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Quality of Players OR Quality of Game
GrandoReaper
Member UncommonPosts: 147
So I was just sitting here watchin some random documentary on the retard channel and I had an epiphany. Everyone is wondering why are the current long standing MMO's turning to crap? Why are the newly developed MMO's born as crap? If you put EQ1 (no expansions) up to today's standards of a MMO it would have been thrown out the window. What I am saying is that most all MMO's I have played kept me hooked because of one reason; the community & friends. It wasn’t about becoming the best out of everybody; it was about becoming the best out of my friends so I could rub it in their face (be honest guys).
So now I ask you the question that popped into my head about 5 min ago.
Are the games themselves turning to crap (graphics, game play, difficulty)?
or
Are the player base turning to crap (screaming youngin's & egotistical maniacs)?
Could be a combination of both, but I believe ever sense they started trying to open up the market the easiest direction to get players is hype up the game like it’s going to be a Lord of the Rings/Dragon ball Z playground rated T for Teen or E for Everyone. Some parents do listen to the ratings on the box, so if they make the game appeal to obnoxious egotistical kids then the quality of the game is really just about how well you adapt to a festering douche bag of social interaction.
Comments
Well, from my perspective it's the consumers wanting crap. For instance, I think Oblivion is a terrible game but hordes love it and thus that's what suppliers make. Same goes for WoW. I think it's a terrible MMO but millions love it and that's what we're getting.
I think it's both. I know that EQ, EvE and SWG has some good players and those games aren't that bad. Ever since WoW came out and hit blockbuster sales.. well..I blame wow for everything wrong with mmos from 2006+.
Quality of Players by far....
I take Ryzom as an example, a decent game that is in need of some serious love. Though its the good natured and helpful community that made me stay for the longest period of time. While I take WoW as another case, a game that has been polished like no other and is considered the gold standard that so many model themselves after. I left WoW not because of the stylized graphics, being level-based or lack of money... I left because the community was filled with some of the worst people imaginable that only EVE can come close to meeting.
While my time with WoW wasn't 100% bad, it was the community that killed the game for me.
Players by a mile
UO = Good community (PvP Sandbox)
EQ = Good community (PvE Linear)
SWG = Good community (PvE Sandbox)
EQ2 = Good community (PvE Linear)
Those are the best MMO I played and all have one thing in common, regarless the style and quality of the game
I think it's the players themselves. Once WoW had been released and the players found out that they can get more for less and every time they whine Blizzard seems to cave they've been rampant in other games. Since WoW is the commercial ruler by which all other games seem to measure themselves they too start to cave to the whiny "it's too hard" crowd for fear of losing revenue and tada... you have yourself the current MMO market.
I wish a few of these developers would go the way of Ninja Gaiden. It's damn hard and they will not dumb it down no matter who says what. I think the MMO industry needs at least 1 company like that.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I think both have gone down in terms of quality, and a lot.
I disagree on EQ classic being ditched today. It would be worshipped by a minority and well respected by the rest, considereing an up to date graphics and interface, nothing fancy, just ok like it was back then.
The players. However, you have to put some of the blame on the game itself. A linear, quest based, loot whoring game doesn't exactly encourage community. You can get through the game solo or with PUGs, you get all of your loot through quests, and you have no common goal or purpose, in the main game or the end game. This is what players have bitched for since the old days and this is what they got, an online single player game with an optional, multiplayer fashion show mode. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to push for forced grouping. However, if you don't have forced (or strongly encouraged) grouping, you do need some thing to encourage community, like a player driven economy.
I never saw the good community in UO...I was too busy being killed by gankers when I tried it......EQ had a great community...Eq2 is pretty good but a bit elitist and they turn a deaf ear to any criticisms of the game......
both. gamers and games are both wowified and whine like crazy about everything they don't like or how x game was better than this game or omfg you made a video who cares. i remember when making videos was cool bragging was cool when you earned it.
i'd rather play the game and roleplay by playing instead of trying to dump on everyone all the time instead of killing them in game. if i have a beef with someone i pk them, something that mmo's need to get back to.
KERPLAH!
100% the games. A good game will attract good players, a crappy game will attract crappy players.
Both.
The games: Developers are catering to the lowest common denominator. Like the media. Dumbing down everything.
The players: There is now a very large 'tribe' of Fanboi players who jump from new release to new release (you can find many at the Darkfall forum ATM) too many character defects there to describe.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Great games attract everyone, good and bad. Niche games attract nerds;) Depending how well you get along with freaks and geeks I guess it can make a bad game better. You can play WOW, knowing the game is solid and easily find a great guild which makes the game even better. Even if you play alone, the game itself stands on its own. Eve on the other hand is boring no matter how "cool" and "mature" the people think they are.
Great games can stand on their own. Crap MMOs need the players to make them tolerable. I'll take a good MMO and find other good people to play with. Elitist, know it alls aren't necessarily nice people and niche games attract those types of people much more than others.
The games and audience tend to work out to be a good fit for one another, in my experience. If the game is junk, and the service provider treats people like crap, most self-respecting people are going to leave for something better.
I've seen the odd exception to this of course: people that stay in a crappy game because of friends, because of their years of investment, or because of an IP. This does seem to be the exception to the rule, however.
Some of the most successful games that I'm aware of are WoW, EVE and LoTR. The quality of these games is superior to most, and the customer service ranges from average to excellent. More people are going to play these as a result, and many of them will expect to be treated with decency. You'll always have a percentage of people that are obnoxious though. Still, with larger populations in well-run games, the chances of finding a good community seem to be much higher.
What?
Good games attract all players, and same with bad games actually. You can't just stereotype like that and expect it to be right. Games attract all sorts of players, good or bad, and that's just part of life.
And to the original post, I'd say it's the players. I have no problem with the MMOs out right now, but the players just drive me away from most. I think LotRO has the good community it has because most people that play it are into LotR, and not just the movies. Usually, the more mature people are the ones that will read books like Lord of the Rings (kind of a stereotype on my part, but honestly, it's true), and the people who read the books will be most interested in living in the amazingly in-depth world Tolkien created in his novels.
you're one of those that went in level chat and said "you know what sucks about this game ...." and got bashed by others in said chat aren't you?
I always love those type ... jump in chat basically says the game sucks and then pouts and calls others fanbois when they bash him and tell him to get lost.
eq2 = best MMO out there right now. most people don';t play it because
1) omg soe raped thier mother
2) they think they shouldnt have to upgrade thier PC to play current games.
What always amazes me is all the SWG Vets out there.
IIRC at its peak that game had +/- 500,000 players... yet every man and his dog goes on about how they played pre NGE and pre CU....?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
People are shit.
It's the game developers fault if people don't play it.
In general people are just total morons. But this is the internet who cares.
F*** you
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
I think you can blame WoW for this problem. It's the gaming community that is the problem with MMOs not the games themselves. I've played all the new MMOs (AoC, WAR, etc) and I liked them all. Maybe I wasn't devoted to them like I was with EQ or DAoC, but I still enjoyed playing them. I can't help but notice the average age of MMO players has dropped dramatically since the days of EQ and DAoC (thanks WoW). I always feared when WoW was in Beta, of playing WoW just because of thier community. I played on Battle.net enough to learn that Blizzard's players are nothing short of 5 year olds in maturity.
If the games themselves have any problems it's that the two big recent titles (AoC and WAR) had horrible releases. Granted that almost every MMO had a shaky start, these 2 where hit the hardest since they were expected to be "WoW-Killers" by many. I guess you can't really blame the game for that either hehe.
I sure miss the days of logging on and being with players of my age group. Now everyone just complains about every single little thing. Pretty soon it'll be "This blade of grass doesn't sway like the rest, omg this game stinks because of that!".
The reason you don't play AoC or WAR with people in your age group, is because the games are tedious and boring to play. There is no fun element in them.
If the games were actually fun, and gave more than grind in return, you would play with your peers 24/7.
Surely MMORPG's have always been a grind. But people aren't satisfied with that anymore. MMORPG's have to bring PvP and PvE along with a storyline just to catch everyone. Back in the days the only thing people cared about was killing Logolas500, or owning that dungeon with their mates. They didn't care that much about loot or items.
Now it's all changed... Everything is a clone of WoW, and WoW is a clone of everyone else.
Even the developers said so, that they couldn't make WoW so great without getting ideas of off other games.
Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community
Correcting people since birth.
I blame the game because they encourage the bad community,each new game is turning into a solofest with multi option.
In the land of Predators,the lion does not fear the jackals...
I think I agree with you on that. Yeah I miss logging in as well and having that community that you could rely most of the time. I was 16 years old when I was playing EQ, I am sure I acted stupid sometimes, but people around my age still acted mature. Because idiots would NOT get anywhere in that game. But like I said before, I think that its both, the games are copying WoW, and the players are just horrible. If I ever made an mmo, it would try to be for the mature audience. Would rathe have 250k-750k good players than 2 million idiots. And no, I am not in it for the money, I'd rather have a consistant following, because it would be my passion and we needa high quallity mmo, the the mmo vets can appreciate as well as the new mmo players who are sick and tired of the easy.
I do agree with your assessment but thats also what sells best
- gaming is a business
I doubt "group intensive" games will ever sell as well as games that fully support soloing
EQ2 fan sites
Great post Grando.....
My opinion, And just my opinion Both are to blame
The game, Take WOW ( yes I know ) I remember back at the start when Mc/Bwl/Naxx was hard even if you had epic gear, then came BC and WOTLK and it all just turned to s#$t Why, Because of the screaming youngin's who want everything handed to them. BC came and a new batch of players came, WOTLK came and a new batch of players came. Most of these new players don't know what a grind really is, Most of these new players don't know what it's like to have epic gear and still wipe 20 times trying to down the boss and now that you can get epics so easy and the fights are so easy when you do wipe on new encounters everyone cries and throws a fit
The players, The masses are the ass's, Ever heard that ? It has some truth. I think above all else what started the downfall to the good mmo's and the new ones to be is The social interaction.Yes what you call friends is the problem ( sad to say ) Word of mouth spreads on how great the graphics are and how great it is to play and talk with the community. The longer they can keep you in game the better the chances are for these company's to have a winner on there hands, With little or no social interaction your not going to stay logged in very long and if your not logged in very long the less your brain will have that game on its mind, The less that game is on your mind the less you talk about it, Think about or want anything to do with it. How many of us can really say when we are logged into the games today how often we see people/friends sitting around just shooting the breeze, not just for a few minutes but for hours. Its great to get into a game and meet new people and play and these company's know that and they use it. Today you see more and more women playing video games ( mmo's ) why, I believe its because of the social interaction. We have over 13 girls in my guild, Mind you all of them are great players. With more and more women playing mmo's of course more and more guys are going to play, And for the guys who cant meet or have a hard time interacting with women/guys this to them is Utopia . Are these games just becoming a new form of chat/myspace, What ever happened to it being just you and your game? It's to damn social now, Not just for the screaming youth but for everyone. I have many friends in real life, I have many acquaintances in game, I am the type of player who just wants to play a video game not meet people or be the most popular dude on the realm or to get a chance to shoot the breeze with a hot gamer girl. The more watered down and social they can get a game today the better the chances are for it to make it. Almost all mmo's today look great, Hell even the crappy games look OK until you open them and find rikyticky movement and robocop graphics. I think Wow was great Eq was good and alot of other games as well, until the social interaction came, Now everyone has a place to talk shop and about everything else.
I voted the players, as I think thats where the problem started, though in reality its probably a bit of both.
Wolfenpride: <--Giant fucking sword syndrome.
Probably cause im trying to compensate for miniscule manhood.