I'm not trying to imply that there weren't players who didn't just get tired of the game and leave. Though, I do feel that a great deal of the players that were leaving, was not because the core design of the game was flawed, but because the game was simply being mismanaged. Anecdotal evidence, but the majority of players I spoke to at the time who were leaving, stated they were doing so because of the bugs, balance issues, exploits, etc not being corrected, and that they otherwise would have stayed if it weren't for these issues not having lingered in the game for so long.
The core vision of the game was great but the core design of the game was based on grinds and that was the critical flaw of the game. You wanted to be a combat player, you had to grind a ton of mobs. You wanted to be a crafter, you had to grind a ton of trash items to get the recipes and mastery to do the really cool items. You wanted to be an entertainer, you had to grind moves and instruments. When they decided to put Jedi in the game, they made it the biggest grind in the game and were suprised when players rebelled.
This stupid grind permeated every aspect of the game and was a core design flaw.
As a PnP RPG player I just could not stomach that since it went against everything I thought adventure RPGing was supposed to be.
I can very much understand where you are coming from in your dislike of the system that SWG. However as a PnP gamer myself, I actually feel the opposite way about it. Honestly I much prefer SWG's advancement design (sans Jedi) over the current MMO advancement model in so many MMOs today.
Yes, if you wanted to be good at combat you had to kill a lot of mobs. If you wanted to craft you had to craft a lot of items appropriate to the craftign trade you were working on. Or if you wanted to be an entertainer you had to use your entertainer abilities a lot... But honestly, it made sense.
Take a look at the themepark MMOs today. How does collecting 10 river weeds, or carrying a box of trinkets to some strange hermit with an unhealthy obsession with trinkets teach my character to be a better wizard? Honestly it doesn't, it makes no sense at all that completing nonsense tasks for random NPCs advances your character, let alone counts as an adventure.
So while yes, to be the 'best' at whatever profession in SWG you had to "grind" up the appropriate XP to level that profession. The really that's the exact same for any MMO, you have to 'grind' X, Y, or Z to get to max level. So sure, if you look at the game in terms of the 'getting to max level ASAP' perspective, virtually every single game, not just MMO, in existence is going to look like a grind to you.
For myself however, I played SWG with a different perspective. I didn't feel 'useless' at lower skill levels, because I found my niche in the game world. On my combat characters I made it about exploring or collecting crafting materials, so leveling my combat simply became a byproduct of actually playing the game. Even as lowbie crafter I didn't feel useless. I researched how crafting worked, figured out the material spawns, and worked by way up by making items that were still useful to others and in demand, despite not being a max level crafter. So agai, if you're focusing on the destination, not the journey, then of course you'll get burnt out, this is true of most any MMO.
I guess I just care more about a good story than progression. The progression in SWG was just so dry and uncreative. In contrast in WoW I was mostly able to just explore and take part in the stories and my character progressed in the background.
The character progression in SWG just did not make sense. It pretty much assumed that your character was an idiot who could not learn to use a new ability after a dozen tries and made you repeat stuff you already knew another few hundred times.
As far as crafting goes, maybe what you did worked in the early days but by the time I started playing, there was no market for low level stuff. Master craftsmen were making good quality stuff cheap enough that noone would buy what a newbie could make. If you wanted to make stuff that would sell, you had to get to the higher ranks. This involved grinding hundreds of items you would never sell and required no creative thought.
Ultimately I simply could not turn off my brain long enough to stomach the uncreative grind SWG imposed on me. It would not let me enjoy the journey and it made the destination undesirable. The game focused too much on the destination and not enough on the journey.
I'm not trying to imply that there weren't players who didn't just get tired of the game and leave. Though, I do feel that a great deal of the players that were leaving, was not because the core design of the game was flawed, but because the game was simply being mismanaged. Anecdotal evidence, but the majority of players I spoke to at the time who were leaving, stated they were doing so because of the bugs, balance issues, exploits, etc not being corrected, and that they otherwise would have stayed if it weren't for these issues not having lingered in the game for so long.
The core vision of the game was great but the core design of the game was based on grinds and that was the critical flaw of the game. You wanted to be a combat player, you had to grind a ton of mobs. You wanted to be a crafter, you had to grind a ton of trash items to get the recipes and mastery to do the really cool items. You wanted to be an entertainer, you had to grind moves and instruments. When they decided to put Jedi in the game, they made it the biggest grind in the game and were suprised when players rebelled.
This stupid grind permeated every aspect of the game and was a core design flaw.
As a PnP RPG player I just could not stomach that since it went against everything I thought adventure RPGing was supposed to be.
I can very much understand where you are coming from in your dislike of the system that SWG. However as a PnP gamer myself, I actually feel the opposite way about it. Honestly I much prefer SWG's advancement design (sans Jedi) over the current MMO advancement model in so many MMOs today.
Yes, if you wanted to be good at combat you had to kill a lot of mobs. If you wanted to craft you had to craft a lot of items appropriate to the craftign trade you were working on. Or if you wanted to be an entertainer you had to use your entertainer abilities a lot... But honestly, it made sense.
Take a look at the themepark MMOs today. How does collecting 10 river weeds, or carrying a box of trinkets to some strange hermit with an unhealthy obsession with trinkets teach my character to be a better wizard? Honestly it doesn't, it makes no sense at all that completing nonsense tasks for random NPCs advances your character, let alone counts as an adventure.
So while yes, to be the 'best' at whatever profession in SWG you had to "grind" up the appropriate XP to level that profession. The really that's the exact same for any MMO, you have to 'grind' X, Y, or Z to get to max level. So sure, if you look at the game in terms of the 'getting to max level ASAP' perspective, virtually every single game, not just MMO, in existence is going to look like a grind to you.
For myself however, I played SWG with a different perspective. I didn't feel 'useless' at lower skill levels, because I found my niche in the game world. On my combat characters I made it about exploring or collecting crafting materials, so leveling my combat simply became a byproduct of actually playing the game. Even as lowbie crafter I didn't feel useless. I researched how crafting worked, figured out the material spawns, and worked by way up by making items that were still useful to others and in demand, despite not being a max level crafter. So agai, if you're focusing on the destination, not the journey, then of course you'll get burnt out, this is true of most any MMO.
I guess I just care more about a good story than progression. The progression in SWG was just so dry and uncreative. In contrast in WoW I was mostly able to just explore and take part in the stories and my character progressed in the background.
The character progression in SWG just did not make sense. It pretty much assumed that your character was an idiot who could not learn to use a new ability after a dozen tries and made you repeat stuff you already knew another few hundred times.
As far as crafting goes, maybe what you did worked in the early days but by the time I started playing, there was no market for low level stuff. Master craftsmen were making good quality stuff cheap enough that noone would buy what a newbie could make. If you wanted to make stuff that would sell, you had to get to the higher ranks. This involved grinding hundreds of items you would never sell and required no creative thought.
Ultimately I simply could not turn off my brain long enough to stomach the uncreative grind SWG imposed on me. It would not let me enjoy the journey and it made the destination undesirable. The game focused too much on the destination and not enough on the journey.
This goes back to the whole 'themepark' versus 'sandbox' discussion.
From what you've said, it's pretty clear you're a themepark MMO gamer. You prefer a premade story with clearly defined path of progression.
Games like Ultiama Online and Star Wars Galaxies are designed to be sandboxes, where the general architecture of the game is setup to allow more freedom and control for players so they can make their own stories.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking one type more than the other, it's a matter of preference.
What I do find a little odd is some of the 'complaints' against sandbox MMOs. What you perceive as a "grind" of killing hundreds of mobs or creating hundreds of items to advance, in actuality, is the exact same thing you're doing in a themepark MMO. The only difference is that in a themepark MMO you let the game developers tell you exactly where to go and what to do, rather than figuring it out for yourself.
I guess I just care more about a good story than progression. The progression in SWG was just so dry and uncreative. In contrast in WoW I was mostly able to just explore and take part in the stories and my character progressed in the background.
The character progression in SWG just did not make sense. It pretty much assumed that your character was an idiot who could not learn to use a new ability after a dozen tries and made you repeat stuff you already knew another few hundred times.
As far as crafting goes, maybe what you did worked in the early days but by the time I started playing, there was no market for low level stuff. Master craftsmen were making good quality stuff cheap enough that noone would buy what a newbie could make. If you wanted to make stuff that would sell, you had to get to the higher ranks. This involved grinding hundreds of items you would never sell and required no creative thought.
Ultimately I simply could not turn off my brain long enough to stomach the uncreative grind SWG imposed on me. It would not let me enjoy the journey and it made the destination undesirable. The game focused too much on the destination and not enough on the journey.
This goes back to the whole 'themepark' versus 'sandbox' discussion.
From what you've said, it's pretty clear you're a themepark MMO gamer. You prefer a premade story with clearly defined path of progression.
Games like Ultiama Online and Star Wars Galaxies are designed to be sandboxes, where the general architecture of the game is setup to allow more freedom and control for players so they can make their own stories.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking one type more than the other, it's a matter of preference.
What I do find a little odd is some of the 'complaints' against sandbox MMOs. What you perceive as a "grind" of killing hundreds of mobs or creating hundreds of items to advance, in actuality, is the exact same thing you're doing in a themepark MMO. The only difference is that in a themepark MMO you let the game developers tell you exactly where to go and what to do, rather than figuring it out for yourself.
Actually I consider myself a sandbox MMO gamer. However, I am a very action-focused gamer so I always strive to move forward and try new things in a game. I try to explore every aspect of a game or game feature and lose interest when it becomes routine. SWG became a game full of mindless, meaningless routines to me and did not give me the freedom to go beyond that. It's a similar reason to why I quit EVE earlier. Even A Tale In the Desert is becoming too routine at this point.
The beauty of a well designed thempark game like WoW is that you can play it enough ways that it takes a while for things to become routine. WoW's quest chains were structures well enough that I would move to a new area and new types of challenges just as the previous area became routine. The classes are varied enough that you can replay the same area multiple times in different ways. The biggest problem wtih the game is that when you get to the endgame, things can quicly become too routine as you start farming the same content over and over.
The problem I have with 'old school' sandboxes is that they never had enough sand. You ended up playing with the same sand over and over and building and rebuilding the same sand castles. Things become routine too quickly and they lose the sense of adventure and freedom that attracts me to them.
The beauty of a well designed thempark game like WoW is that you can play it enough ways that it takes a while for things to become routine. WoW's quest chains were structures well enough that I would move to a new area and new types of challenges just as the previous area became routine. The classes are varied enough that you can replay the same area multiple times in different ways. The biggest problem wtih the game is that when you get to the endgame, things can quicly become too routine as you start farming the same content over and over.
I got to level 30ish in WoW as I became bored of the same gameplay time after time. At level 30 I looked back at what I'd done and it was along the lines of, "At level 1 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of A, at level 5 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of B, at level 10 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of C, at level 15 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of D.", all while directing me in a straight line from point A to point Z.
I didn't even see the endgame of the so-called super-game World of Warcraft, I found it incredibly tedious after only 30 levels to the point that I decided to quit and unsubscribe. I still fail to see how the game became popular, never mind the fact it pulled in millions of players. Just blows my mind, that this is what people view as 'fun'.
Even worse is that this is all we've had ever since, the same old single player quest grind that was boring and uninspired from the moment it arrived. I really fail to see how you can play this game in 'enough ways' to stop it becoming routine. Maybe I just have a lower tolerance for bullshit.
The beauty of a well designed thempark game like WoW is that you can play it enough ways that it takes a while for things to become routine. WoW's quest chains were structures well enough that I would move to a new area and new types of challenges just as the previous area became routine. The classes are varied enough that you can replay the same area multiple times in different ways. The biggest problem wtih the game is that when you get to the endgame, things can quicly become too routine as you start farming the same content over and over.
I got to level 30ish in WoW as I became bored of the same gameplay time after time. At level 30 I looked back at what I'd done and it was along the lines of, "At level 1 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of A, at level 5 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of B, at level 10 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of C, at level 15 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of D.", all while directing me in a straight line from point A to point Z.
I didn't even see the endgame of the so-called super-game World of Warcraft, I found it incredibly tedious after only 30 levels to the point that I decided to quit and unsubscribe. I still fail to see how the game became popular, never mind the fact it pulled in millions of players. Just blows my mind, that this is what people view as 'fun'.
Even worse is that this is all we've had ever since, the same old single player quest grind that was boring and uninspired from the moment it arrived. I really fail to see how you can play this game in 'enough ways' to stop it becoming routine. Maybe I just have a lower tolerance for bullshit.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
"Nostalgia is a funny thing that way, we’re likely to disproportionately like the first things we get into. Your high school girlfriend was always the best one, the shows you watched as a kid were better than the crap on now, and the ham sandwich you had yesterday was better than the one today. "
I think many complaining about the "downfall" of modern MMOs are suffering from a severe case of nostalgia. We tend to look back at games we played when younger as some perfect creations and some holy grail for modern games should aspire to be. And like all nostalgia, it is often an idolized, romanticized view of the past often filtered through rose colored glasses...
Let's face it folks. Things change and evolve. Old style games were created for a niche market of "hardcore" gamers with lots (and I mean lots) of time on their hands. Hell, I remember marathon 18 hours Shadowbane sessions just guarding our tree or waiting for a bane to pop... Anyway, the point is, MMOs have gone mainstream. They now have to cater to a wider group of consumers. Consumers whose average age is higher than it was a decade or so ago. MMO consumers have jobs, families and other responsibilities and less time to "play". Gaming companies cater to that market and you have the current offering of MMOs. Good? Bad? I say neither. It is just the way the genre has evolved...
And let's face it all my "hard core" friends. If there was such a demand for steep learning curve, brutal PvP with harsh consequences MMOs out there, the market would have followed. I mean, look at the latest "hard-core" offerings: MO? Xsyon? Not doing exactly well are they? DF seems to be faring better but still nothing like tens of thousands of users now is it?
I pretty much agree with this. I'd like to add that I think we're getting to the point where many companies realize they have to make something they like and believe in, instead of doing the WoW formulae. GW2, AA, TOR, TSW all look promising. But we can't shed the inherent questing and combat nature of mmos, what else is there to do? If so you get Minecraft, Xyson, Eve, which all pose a rather large requirement on the player and that won't work for AAA titles that require large subscriber base to regain costs.
The questing paradigm has worked well for many things, books, movies, games, mmos, telling a good story in an exiting way (game mechanics) it's the wrapping and the supporting mechanic(classes, no classes, crafting etc) that defines the difference. Sandbox is something you add to games to empower your players to shape the world, I don't think sandbox gameplay alone is viable (with a few exceptions like Eve) for modern mmos. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is the mmo genre.
"Nostalgia is a funny thing that way, we’re likely to disproportionately like the first things we get into. Your high school girlfriend was always the best one, the shows you watched as a kid were better than the crap on now, and the ham sandwich you had yesterday was better than the one today. "
I think many complaining about the "downfall" of modern MMOs are suffering from a severe case of nostalgia. We tend to look back at games we played when younger as some perfect creations and some holy grail for modern games should aspire to be. And like all nostalgia, it is often an idolized, romanticized view of the past often filtered through rose colored glasses...
Let's face it folks. Things change and evolve. Old style games were created for a niche market of "hardcore" gamers with lots (and I mean lots) of time on their hands. Hell, I remember marathon 18 hours Shadowbane sessions just guarding our tree or waiting for a bane to pop... Anyway, the point is, MMOs have gone mainstream. They now have to cater to a wider group of consumers. Consumers whose average age is higher than it was a decade or so ago. MMO consumers have jobs, families and other responsibilities and less time to "play". Gaming companies cater to that market and you have the current offering of MMOs. Good? Bad? I say neither. It is just the way the genre has evolved...
And let's face it all my "hard core" friends. If there was such a demand for steep learning curve, brutal PvP with harsh consequences MMOs out there, the market would have followed. I mean, look at the latest "hard-core" offerings: MO? Xsyon? Not doing exactly well are they? DF seems to be faring better but still nothing like tens of thousands of users now is it?
I pretty much agree with this. I'd like to add that I think we're getting to the point where many companies realize they have to make something they like and believe in, instead of doing the WoW formulae. GW2, AA, TOR, TSW all look promising. But we can't shed the inherent questing and combat nature of mmos, what else is there to do? If so you get Minecraft, Xyson, Eve, which all pose a rather large requirement on the player and that won't work for AAA titles that require large subscriber base to regain costs.
The questing paradigm has worked well for many things, books, movies, games, mmos, telling a good story in an exiting way (game mechanics) it's the wrapping and the supporting mechanic(classes, no classes, crafting etc) that defines the difference. Sandbox is something you add to games to empower your players to shape the world, I don't think sandbox gameplay alone is viable (with a few exceptions like Eve) for modern mmos. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is the mmo genre.
I think you're on the right track. Less questing is not what we need... we need MORE quests. We need absolute shitloads of intense, longterm, meaningful quests. We need so many quests, so many options and possible paths that you can't even keep track of them. So many quests that when you're talking with friends about what you've done, you learn about things you've never heard of, and you're able to brag and impress them with your exploits..
Obviously people have a hard time accepting the fact that this whole genre has become close to a joke. I also had my moments 10 years ago when mmo's were closer to 'dreams come true' than they are today. The obvious problem is wow and there is no turning back , even other types of games have been dumbed down for a long time.
There used to be much more open ended, open pvp games with little restrictions and more depth 10 years ago than today. The tide has turned and p2p games are dead since a while , we now have to play f2p crap with premium options in watered down clones. There is little hope even in swtor and such with rail shooting in space and such.
This type of game keeps getting worst every day , it got taken over by carebears and solo oriented players who have no idea how to use teamwork or basic roleplaying. The game devs are bending over to the demands of people who want to play single player experiences in an online world. That's like having sex with a blow up doll.
I remember Neocron when you would need 4 hackers (3 layers + hacknet) and 25 fighters to have a small chance of controlling an outpost in the wastelands, not counting the tradeskillers waiting back for poking, repairing, recycling, researching, constructing and modding. Now those were the days, but the game died in 2006 and it's on life support since , basically an abandonware. The game had it's flaws but mostly technical.
There was also ww2online, but the devs destroyed squads to implement a high command system and implemented tons of casual oriented gameplay features that killed the game in the long run, as it was simply a hardcore simulator mmo that tried to appeal to everyone way too much.
The market for niche games is getting smaller everyday, people dont want to create dream worlds and universes anymore, they want your cash real quick by trying to appeal to everyone at the same time and cloning the worst mmo ever created , wow.
I have not found a good mmo since 5 years, i keep searching but lost hope in the long run. Thankfully i spend more time on other dreams like making a legacy out of my audio visual work and gaining knowledge by reading and educating myself. They say all good things must come to an end sometimes to make these things valuable, nostalgia can be bitter.
I was always a twitch player, i just prefer twitch to pnc in this genre. I have always been an honest gamer, never cheated, duped, hacked, exploited , macroed or botted. I think those types of players also destroyed the whole gaming aspect to a certain point. It's not just carebears and solo oriented players that caused all this but all those people who dont play games like they are supposed to be played.
I hope one day i can find my home like Neocron back in 2001 (there was player appartments back then, with sandbox elements and people could visit each other, you could place stuff anywhere you wanted as well ). Neocron has been my best experience and when i look at today's games , they just dont have half the features those decade old mmo's have , they are worst in all aspects except graphics. Even Black Prophecy feels like a big farce to me.
I understand the frustration that i read often around here from people that come from UO, EQ, AC, SB, etc but we all know that era is over since a while , i guess we lived something good compared to what is experienced today. The very repressive nature of such websites never helped, with ego fueled powertripping moderators to money making gimmicks, those people never helped but make things worst. I hope each and everyone of you can find a happy place to game sooner or later, as i think most hardcore mmo players have been let down by the industry since a while. Until then, have fun folks!
It's set in a post nuclear era, in a geographically accurate area around Lake Tahoe. Completely skill based and player driven. No NPCs, players can move earth and create their own cities (including player & public housing). It seems to be Minecraft on roids. Keep in mind its an indie developer so the graphics and such aren't AAA standard....but if the content is good, does that really matter?
If Ultima Online & Lineage 2 had kids.... More of a traditional Sandbox MMORPG. FFA PvP, player housing (plus gardens n' such), player driven economy, best weapons & gear is craftable..NOT lootable, and graphics in the style of Lineage 2 (its a Korean game). I think the US/EU is still waiting on a publisher to pick it up. It's in closed beta right now for Korea.
I've stumbled across a few more Sandbox MMOs, but most are indie jobs that are limited to what they can acomplish given restricted amount of resources and funds. Which is the problem today with Sandbox game development. AAA publishers won't have anything to do with them because they dont' appeal to a large enough subscriber base to warrent the millions and millions of dollars invested (SW:TOR cost like 500million???). The indie developers are tasked with developing, publishing, and fundraising the entire project. They end up biting off more than they can chew and the product ends up getting released on time with 1/4 of the features promised, or the project takes 10+ years and still comes out half baked with an antiquated graphics engine and buggy code. NOT because Sandboxes suck.....but because the casual gaming industry decided to co-op the MMO genere because of how mature the internet and networking technology was.
Obviously people have a hard time accepting the fact that this whole genre has become close to a joke. I also had my moments 10 years ago when mmo's were closer to 'dreams come true' than they are today. The obvious problem is wow and there is no turning back , even other types of games have been dumbed down for a long time.
There used to be much more open ended, open pvp games with little restrictions and more depth 10 years ago than today. The tide has turned and p2p games are dead since a while , we now have to play f2p crap with premium options in watered down clones. There is little hope even in swtor and such with rail shooting in space and such.
This type of game keeps getting worst every day , it got taken over by carebears and solo oriented players who have no idea how to use teamwork or basic roleplaying. The game devs are bending over to the demands of people who want to play single player experiences in an online world. That's like having sex with a blow up doll.
.....
I was always a twitch player, i just prefer twitch to pnc in this genre. I have always been an honest gamer, never cheated, duped, hacked, exploited , macroed or botted. I think those types of players also destroyed the whole gaming aspect to a certain point. It's not just carebears and solo oriented players that caused all this but all those people who dont play games like they are supposed to be played.
First: I respect that this post is written with passion. However, I disagree with most of it.
Second: I'll be fifty years old next year and suffice it to say I've played MMOs long enough to have tried the old and the new.
Now, to the meat of it. Look at your opening line: it's not a hard fact that most of the genre is close to a joke, it's your opinion. So people should have a hard time accepting that statement.
Next paragraph: It does not make a game bad if it lacks open pvp, like you suggest. There's a reason few open pvp games do well; only a minority of gamers prefer that type of MMO.
You lump carebears and soloers in the same group, and then assume that neither has any idea of teamwork. I solo almost exclusively. I have raided and aside from the comraderie, hated it. I found it dull and much, much more repetitive than other forms of PvE. I solo out of preference, not a lack of teamwork skills.
I also consider myself an honest gamer, and I do agree with you that excessive modding and botting is detrimental to gaming. However, to connect this to your hated "carebears and soloists" makes no sense at all. Hell, virtually every raiding guild in Wow requires you to have a half dozen mods.
Personally, I loved the Ultima series but hated Ultima Online. Does that mean, by your definition, I'm gaming the wrong way?
My point here is that there's nothing wrong with liking what you like, but implying that anyone who likes their games any other way is wrong. I'm sorry you seem unable to find what you're looking for in an MMO, but it is a fact that there are tons more MMOs options today than there was before, and that's gotta be a plus for every gamer.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
Wow, I can level by running an instanced dungeon? Where I start at point A and finish at point Z with no deviation inbetween? That sounds awesome. /sarcasm. EQ dungeons were vast places with multiple groups in different locations, not some straight line piece of crap.
Grind the same mob? In EQ I could go to 20+ different locations in the game world and decide what mobs I wanted to fight and where I wanted to XP. WoW you're on a straight path - you fight what they want you to fight, you go where they want you to go. It's like they designed a world then gave each player a chaperone to lead them carefully through the game, walking hand in hand from 1st to Max level.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
Wow, I can level by running an instanced dungeon? Where I start at point A and finish at point Z with no deviation inbetween? That sounds awesome. /sarcasm. EQ dungeons were vast places with multiple groups in different locations, not some straight line piece of crap.
Grind the same mob? In EQ I could go to 20+ different locations in the game world and decide what mobs I wanted to fight and where I wanted to XP. WoW you're on a straight path - you fight what they want you to fight, you go where they want you to go. It's like they designed a world then gave each player a chaperone to lead them carefully through the game, walking hand in hand from 1st to Max level.
You have never skip bosses in WOW dungeons? EQ dungeons have the same boss, same loot table .. except LESS interesting fights and camping. I will take WOW dungeons any day. But the piont is that you are WRONG in saying questing is the only way to level in WOW.
Straightline is crap? You don't play higher rated SP games like COD or Bioshock?
20+ different location? LOL .. you can do that in WOW .. just taht is LESS efificient. People also dont' go to 20 locations in EQ to grind mob ... they go to teh most efficient place. You never camp at that lizard temple for hours and hours? VERY boring. You are delusional if you think you have that freedom. Try go to a L20 EQ zone when u r level 5.
I will take WOW any day .. and so do MILLIONS of others.
Straightline is crap? You don't play higher rated SP games like COD or Bioshock?
I was going to respond to the rest but this is going into flame territory and will likely be shut down by the mods, so I'll just pick out this bit. Yes I played them, but I also thought they were crap. The last one, Black Ops, was about as bad an FPS as I've ever played. It's not just MMO's that are suffering from poor design and linear game play, most games seem to be going that way, turning from games into interactive movies.
If these companies want to create interesting stories with lots of cut scenes or straight line gameplay they should just make a movie. If they want to make a game, then make a game! Entertainment is severely lacking in most new releases.
Obviously people have a hard time accepting the fact that this whole genre has become close to a joke. I also had my moments 10 years ago when mmo's were closer to 'dreams come true' than they are today. The obvious problem is wow and there is no turning back , even other types of games have been dumbed down for a long time.
There used to be much more open ended, open pvp games with little restrictions and more depth 10 years ago than today. The tide has turned and p2p games are dead since a while , we now have to play f2p crap with premium options in watered down clones. There is little hope even in swtor and such with rail shooting in space and such.
This type of game keeps getting worst every day , it got taken over by carebears and solo oriented players who have no idea how to use teamwork or basic roleplaying. The game devs are bending over to the demands of people who want to play single player experiences in an online world. That's like having sex with a blow up doll.
.....
I was always a twitch player, i just prefer twitch to pnc in this genre. I have always been an honest gamer, never cheated, duped, hacked, exploited , macroed or botted. I think those types of players also destroyed the whole gaming aspect to a certain point. It's not just carebears and solo oriented players that caused all this but all those people who dont play games like they are supposed to be played.
My point here is that there's nothing wrong with liking what you like, but implying that anyone who likes their games any other way is wrong. I'm sorry you seem unable to find what you're looking for in an MMO, but it is a fact that there are tons more MMOs options today than there was before, and that's gotta be a plus for every gamer.
Not neccessarily true. I'll agree with you that there are TONS more options today in the MMO realm than there was 10 years ago. But look at who the majority of the options are suited for?
Any AAA P2P game thats come out since WOW has largely been in the spitting image of WOW (in terms of hack n' slash, gear focused, linear themepark game play). So if your one of the casual gamers that joined the MMO movement with the advent of WOW....then there are a ton of options available to you (but is there really a good enough reason to leave WOW for good considering they are virtually the same experience?)
A slew of F2P games has hit the scene in the last 10 years, most of which are rip offs (in some instances, almost near duplication) of existing P2P games, with a cash shop attached that gives unfair advantage to people with the biggest pocket book.....not the person who puts in the time. Again, suited for the casual gamer.
So where does the traditional MMORPG gamer (who enjoys virtual worlds, not rides) go? As I've pointed out earlier in the thread, there are a few promising sandbox games on the horizon......but when looked at in comparison to all the other MMO options out there.....its evident to see that not EVERY gamer is equally represented.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
Wow, I can level by running an instanced dungeon? Where I start at point A and finish at point Z with no deviation inbetween? That sounds awesome. /sarcasm. EQ dungeons were vast places with multiple groups in different locations, not some straight line piece of crap.
Grind the same mob? In EQ I could go to 20+ different locations in the game world and decide what mobs I wanted to fight and where I wanted to XP. WoW you're on a straight path - you fight what they want you to fight, you go where they want you to go. It's like they designed a world then gave each player a chaperone to lead them carefully through the game, walking hand in hand from 1st to Max level.
You have never skip bosses in WOW dungeons? EQ dungeons have the same boss, same loot table .. except LESS interesting fights and camping. I will take WOW dungeons any day. But the piont is that you are WRONG in saying questing is the only way to level in WOW.
Straightline is crap? You don't play higher rated SP games like COD or Bioshock?
20+ different location? LOL .. you can do that in WOW .. just taht is LESS efificient. People also dont' go to 20 locations in EQ to grind mob ... they go to teh most efficient place. You never camp at that lizard temple for hours and hours? VERY boring. You are delusional if you think you have that freedom. Try go to a L20 EQ zone when u r level 5.
I will take WOW any day .. and so do MILLIONS of others.
I can't speak intellegently on EQ, but i have played Lineage 2 and it sounds like they had a similar dungeon structure as EQ did.
In Lineage 2, a dungeon was just another place to kill monsters for the most efficient XP and highest opprotunity for good loot drops. Yes, your group sat in the same room and killed the same monsters. But the dynamic of having a instanceless dungeon that other people could compete with you for leveling spots breeded ALOT of meaningful openworld PvP (something COMPLETELY absent in any themepark MMO). Alliances and Arch-Rivals are made with an open world dungeon model where players are forced to compete for resources.
I'll admit, the first time I experienced a WOW dungeon (Start to Finish, scripted dungeon crawl), it was a breath of fresh air. The experience was fun and original....but got OLD quick. No looking over your shoulder for your guild's enemies, no spontianious Action, and NO competition to speak of over the elevated resources available in dungeons.
What it comes down to is different strokes for different folks. Unfortunately for the traditional MMORPG fans that enjoyed the genere for what it once was, there are more folks (casual gamers) in the overall gamer pie than there are old school MMO gamers that are looking for a little more "mature" experience.
Straightline is crap? You don't play higher rated SP games like COD or Bioshock?
I was going to respond to the rest but this is going into flame territory and will likely be shut down by the mods, so I'll just pick out this bit. Yes I played them, but I also thought they were crap. The last one, Black Ops, was about as bad an FPS as I've ever played. It's not just MMO's that are suffering from poor design and linear game play, most games seem to be going that way, turning from games into interactive movies.
If these companies want to create interesting stories with lots of cut scenes or straight line gameplay they should just make a movie. If they want to make a game, then make a game! Entertainment is severely lacking in most new releases.
That opinion of yours obviously is NOT shared by critics, and MILLIONS of players who love those games. However, since it is a personal preference, there is obviously no debate about it.
For the record, Bioshock 1 & 2, Dead Space 1 & 2, COD 5 (haven't played black ops yet,but will soon) are all great in my opinon. Obviously we found different things fun.
And no they should not make a movie. I want to shoot (and use different abilities) in a scripted interactive setting. I can kill those enemies myself in a movie.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
Wow, I can level by running an instanced dungeon? Where I start at point A and finish at point Z with no deviation inbetween? That sounds awesome. /sarcasm. EQ dungeons were vast places with multiple groups in different locations, not some straight line piece of crap.
Grind the same mob? In EQ I could go to 20+ different locations in the game world and decide what mobs I wanted to fight and where I wanted to XP. WoW you're on a straight path - you fight what they want you to fight, you go where they want you to go. It's like they designed a world then gave each player a chaperone to lead them carefully through the game, walking hand in hand from 1st to Max level.
In Lineage 2, a dungeon was just another place to kill monsters for the most efficient XP and highest opprotunity for good loot drops. Yes, your group sat in the same room and killed the same monsters. But the dynamic of having a instanceless dungeon that other people could compete with you for leveling spots breeded ALOT of meaningful openworld PvP (something COMPLETELY absent in any themepark MMO). Alliances and Arch-Rivals are made with an open world dungeon model where players are forced to compete for resources.
I'll admit, the first time I experienced a WOW dungeon (Start to Finish, scripted dungeon crawl), it was a breath of fresh air. The experience was fun and original....but got OLD quick. No looking over your shoulder for your guild's enemies, no spontianious Action, and NO competition to speak of over the elevated resources available in dungeons.
A lot of people don't play a PvP game. In fact, a lot of EQ players don't do that.
Thus, there is NO lookign over your shoulder in the dungeons. The ONLY interaction is kill stealing and wait for the other group to finish, which is extremely aggravating and boring. Much worse than scripted dungeons.
Plus, you go through the SAME dungeons in the other games, as in WOW. There is no difference in how they get old.
So where does the traditional MMORPG gamer (who enjoys virtual worlds, not rides) go? As I've pointed out earlier in the thread, there are a few promising sandbox games on the horizon......but when looked at in comparison to all the other MMO options out there.....its evident to see that not EVERY gamer is equally represented.
Nor should they be. The world is not fair. If "your" hobby has few supporters, you will get less development. It is the same with war gamers. Do they cry foul when there are much bigger budget FPS because that is what float most players' boat?
I voted "omg the gfx are insane111!!!one" because it was the most amusing option but I wanted to vote "they have improved in many ways but have detracted from their original design"
OP: I think we share the same dream and I'm afraid that dream is slipping away.
That opinion of yours obviously is NOT shared by critics, and MILLIONS of players who love those games. However, since it is a personal preference, there is obviously no debate about it.
For the record, Bioshock 1 & 2, Dead Space 1 & 2, COD 5 (haven't played black ops yet,but will soon) are all great in my opinon. Obviously we found different things fun.
And no they should not make a movie. I want to shoot (and use different abilities) in a scripted interactive setting. I can kill those enemies myself in a movie.
It's not that I hate the style of game, I have really enjoyed some of them, but some really should be just movies not games, because the gameplay is really lacking. Take Black Ops for example - the whole game you're trying to track down this 'boss', and when you finally get there, do you have some massive battle? Do you have to dive from cover to cover, taking potshots while avoiding incoming enemy fire and ever increasing amounts of mercenaries? No. The ground shakes, the boss slides, you press X to catch the boss. You both fall, you repeatedly press a button to drown him. The end. Did I even need to be there for that?
That is not a game, that is not entertainment, that could be played by a schizophrenic monkey with altzheimers. I used 'played' in a very loose fashion there, of course. There have been some fun linear games, such as the Mass Effect franchise which I've played through multiple times, though ME2 is a lot more restrictive than the first. And there are many others that I've enjoyed, it's just when the game stops appearing to be a game and starts to look like a story where you happen to be pressing buttons now and then, is when I give up on it. It's appeared on YouTube that in Black Ops you seriously don't even need to take part, the support team will kill everything for you.
What I'd like to see are more games that are designed to be just that. Games. Such as Portal, Hitman, Flashpoint, Grand Theft Auto (before IV - especially Vice City), Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and so on. On the subject of GTA, the change to interactive movie was quite obvious in IV. They removed all the 'game' stuff that was in Vice City, such as racing along a path over rooftops and other crazy places, remote control car destruction, kill streaks with a chainsaw, model helicopter races over the river, and so on. It became far more serious and less 'gamey' - if that's even a word.
Game developers need to look at what they're doing and focus their efforts on creating what their title suggests. Developing a GAME.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
Wow, I can level by running an instanced dungeon? Where I start at point A and finish at point Z with no deviation inbetween? That sounds awesome. /sarcasm. EQ dungeons were vast places with multiple groups in different locations, not some straight line piece of crap.
Grind the same mob? In EQ I could go to 20+ different locations in the game world and decide what mobs I wanted to fight and where I wanted to XP. WoW you're on a straight path - you fight what they want you to fight, you go where they want you to go. It's like they designed a world then gave each player a chaperone to lead them carefully through the game, walking hand in hand from 1st to Max level.
In Lineage 2, a dungeon was just another place to kill monsters for the most efficient XP and highest opprotunity for good loot drops. Yes, your group sat in the same room and killed the same monsters. But the dynamic of having a instanceless dungeon that other people could compete with you for leveling spots breeded ALOT of meaningful openworld PvP (something COMPLETELY absent in any themepark MMO). Alliances and Arch-Rivals are made with an open world dungeon model where players are forced to compete for resources.
I'll admit, the first time I experienced a WOW dungeon (Start to Finish, scripted dungeon crawl), it was a breath of fresh air. The experience was fun and original....but got OLD quick. No looking over your shoulder for your guild's enemies, no spontianious Action, and NO competition to speak of over the elevated resources available in dungeons.
A lot of people don't play a PvP game. In fact, a lot of EQ players don't do that.
Thus, there is NO lookign over your shoulder in the dungeons. The ONLY interaction is kill stealing and wait for the other group to finish, which is extremely aggravating and boring. Much worse than scripted dungeons.
Plus, you go through the SAME dungeons in the other games, as in WOW. There is no difference in how they get old.
As I recognized, Lineage 2 & EQ may have had different PvP flagging mechanisims.....but in scope of the post's title, I was just pointing out that just because a dungeon is not instanced (as it is in WOW), and involves fighting the same monsters over and over.....there is a TON of player driven content that can come out of something that looks like (on the surface) something boring and un eventful.
And this speaks to the replayability of dungeon crawling in both types of games.
Open World Dungeon crawling in a FFA system can potentially involve spontanious action, constant alertness and potentially a different outcome every time you set foot in the dungeon. So long as players are interacting with eachother (even if its PvP), dungeon crawling has a ton of replayability.
Instanced Dungeons are largely the same experience (save a few gimmick boss mechanics). You get automatically thrown into a group, where you fight trash monsters that half your group can manage without dying....of which you spend 85% of your time fighting. After you've ran the dungeon the first 5 times, your only there to chase gear. Your whole modus operandi is to upgrade your gear....dungeon after dungeon. Is it a supprise that one of the main complaints you hear from WOW endgame players is that they are sick and tired of running the same mindless rat race for a token or a piece of gear. Poor Replayability because the encounter is as predictable as an encounter can get.
I fully recognize this is a matter of different strokes for different folks.....but you can't deny that the linear dungeon model ultimately defeats itself and eventually turns off a large subset of the playerbase.
So where does the traditional MMORPG gamer (who enjoys virtual worlds, not rides) go? As I've pointed out earlier in the thread, there are a few promising sandbox games on the horizon......but when looked at in comparison to all the other MMO options out there.....its evident to see that not EVERY gamer is equally represented.
Nor should they be. The world is not fair. If "your" hobby has few supporters, you will get less development. It is the same with war gamers. Do they cry foul when there are much bigger budget FPS because that is what float most players' boat?
I understand the business behind the actions....no lesson is needed here.
I was arguing the point that MORE MMORPG titles in the genere is good for the gamers. If we are talking about gamers, as a general term for ALL gamers.....then again, I disagree for the reasons I stated.
Despite there being hundreds of more MMORPG games available today than there were 10 years ago, our options aren't that much more varied.....I think thats a bad thing for the MMO industry.
The MMORPG genre isn't about sticking to one idea and running with it. It's about evolving. Taking risks for the advancement of social gaming. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. Every failure, every success, it all serves as a way for others to evolve the genre in a better direction.
Point is, to be a MMORPG gamer isn't about taking apart which games you don't like. It's about finding a game you like, playing it, and having fun. Remembering to stay flexible, because what you like now may change, and you need to be ready to change with it. Adopt new technologies. Try them out. Who knows? Maybe you'll find yourself addicted to something new!
Remembering the past isn't bad, but don't get lost there. Just because things change, doesn't mean it's for the worst.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
Everyone whines and whines and whines just go play FE, VG, DF, EVE and have some fun dammit! stop whining!!
Playing: PO, EVE Waiting for: WoD Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Open World Dungeon crawling in a FFA system can potentially involve spontanious action, constant alertness and potentially a different outcome every time you set foot in the dungeon. So long as players are interacting with eachother (even if its PvP), dungeon crawling has a ton of replayability.
Instanced Dungeons are largely the same experience (save a few gimmick boss mechanics). You get automatically thrown into a group, where you fight trash monsters that half your group can manage without dying....of which you spend 85% of your time fighting. After you've ran the dungeon the first 5 times, your only there to chase gear. Your whole modus operandi is to upgrade your gear....dungeon after dungeon. Is it a supprise that one of the main complaints you hear from WOW endgame players is that they are sick and tired of running the same mindless rat race for a token or a piece of gear. Poor Replayability because the encounter is as predictable as an encounter can get.
Very well put.
I've enjoyed the "WoW" style of dungeons when they came up, but i got bored of it very very fast. There is no sense of accomplishment. In an old dungeon, when you actually killed a boss and got an item, after (sometimes) hours of pvp action (Anarchy Online's Tarasque for example) you felt that you actually "did something". You have something to remember, something to talk about: "well there were 10 of us then a group of 30 from the opposing faction came, we yelled in guild chat, then more of us came, and then more of them came, and it all came to a massive 2h pvp battle".
What can be remembered from a "WoW" dungeon? What can you say? "Well, we went there, we killed 1st boss, got its gear, killed 2nd boss, got his gear, 3rd boss, same". Everyone knows the bosses, everyone knows the fights, everyone knows even the loot tables. There's nothing interesting on that part.
Yes the old dungeons are no "better" in terms of loot and fights than the new ones (probably they are even worse) but the players made them interesting. You know, the "MM" from MMORPG? I fully understand the people playing only for "get the gear, get the levels, get better gear, get more levels" but not everyone plays following that pattern. Stop reducing everything to loot and XP like that's everything all of us are in for. As a fan of the "old genre", i want games with the same good graphics, nice interfaces, smooth gameplay, great additions (auction house, guild banks etc) which follow the "old gameplay" style and depth.
It's the sad, sad truth. Whats worse is there are more casuals than there are core MMORPG gamers. So they'll just say "Nuh uh!" over and over, and be right by sheer force of numbers.
Comments
I guess I just care more about a good story than progression. The progression in SWG was just so dry and uncreative. In contrast in WoW I was mostly able to just explore and take part in the stories and my character progressed in the background.
The character progression in SWG just did not make sense. It pretty much assumed that your character was an idiot who could not learn to use a new ability after a dozen tries and made you repeat stuff you already knew another few hundred times.
As far as crafting goes, maybe what you did worked in the early days but by the time I started playing, there was no market for low level stuff. Master craftsmen were making good quality stuff cheap enough that noone would buy what a newbie could make. If you wanted to make stuff that would sell, you had to get to the higher ranks. This involved grinding hundreds of items you would never sell and required no creative thought.
Ultimately I simply could not turn off my brain long enough to stomach the uncreative grind SWG imposed on me. It would not let me enjoy the journey and it made the destination undesirable. The game focused too much on the destination and not enough on the journey.
This goes back to the whole 'themepark' versus 'sandbox' discussion.
From what you've said, it's pretty clear you're a themepark MMO gamer. You prefer a premade story with clearly defined path of progression.
Games like Ultiama Online and Star Wars Galaxies are designed to be sandboxes, where the general architecture of the game is setup to allow more freedom and control for players so they can make their own stories.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking one type more than the other, it's a matter of preference.
What I do find a little odd is some of the 'complaints' against sandbox MMOs. What you perceive as a "grind" of killing hundreds of mobs or creating hundreds of items to advance, in actuality, is the exact same thing you're doing in a themepark MMO. The only difference is that in a themepark MMO you let the game developers tell you exactly where to go and what to do, rather than figuring it out for yourself.
Actually I consider myself a sandbox MMO gamer. However, I am a very action-focused gamer so I always strive to move forward and try new things in a game. I try to explore every aspect of a game or game feature and lose interest when it becomes routine. SWG became a game full of mindless, meaningless routines to me and did not give me the freedom to go beyond that. It's a similar reason to why I quit EVE earlier. Even A Tale In the Desert is becoming too routine at this point.
The beauty of a well designed thempark game like WoW is that you can play it enough ways that it takes a while for things to become routine. WoW's quest chains were structures well enough that I would move to a new area and new types of challenges just as the previous area became routine. The classes are varied enough that you can replay the same area multiple times in different ways. The biggest problem wtih the game is that when you get to the endgame, things can quicly become too routine as you start farming the same content over and over.
The problem I have with 'old school' sandboxes is that they never had enough sand. You ended up playing with the same sand over and over and building and rebuilding the same sand castles. Things become routine too quickly and they lose the sense of adventure and freedom that attracts me to them.
I got to level 30ish in WoW as I became bored of the same gameplay time after time. At level 30 I looked back at what I'd done and it was along the lines of, "At level 1 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of A, at level 5 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of B, at level 10 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of C, at level 15 an NPC asked me to kill 10 of D.", all while directing me in a straight line from point A to point Z.
I didn't even see the endgame of the so-called super-game World of Warcraft, I found it incredibly tedious after only 30 levels to the point that I decided to quit and unsubscribe. I still fail to see how the game became popular, never mind the fact it pulled in millions of players. Just blows my mind, that this is what people view as 'fun'.
Even worse is that this is all we've had ever since, the same old single player quest grind that was boring and uninspired from the moment it arrived. I really fail to see how you can play this game in 'enough ways' to stop it becoming routine. Maybe I just have a lower tolerance for bullshit.
Obviously you have no understanding of the majority of MMO players, as well as don't know the game well enough.
You don't know you can level by running dungeons? And if you are bored by running quests, the old EQ grind the same mob for weeks repetitive gameplay must be unbearable for you. At least you get to kill different mobs in this set up.
Plus, people LIKE hack-n-slash. You kill a LOT more than 10 rats in Diablo and see how well that game is sold. Heck, people are STILL playing Diablo 2 today.
I pretty much agree with this. I'd like to add that I think we're getting to the point where many companies realize they have to make something they like and believe in, instead of doing the WoW formulae. GW2, AA, TOR, TSW all look promising. But we can't shed the inherent questing and combat nature of mmos, what else is there to do? If so you get Minecraft, Xyson, Eve, which all pose a rather large requirement on the player and that won't work for AAA titles that require large subscriber base to regain costs.
The questing paradigm has worked well for many things, books, movies, games, mmos, telling a good story in an exiting way (game mechanics) it's the wrapping and the supporting mechanic(classes, no classes, crafting etc) that defines the difference. Sandbox is something you add to games to empower your players to shape the world, I don't think sandbox gameplay alone is viable (with a few exceptions like Eve) for modern mmos. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is the mmo genre.
I think you're on the right track. Less questing is not what we need... we need MORE quests. We need absolute shitloads of intense, longterm, meaningful quests. We need so many quests, so many options and possible paths that you can't even keep track of them. So many quests that when you're talking with friends about what you've done, you learn about things you've never heard of, and you're able to brag and impress them with your exploits..
I completely agree. There are a few titles out on the horizon that may interest you....
Xsyon - http://www.xsyon.com/
It's set in a post nuclear era, in a geographically accurate area around Lake Tahoe. Completely skill based and player driven. No NPCs, players can move earth and create their own cities (including player & public housing). It seems to be Minecraft on roids. Keep in mind its an indie developer so the graphics and such aren't AAA standard....but if the content is good, does that really matter?
ArcheAge - http://archeage-online.com/
If Ultima Online & Lineage 2 had kids.... More of a traditional Sandbox MMORPG. FFA PvP, player housing (plus gardens n' such), player driven economy, best weapons & gear is craftable..NOT lootable, and graphics in the style of Lineage 2 (its a Korean game). I think the US/EU is still waiting on a publisher to pick it up. It's in closed beta right now for Korea.
I've stumbled across a few more Sandbox MMOs, but most are indie jobs that are limited to what they can acomplish given restricted amount of resources and funds. Which is the problem today with Sandbox game development. AAA publishers won't have anything to do with them because they dont' appeal to a large enough subscriber base to warrent the millions and millions of dollars invested (SW:TOR cost like 500million???). The indie developers are tasked with developing, publishing, and fundraising the entire project. They end up biting off more than they can chew and the product ends up getting released on time with 1/4 of the features promised, or the project takes 10+ years and still comes out half baked with an antiquated graphics engine and buggy code. NOT because Sandboxes suck.....but because the casual gaming industry decided to co-op the MMO genere because of how mature the internet and networking technology was.
First: I respect that this post is written with passion. However, I disagree with most of it.
Second: I'll be fifty years old next year and suffice it to say I've played MMOs long enough to have tried the old and the new.
Now, to the meat of it. Look at your opening line: it's not a hard fact that most of the genre is close to a joke, it's your opinion. So people should have a hard time accepting that statement.
Next paragraph: It does not make a game bad if it lacks open pvp, like you suggest. There's a reason few open pvp games do well; only a minority of gamers prefer that type of MMO.
You lump carebears and soloers in the same group, and then assume that neither has any idea of teamwork. I solo almost exclusively. I have raided and aside from the comraderie, hated it. I found it dull and much, much more repetitive than other forms of PvE. I solo out of preference, not a lack of teamwork skills.
I also consider myself an honest gamer, and I do agree with you that excessive modding and botting is detrimental to gaming. However, to connect this to your hated "carebears and soloists" makes no sense at all. Hell, virtually every raiding guild in Wow requires you to have a half dozen mods.
Personally, I loved the Ultima series but hated Ultima Online. Does that mean, by your definition, I'm gaming the wrong way?
My point here is that there's nothing wrong with liking what you like, but implying that anyone who likes their games any other way is wrong. I'm sorry you seem unable to find what you're looking for in an MMO, but it is a fact that there are tons more MMOs options today than there was before, and that's gotta be a plus for every gamer.
Wow, I can level by running an instanced dungeon? Where I start at point A and finish at point Z with no deviation inbetween? That sounds awesome. /sarcasm. EQ dungeons were vast places with multiple groups in different locations, not some straight line piece of crap.
Grind the same mob? In EQ I could go to 20+ different locations in the game world and decide what mobs I wanted to fight and where I wanted to XP. WoW you're on a straight path - you fight what they want you to fight, you go where they want you to go. It's like they designed a world then gave each player a chaperone to lead them carefully through the game, walking hand in hand from 1st to Max level.
You have never skip bosses in WOW dungeons? EQ dungeons have the same boss, same loot table .. except LESS interesting fights and camping. I will take WOW dungeons any day. But the piont is that you are WRONG in saying questing is the only way to level in WOW.
Straightline is crap? You don't play higher rated SP games like COD or Bioshock?
20+ different location? LOL .. you can do that in WOW .. just taht is LESS efificient. People also dont' go to 20 locations in EQ to grind mob ... they go to teh most efficient place. You never camp at that lizard temple for hours and hours? VERY boring. You are delusional if you think you have that freedom. Try go to a L20 EQ zone when u r level 5.
I will take WOW any day .. and so do MILLIONS of others.
I was going to respond to the rest but this is going into flame territory and will likely be shut down by the mods, so I'll just pick out this bit. Yes I played them, but I also thought they were crap. The last one, Black Ops, was about as bad an FPS as I've ever played. It's not just MMO's that are suffering from poor design and linear game play, most games seem to be going that way, turning from games into interactive movies.
If these companies want to create interesting stories with lots of cut scenes or straight line gameplay they should just make a movie. If they want to make a game, then make a game! Entertainment is severely lacking in most new releases.
Not neccessarily true. I'll agree with you that there are TONS more options today in the MMO realm than there was 10 years ago. But look at who the majority of the options are suited for?
Any AAA P2P game thats come out since WOW has largely been in the spitting image of WOW (in terms of hack n' slash, gear focused, linear themepark game play). So if your one of the casual gamers that joined the MMO movement with the advent of WOW....then there are a ton of options available to you (but is there really a good enough reason to leave WOW for good considering they are virtually the same experience?)
A slew of F2P games has hit the scene in the last 10 years, most of which are rip offs (in some instances, almost near duplication) of existing P2P games, with a cash shop attached that gives unfair advantage to people with the biggest pocket book.....not the person who puts in the time. Again, suited for the casual gamer.
So where does the traditional MMORPG gamer (who enjoys virtual worlds, not rides) go? As I've pointed out earlier in the thread, there are a few promising sandbox games on the horizon......but when looked at in comparison to all the other MMO options out there.....its evident to see that not EVERY gamer is equally represented.
I can't speak intellegently on EQ, but i have played Lineage 2 and it sounds like they had a similar dungeon structure as EQ did.
In Lineage 2, a dungeon was just another place to kill monsters for the most efficient XP and highest opprotunity for good loot drops. Yes, your group sat in the same room and killed the same monsters. But the dynamic of having a instanceless dungeon that other people could compete with you for leveling spots breeded ALOT of meaningful openworld PvP (something COMPLETELY absent in any themepark MMO). Alliances and Arch-Rivals are made with an open world dungeon model where players are forced to compete for resources.
I'll admit, the first time I experienced a WOW dungeon (Start to Finish, scripted dungeon crawl), it was a breath of fresh air. The experience was fun and original....but got OLD quick. No looking over your shoulder for your guild's enemies, no spontianious Action, and NO competition to speak of over the elevated resources available in dungeons.
What it comes down to is different strokes for different folks. Unfortunately for the traditional MMORPG fans that enjoyed the genere for what it once was, there are more folks (casual gamers) in the overall gamer pie than there are old school MMO gamers that are looking for a little more "mature" experience.
That opinion of yours obviously is NOT shared by critics, and MILLIONS of players who love those games. However, since it is a personal preference, there is obviously no debate about it.
For the record, Bioshock 1 & 2, Dead Space 1 & 2, COD 5 (haven't played black ops yet,but will soon) are all great in my opinon. Obviously we found different things fun.
And no they should not make a movie. I want to shoot (and use different abilities) in a scripted interactive setting. I can kill those enemies myself in a movie.
A lot of people don't play a PvP game. In fact, a lot of EQ players don't do that.
Thus, there is NO lookign over your shoulder in the dungeons. The ONLY interaction is kill stealing and wait for the other group to finish, which is extremely aggravating and boring. Much worse than scripted dungeons.
Plus, you go through the SAME dungeons in the other games, as in WOW. There is no difference in how they get old.
Nor should they be. The world is not fair. If "your" hobby has few supporters, you will get less development. It is the same with war gamers. Do they cry foul when there are much bigger budget FPS because that is what float most players' boat?
I voted "omg the gfx are insane111!!!one" because it was the most amusing option but I wanted to vote "they have improved in many ways but have detracted from their original design"
OP: I think we share the same dream and I'm afraid that dream is slipping away.
It's not that I hate the style of game, I have really enjoyed some of them, but some really should be just movies not games, because the gameplay is really lacking. Take Black Ops for example - the whole game you're trying to track down this 'boss', and when you finally get there, do you have some massive battle? Do you have to dive from cover to cover, taking potshots while avoiding incoming enemy fire and ever increasing amounts of mercenaries? No. The ground shakes, the boss slides, you press X to catch the boss. You both fall, you repeatedly press a button to drown him. The end. Did I even need to be there for that?
That is not a game, that is not entertainment, that could be played by a schizophrenic monkey with altzheimers. I used 'played' in a very loose fashion there, of course. There have been some fun linear games, such as the Mass Effect franchise which I've played through multiple times, though ME2 is a lot more restrictive than the first. And there are many others that I've enjoyed, it's just when the game stops appearing to be a game and starts to look like a story where you happen to be pressing buttons now and then, is when I give up on it. It's appeared on YouTube that in Black Ops you seriously don't even need to take part, the support team will kill everything for you.
What I'd like to see are more games that are designed to be just that. Games. Such as Portal, Hitman, Flashpoint, Grand Theft Auto (before IV - especially Vice City), Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and so on. On the subject of GTA, the change to interactive movie was quite obvious in IV. They removed all the 'game' stuff that was in Vice City, such as racing along a path over rooftops and other crazy places, remote control car destruction, kill streaks with a chainsaw, model helicopter races over the river, and so on. It became far more serious and less 'gamey' - if that's even a word.
Game developers need to look at what they're doing and focus their efforts on creating what their title suggests. Developing a GAME.
As I recognized, Lineage 2 & EQ may have had different PvP flagging mechanisims.....but in scope of the post's title, I was just pointing out that just because a dungeon is not instanced (as it is in WOW), and involves fighting the same monsters over and over.....there is a TON of player driven content that can come out of something that looks like (on the surface) something boring and un eventful.
And this speaks to the replayability of dungeon crawling in both types of games.
Open World Dungeon crawling in a FFA system can potentially involve spontanious action, constant alertness and potentially a different outcome every time you set foot in the dungeon. So long as players are interacting with eachother (even if its PvP), dungeon crawling has a ton of replayability.
Instanced Dungeons are largely the same experience (save a few gimmick boss mechanics). You get automatically thrown into a group, where you fight trash monsters that half your group can manage without dying....of which you spend 85% of your time fighting. After you've ran the dungeon the first 5 times, your only there to chase gear. Your whole modus operandi is to upgrade your gear....dungeon after dungeon. Is it a supprise that one of the main complaints you hear from WOW endgame players is that they are sick and tired of running the same mindless rat race for a token or a piece of gear. Poor Replayability because the encounter is as predictable as an encounter can get.
I fully recognize this is a matter of different strokes for different folks.....but you can't deny that the linear dungeon model ultimately defeats itself and eventually turns off a large subset of the playerbase.
I understand the business behind the actions....no lesson is needed here.
I was arguing the point that MORE MMORPG titles in the genere is good for the gamers. If we are talking about gamers, as a general term for ALL gamers.....then again, I disagree for the reasons I stated.
Despite there being hundreds of more MMORPG games available today than there were 10 years ago, our options aren't that much more varied.....I think thats a bad thing for the MMO industry.
The MMORPG genre isn't about sticking to one idea and running with it. It's about evolving. Taking risks for the advancement of social gaming. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. Every failure, every success, it all serves as a way for others to evolve the genre in a better direction.
Point is, to be a MMORPG gamer isn't about taking apart which games you don't like. It's about finding a game you like, playing it, and having fun. Remembering to stay flexible, because what you like now may change, and you need to be ready to change with it. Adopt new technologies. Try them out. Who knows? Maybe you'll find yourself addicted to something new!
Remembering the past isn't bad, but don't get lost there. Just because things change, doesn't mean it's for the worst.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
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Everyone whines and whines and whines just go play FE, VG, DF, EVE and have some fun dammit! stop whining!!
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Very well put.
I've enjoyed the "WoW" style of dungeons when they came up, but i got bored of it very very fast. There is no sense of accomplishment. In an old dungeon, when you actually killed a boss and got an item, after (sometimes) hours of pvp action (Anarchy Online's Tarasque for example) you felt that you actually "did something". You have something to remember, something to talk about: "well there were 10 of us then a group of 30 from the opposing faction came, we yelled in guild chat, then more of us came, and then more of them came, and it all came to a massive 2h pvp battle".
What can be remembered from a "WoW" dungeon? What can you say? "Well, we went there, we killed 1st boss, got its gear, killed 2nd boss, got his gear, 3rd boss, same". Everyone knows the bosses, everyone knows the fights, everyone knows even the loot tables. There's nothing interesting on that part.
Yes the old dungeons are no "better" in terms of loot and fights than the new ones (probably they are even worse) but the players made them interesting. You know, the "MM" from MMORPG? I fully understand the people playing only for "get the gear, get the levels, get better gear, get more levels" but not everyone plays following that pattern. Stop reducing everything to loot and XP like that's everything all of us are in for. As a fan of the "old genre", i want games with the same good graphics, nice interfaces, smooth gameplay, great additions (auction house, guild banks etc) which follow the "old gameplay" style and depth.
It's the sad, sad truth. Whats worse is there are more casuals than there are core MMORPG gamers. So they'll just say "Nuh uh!" over and over, and be right by sheer force of numbers.