cap as fast a possible and obtain the best gear as fast as possible. If this is true, how can you bitch about the content?
Do you think that WAR/EQ2/AOC/FE are all lacking in content? As they seem to be the games i hear this about most.
HAHAHA! This made my day...
edit: i agree with OP 99.9%