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Why MMOGs Are So Boring - and the Solution Short List
Meleagar
Member Posts: 407
Finding it difficult to stay interested in any current MMOG? Do your eyes start bleeding when you are asked to go out and kill a dozen rabbits? Is running around looking for quest NPCs about as interesting as watching paint dry? After the novelty of MMOGs has worn off, do you start realizing that it's all the same shinola, only dressed up differently? If a game offers you really pretty dolls and scenery to do the same thing you've already done 1000 times, how long can you stay interested?
Do you blame yourself for outgrowing the genre? Do you think you're just experiencing gamer's burnout? Nah. It's just that after your initial fascination, you realize that you're going to be spending all your time doing something you've already done, and guess what? You have to do it all again, in the same sequence. The same lame quests, the same exp grind, new sword, new spell, pretty new graphics. You might as well be ordering a burger at a different restarurant every day; a burger is a burger. It's all you're going to get, no matter how it is packaged or what it comes with.
MMOGs are boring, frankly, because you have to do 95% the same thing as any other MMOG you've ever played in order to develop your character. Yes, developing a character over time is fun; choosing customized pathways down all kinds of skill and ability trees is great fun; customizing the look of your character is great fun; grinding through lame enemies and running through mind-numbing collection and kill quests ... is boring to anyone familiar with the genre.
I got Chronicles of the Spellborne for free, downloaded, created a few characters (love the customization potential) then played a character to level 5 and couldn't force myself to play anymore, even if they paid me to play. After 3 years of WoW I've already done all that, in essence. It's all basically the same. Why should I bother playing a game that forces me to do the same thing I've already done for 3 years, and before that in EQII and EQ?
Seeing trailers for new MMOGs is like watching soft drink commercials; you think, wow, drinking that soft drink is going to make me sexy and make my life so fun and interesting - it's going to be like an instant party! Then you drink the soft drink and realize ... it's just a friggin' soft drink, and that's all it is. It's like any other soft drink you've ever had.
Here's what people like to do in games (well, some of us, anyway - the ones that are bored to death with the current formula): customize our characters, strategicially develop them over time, and not be limited in how we explore or play the game. We also do not want to be forced to grind or spend hours and hours in the game doing the same ^%&*&(&*% thing we've done for too many hours in the past in other games. Heres my short list of true innovations to create some revolutionary games:
1) STOP THE END-GAME MADNESS - having a specific "end game" coerces all the game content into serving that end game, and being coded and built around it. Everything becomes about whether or not something is good or efficient in the end-game scenario. Make the game more lateral than linear; provide customization and development options, not a funnel everyone is herded down. Have soloer, group, and raid content; have combat and crafting content; have social achievement content - in other words, expand content laterally, not just linearally.
2) DO AWAY WITH CLASSES - Champions online is doing a great job at allowing the player to fully customize their character with a full costume and power set they design. Give players a number of customization points and let them pick and choose their initial power/ability set as they wish; let them create their own costumes and clothes and design their own weapons; if someone wants to be a cleric with a side of martial arts mastery, let 'em. Yes, there might be some very powerful combinations ... so what? Balance is only necessary if there is an end game rope around the necks of the devleopers, and we've already done away with it.
3) OFFLINE ADVANCEMENT - for the love of god, don't make us do this same &(*(()_***+#!^% over and over and over ... we've seen that movie many times. Let us set our character to study while we are offline in any one of several avenues of advancement we wish, changing the nature of the game from a massive time/grind sink to a more of a character development strategy game. Have dozens of trees of advancment one can pursue, and make it so you can organize your character's time (while you're offline) to pursue them - the catch, of course, is that your character can only pursue one line of advancement at a time. You can set your character to pursue some particular combat expertise for 10 hrs, then pursue a crafting expertise for 4 hrs, and then log in and assign points and explore your new abilities and find new (meaningful) quests. And yes, make faction and WORKING (i.e., collecing in-game money) something you can set your character to do while offline.
While doing the same thing over and over is boring; creating new characters and developing their customized talent combinations and growth over time is fun ... if one didn't have to commit to all the mind-numbing repetitive exp quests and key-bashing hours of killing the same monsters over and over. That might be kind of fun the first time we play an MMOG: we're over it now. It's boring. Get rid of it.
4) NO THROW-AWAY QUESTS - Do your eyes gloss over when you get a quest? Do you even bother reading the quest? Do you just rush through it because it's the fastest way to level and get past all the boring shinola you have to do to get to do the interesting stuff, like exploring your talent/ability trees and gaining new abilities? How about this: make quests mean something. If we get to DESiGN our own weapons and armor, how about having the quests - even the very first quests at level 1 or so - about adding stats to your character, to your weapon, to y our armor, to your spells? If for the life of your character each quest you perform accumulatively adds stats to your character, your spells, your abilities, your armors, or adds options when it comes to adding to the visuals of your character or items, or adds to your reputations in an accumulative way, does that suddenly make quests more meaningful and enjoyable? How about quests that just make your avatar bigger in the game, or smaller? Make you glow, or give you sound effects not accessible unless you do the quest? Quests that make you run faster, or hold your breath under water longer? Permanent effects, not just some exp and some loot you won't use but for another couple of levels. What if you really had to read and pay attention to each quest because each quest was going to offer a permanent enhancement or customized change to your character, and do so accumulatively over the life of your character?
And what if in one quest, you get to choose which permanent reward you want? Each time you do that quest (with alts), you can choose a different customization path, but you only get to do that quest once, and pick one particular reward.
Imagine the variation and customization, the replayability, the ability to have your character advancing 24/7 (as fast as anyone else could advance), and the depth!
Get 'r done.
Comments
Put down your MMO and go play Farcry 2 or something.
I personaly like to explore new places and kill rabbits.
I agree, sometimes ppl just play waiting for and end game reward, The first year I played lineage I really enjoyed all the quests, the architecture, the places, sometimes i just ran around the world "exploring it", at the end of that year i was lvl 65 with 23 pvp points and b grade... but i remeber it as my best time in lineage, it was magical, afther that i just rushed to get to top levels, doing nobless, subclases, s grade, epics, etc, first i didnt care a shiet for competition, then i was in such a hurry that all rush to end game ended in a sense of losing my time since then, finally i got s grades, an epic, lvl 80, subclases billions of adena an always playing in minimum frame option with out knowing i was there.
If im going to play a new game i really hope it will be more fun, like a solo game in a MMOG
You have some interesting points there. Would be nice to see in an MMO.....too bad it won't happen. They'll keep pumping out the same MMO with a different cover every year.
You have been drinking the wrong soft drinks, and stop playing F2P games.
If you drink Fanta, you will get a girl like this for your girlfriend, AND not only will she let you play games when you're not having sex with her, she'll farm gold for you while you are sleeping.
Plus, there's nothing wrong with classes, they aren't any different than skills. Either one can be done well, or poorly.
AND, if you want offline advancement, just send me 100 bucks, and I'll tell you that you have a max level toon, and since there's no end game, you're done, so kthxbye.
I enjoy exploring new places too. I enjoy graphics and all that .. I just don't enjoy doing it over, and over, and over, and over ... plus, I don't like being in a rush. If my character is constantly advancing regardless of what I'm doing in the game, that gives me more of a sense of being able to stop and enjoy whatever I want, do what I want, enjoy what I want, knowing that my chracter is still progressing and advancing.
Doing something for fun is one thing; doing something boring for hours to get to the fun part is **not fun** - like, waiting around for 30+ mins for a raid to collect and get underway, or waiting for a group. With my suggestions, RPers are back in the mix, because their character is going to advance as fast as anyone else's even if they're standing around RPing while they are on.
I second it. All in favor...
In my opinion, MMOs are used best for the purposes of :
1) Roleplay
2) Exploration of story lines and mythological adventure
3) Objective studies of strategy, socialization, and politics
For simply a statistics and random numbers game, I might also suggest Yahtzee.
I take it you are new to roleplay. Roleplay does not involve "standing around." It involves participating in the events that give a character experience and also using those very events to create purposes and motivations for further gameplay.
"Standing around" talking in a funny voice is an entirely different playstyle alltogether.
1. There will always be an endgame is there is actually something worthwhile to achieve. Games that don't have anything worthwhile are generally ignored. UO and Eve or SWG Pre-CU didn't have endgames, but they didn't have start games either. They were boring from day 1 for most people.
2. Don't make classes and players just design their own. Skill systems still have classes. Always had, always will. You might not care about balance but 99% of other people actually do. UO had 2 or 3 viable classes. Same with AC.
3. Works great in what hardly constitutes a videogame....Eve. People should get better by actually playing the game, not two or 3 boxing and letting their alts get powerful by NOT playing.
4. Lousy quests are better than none. Remember you NEVER have to do quests you find boring. Just go grind. Removing the quests, just removes one play option. Better to have more options than fewer.
1) I agree. So many games have the same model for endgame - forced grouping or raiding for endgame gear.
2) I disagree. Classes is not necesarily a bad thing and my favourite games are a combination of class and skills.
3) I disagree. If it is so boring, take it out of the game completely, do not keep it as an offline activity. I also dislike training offline in real time, similar to Eve. For PvE, this sets your progress to the same speed as everyone else and has absolutely no relation to actual progress within the game. I want my skills to advance at a rate that matches my exploration and progress through the content. I do not care if other players advance slower or faster than me.
4) I would love to see more quests that have good rewards and fun solutions. However, I think there is also a place for the throw away quests.
I'm sorry but until MMOs have the reasources to be as exciting as single player games they will always be a boring,repetitive grind.
Your list is a dream and it will never happen, too many people like the boring gameplay of WoW so the industry will not change for quite a while.
Personally after playing Games like Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed and Fable II I can no longer stomach the mmorpg genre.
OP, Play Single player games. A global chat and character progression is not worth the horrid game play and carrot on a stick mechanics mmos offer.
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
As seen above. I don't agree with you at all.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
1) But it's still not going to do away with the end game. At the end of the day, even if there is solo, group and raiding content, it is still considered end-game, and it would still be consided repetitive, unless, like what they do with WoW, they come up with new expansions which include new areas to explore, new quests and new raids. But at the end of the day, it is still going to get old fast. Personally, I feel that what they should do is to, yes, have an end game that contains raiding, soloing, grouping and PVP (which I think is a must actually) but make the journey towards it interesting. Give it a storyline (Guild Wars wins so much at that) and meaningful quests that do not involve killing monsters over and over again. Rather, have quests that actually add to the storyline.
2) I personally do not like the idea of games without classes actually. I love the idea of having a huge amount of professions that come with a huge amount of skills grouped in a certain catagory, with only one bar of skills to use so you actually have to plan what skills you want to use. In addition to that, a duel class structure would be very interesting as well, because now you actually have two sets of skills to chose from, and it adds some unpredictability to PVP as well.
3) Erm... I don't have an opinion on offline advancement actually. Whether it's there or not, it still won't make a difference in whether I chose to play that certain game.
4) I talked about quests at point 1 already, and I'm to lazy to repeat it again so... yeah.
Main characters:
Jinn Gone Quiet (Guild Wars)
Princess Pudding (Guild Wars)
No. Here's a solution:
-Sense of exploration
-Classes are fine
-Don't listen to players that want to change aspects of the game
-Don't change the aspects of the game
-Make it hard as hell
The problem is that MMOs are designed from the bottom up to be a business model first, entertainment second. Every mechanic is implemented to slow down your progression in order to keep you subscribing. They gloss over this model with the carrot on the stick paradigm. They are more interested in making their games addicting than they are making them actually fun. There is so much potential for this genre, but it's being completely wasted. It's completely stagnant and has been for the last 10 years. Each newer game gets a new coat of paint, but the underlying paradigms remain the same. It's no wonder people are getting burned out. I bet most people stick with it due to addiction more than anything else.
I'm still waiting for an MMO that feels like a game and not a job.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
When that times comes single player games will be even more exciting because they would have had more time to develope resources as well.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Go play Pong or Wii!
I agree with you 100%. This genre is so stagnant right now. Only the people who 'can't accept change' keep it alive. For shame.
This genre needs to evolve something serious, and now! It's almost like playing Doom over and over for 20 years without any thought of having a game like Splinter Cell, Thief, Deus Ex, or Half Life.
Enough with the 10 bunnies, the rat hides, picking flowers, mixing herbs, and especially the 'rock, paper, scissors'!. There's 1000 goddamn players on the server. Do something fun!!! Utilize all the players! Gets some social interaction going other than 'does anyone want to by my squirrel pelt?'! !
This genre needs to change in such a way as to freak me the hell out when I login. I want to feel like people are hunting me, and I'm hunting them. Raise the adrenalin a bit. Killing bunnies is a dissappointment now. We've been there, done that. Don't let these whimps who say 'I like to explore and kill bunnies' drive the evolution of this genre. Change it so that it's more exciting!! Utilize the players and keep people on their toes!
I have to disagree with the OP on a couple of points.
If there is no "end-game", what happens when you reach maximum level? Do you just "win" and that's it? I fought my way through to maximum level, killed hordes of various enemies, created pools of enemies' blood ... and now I am supposed to be satisfied with selling my wares at market and socializing? PvP? What if I don't like to pvp? If I wanted to pvp, I would have stuck with Guild Wars, where pvp (and pve, as a matter of fact) is totally optional.
Character progression while one is off-line? Are you kidding me? You cannot (for whatever RL reason) play as much as I do, so you get to catch up while you sleep? Why am I playing then? I can understand LotRO's method of helping the casual player by giving them limited double xp, but making actual skill progression or pocketing cash is ridiculous! If you feel that the game you are playing will not allow you to "keep pace" with other players, then you are playing the wrong game.
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
I'll just comment on the subject of quests. This is one area that seriously needs improving. They should be more story-based and multitiered, with each new task in the chain opening up another part of the story. Give the player a reason to want to continue. Make it a mystery, for example. I'll use my favorite quest chain in WoW as an example: The Legend of Stalvan. This quest wasn't one of those "Go kill ten blue foozles and bring their horns", followed by "Now go kill 20 red foozles and bring me their teeth" chains. There were journals and letters. There was a narrative and mystery. Who was this guy? What did he do that was so wicked? You had to go to various places and talk to different people. Seemingly insignificant things, like a chest in the Lion's Pride in in Goldshire became part of the quest. Then there was a payoff. Stalvan was a monster, literally and figuratively, and you ultimately kill him. I was so disappointed that WoW had so few of quest chains like that. The only other one I can think of is that girl ghost in Darrowshire.
Those are the types of quests that enthrall me and keep me paying a subscription to play. More of those done well, and even the most themepark of themepark games will have a long-term subscriber in me.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
Lateral development = no such thing as "max level"; you can continue to gain new abilities and attributes, professions and skills, rewards and titles for as long as you subscribe.
If I pay the same subscription rate, then I should advance just as fast as anyone else.
There reason no new games can do what WoW did, is because all these new MMOGs are just slightly different versions of WoW. There's no reason to leave WoW and play a different WoW. When enough WoW clones - like Acheron's Call, Warhammer, etc. fail, or fail to draw in a tenth of the business as WoW, someone's going to realize that they have to offere a different KIND of product. There are only so many hardcore raiders to go around; there's only so many games a person can devote ALL of their spare time to banging on the keys.
With the offline 24/7 advancement model, even casuals can play more than one MMOG and stay competitive. The answer to vets having a power advantage over newcomers is easily answered: catch-up advancement rates at 110% of normal until caught up; and new servers opening up.
If I know I can eventually level my character up as far as I want to with no class or balance restrictions ... that's a lot of incentive to keep paying a subscription even if I'm playing other games, and even if I only have a few hrs a week for online play.
Also IT ANSWERS THE BOT FARMING AND LEVELING PROBLEM, because you can set your characters to work, or earn money, while you are offline; and EVERYONE is advancing in whatever areas of advancment they want 24/7. What use is a bot in a game like that? What are you going to sell people that they can't get for themselves? What mindless, repetitive key-banging effort can the bots prevent them from having to undertake, when they don't even have to log on to advance or earn money?
No, you should not advance just as fast as anyone else because you have NOT EARNED the advancement. Under your theory anyone who pays the subscription fee is automatically entitled to certain perks and advancement, meaning, of course, that there is no point to playing to advance your characater since advancement is an entitlement. I play 3 hours a day and you play one hour a day. Under your warped view, you should still have as much gear, experience, etc as I do because we pay the same.
The bottom line is that the subscription fee allows you to PLAY as much as anyone else; not ADVANCE as much as anyone else. If you feel you cannot "keep up" with other players due to limited play time (for whatever reason) then you are playing the wrong game. Your argument is akin to f2p players who will not use the item store complaining that they cannot "keep up" with players who do. You want the same things as players with more time have, you just don't want to work for it.
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
If you want to play games where you have to "earn" advancement, feel free to. However, you can't expect to get casuals to subscribe in great numbers to any game that they're not going to be able to compete, or in games where they will always be 3rd rate characters.
In the games I've descrbied, you don't play to grind out advancements for your character, you play to enjoy the scenery, the quests, the other players; you play to manage your character's development and customization. You go out and kills stuff because you enjoy it, not because you have to to level. You do quests to advance your character how you see fit, not to run on the same tired treadmill you've already done 100 times.
You play to have fun, not to "earn" anything. There are plenty of games out there for people than need or want to derive their sense of accomplishment and advancement by "earning" through banging on keys. There's a whole world of people out here that earn all of that in their family life and job. We don't play games to "earn" anything; we play games to have fun, and we don't have 2 hrs a night to do it.
All games are not about "earning" anything; not every MMOG has to be build around that mindset. If game developers want our money, they need to get their head out of their butts and realize not everyone wants to play an MMOG as if it is their girlfriend or 2nd job; not everyone uses a guild as a substitute for live friends. We'd be happy to subscribe to a game that wasn't geared totally around 10-22 yr olds that have nothing else to do but use a 8hrs a night in front of a game monitor to feel like they've "earned" something.
Not that there's anything wrong with that ... it's just not how well-adjusted adults roll.
There reason no new games can do what WoW did, is because all these new MMOGs are just slightly different versions of WoW. There's no reason to leave WoW and play a different WoW. When enough WoW clones - like Acheron's Call, Warhammer, etc. fail, or fail to draw in a tenth of the business as WoW, someone's going to realize that they have to offere a different KIND of product. There are only so many hardcore raiders to go around; there's only so many games a person can devote ALL of their spare time to banging on the keys.
With the offline 24/7 advancement model, even casuals can play more than one MMOG and stay competitive. The answer to vets having a power advantage over newcomers is easily answered: catch-up advancement rates at 110% of normal until caught up; and new servers opening up.
If I know I can eventually level my character up as far as I want to with no class or balance restrictions ... that's a lot of incentive to keep paying a subscription even if I'm playing other games, and even if I only have a few hrs a week for online play.
Also IT ANSWERS THE BOT FARMING AND LEVELING PROBLEM, because you can set your characters to work, or earn money, while you are offline; and EVERYONE is advancing in whatever areas of advancment they want 24/7. What use is a bot in a game like that? What are you going to sell people that they can't get for themselves? What mindless, repetitive key-banging effort can the bots prevent them from having to undertake, when they don't even have to log on to advance or earn money?
ROFL Asherons call....a wow clone..... you DO realize that this game is almost a decade older than wow, this game was loosing subs before wow was even being developed. Because a game is a mmorpg doesnt mean it is a wow clone, especially since wow is just a clone of all the games made before it of which there are about 12 or more. Before you struggle to reinvent the mmorpg game you should really invest some time learning about just what these games are.
Amen to Meleagar's post. Gawd am I sick and tired of masochists telling us how to play or that there isn't room for even one MMO that breaks the mold. What a bunch of greedy self-centered bastages.
To the above poster. Every MMO currently follows the same paradigm scheme. They are all clones of each other and they all are derivatives of MUDS and DIKUS. It's time for a change and I mean a major change, not the same old crap with a new coat of paint.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal