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How current MMO drought made me realize how stupid I was
Lobotomist
Member EpicPosts: 5,965
Lets start this at begginings. I was always fascinated with roleplaying games. Be they D&D pen and paper or computer RPGs. My addiction with MMOs started with text MUDs back in 1990s. I kind of skipped Ultima Online and EQ but was right back to online worlds starting with NWN, than SWG, WOW...and on and on. Every major MMO after that. I had to have it. If I only knew then... how much money wasted on showelware soulless games. As I write this I am looking at boxes of 5 MMOs that does not exist anymore. Waste....
But i had to get them. Cause that new one. It may just be the one!
And than came the drought.
I can happily say that since WAR I didnt not only buy no new MMO, but not actively sub to one.
A year has passed, and a strange thing started happening...
I still have addiction. I still feel i have to play an MMO. ( i started playing trials .. like AOC , EVE..etc )
But everytime I log in and play for number of minutes I start feeling like an Idiot.
Its like Neo in Matrix after he was awakened. He didnt see the world as illusion , but as strings of code.
The seams of MMO structure started ripping in front of my eyes.
- The insane grind. Hours of repetitive chores only to see some minor change on your character.
- The boring gameplay. I still didnt find a MMO that has gameplay which is actually fun. I mean single player game like fun.
- Sociopath community. Lets face it. For every one friendly intelligent player there are 100 jerks, griefers,PKs. Most of pvp MMOs are based on being sociopath.
- Money milking. Ok, the truth. You are the cow. The companies use every trick in the book. Including psychological compulsion to dangle that carrot and keep you paying. And now its not enough - they brought in the ITEM shops, even for subscription games.
- Unimaginative copies. Most of MMOs we have on the platter right now are just copies of that one MMO that is copy of that one before it. Nothing has changed and probably will not change.
Back to the start...
When it all started..internet, MMOs , i had a dream of virtual RPG world. Nothing unattainable. Not more than Ultima online, perhaps with 3d graphics. It was possible 10 years ago. Yet today they claim its impossible to do it?
And every MMO I ever played i was looking for this game.
Well my eyes are open now. I was stupid and blind. No more...
This what you call MMO. You can take it.
Its so much not fun, it makes me laugh.
And lets face it. Lets look towards future... Are things about to change ?
I think not.
Comments
I agree about the current MMO drought.
However, I think that empty feeling you are getting of late from the trials are because of your lack of passion for playing that game. For example, from what I know about Age of Conan, you would enjoy it tremendously if you had a few friends playing and you committed yourself to a sub.
I tried a few trials lately myself and also found a lack of enthusiasm for the game nor the desire to begin another grind. But I would probably have felt differently if a few friends came along with me. This is usually not a problem when a game first comes out, because everyone is meeting each other. But for an established game, it can seem like this unless you are extremely social.
A 3D version of a UO (first 4 years or so) type game would be awesome.
Why is it impossible? Because they think instancing is required (it's cheaper too), then at least they can implement plan B easily making it f2p. So yeah, most games are doomed from the start now. Having played MUD's and CRPG's, you should have an idea where mmo's were and where they stand now. Games like UO or EQ were more like MUD's.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
The nazis use to have a "fun" strategy with the jews:
Give then enough calories to work, but not enough to survive, ...lets say a 95% of it. That way was possible to extract work from these people and kill then.
MMOS are like that, enough enteirnament to milk you forever, but not enough to have fun. Basically, the bussines model of MMO's is evil. Is a type of games that is better if you can avoid. At least with the current pattern useage (soloers).
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Everything with friends (even stupid games) is fun. And mmos are stupid games.
You should come back to EvE, on the surface it might look like other MMOs but
1, it dosent insult your inteligence.
2, it's player driven, cant say many MMOs are still like that.
3, Its a grind for ISK and Power over other HUMAN PLAYERS, not against the computer or for E-pen items, again not many MMOs are still like that.
4, EvE is not a game to play solo it is depends on you getting contacts and forming bonds ingame to be fun, again you cant say that many new MMOs suport that its mostly a solo thing.
I know alot of people have a hard time getting into EvE but that is beacuse they treat it like other MMOs and it isent like that... It is totaly diffrent.
You feel stupid becuase you got what games like, WoW, WAR, AION, sTOR and Aoc is all about... NAMLY NOTHING. You can raid all day grind all night but when you log out you have acomplished NOTHING. The world is the same and enemies you have killed have all respawned with thier gear intact. Nobody has lost anything and nobody has gained anything exept maybe a new magic sword to parade around TOWN.
People have always ben facinated by board games, Chess, checkers, Cards and a hole bunch of others. WHY, because there is satisfaction in beating others. Winning is fun, outsmarting your opponents is rewarding BUT only if there is somthing to lose. If there is nothing to lose it becomes an endless treadmill, you run like a mouse untill you drop from exhaustion, translated to MMOs you burn out. And that is what happend to you you Burned out on the endless treadmill for gear.
Now comes the tricky part EvE is like those old boardgames, its even like Poker. Because there is actually something to lose. And if there is something to lose there is a reward for winning. If you lose ships, space and player owned structures to your enemies you lose ground. It hurts you and it costs you. And more imortantly when you blow somone else's shit up and take thier territory you can log out knowing you have actually acomplished something. I know you can argue its just ones and zeros nothing really happend. But on a subjective level if your opponent feels hurt dosent it make it real?
Bottome line is if you have zero penalties for dying and loosing the game soon becomes boring and meaningless. Its how the human mind works, that is why so many games keep failing that try to do pvp but dont throw in any drawbacks for losing. Aoc and WAR comes to mind here. And lets remember WoW was never designed to be a PvP game, it was ment to be a social place where you and your friends could grind for gear endlessly, that is how they changed the MMO market. Before they MMOs were more about Worlds and Conflict betwen players, quests were none existent, It was about beating the other guy behind that other computer. It was not about going against the game itself. It was just there as a backdrop so you could kill other players and fight for Castles, items and grindspots. Linage2 was an exellent example of this you held a castle you got benefits, fuck with others you got Red and droped your Gear. It was RISK Vs Reward and it was very satisfying. Now its just NOTHING Vs Reward and the human mind rejects this because it aint real, there has to be real RISK to get a game to be fun and your adrenaline pumping.....
So I say give EvE another go and treat it like a boardgame, or just think of it as your alternate universe were you just as in IRL can actually punish others where it hurts.
Even though your post seems a bit hasty, (Maybe you just have a case of the MMO burn out?) I agree.
Here's to hoping new games like APB or The Secret World break the same old, same old mould games have adopted.
Maybe the genre is what it is. But it is not what it was when it started. OP is right. Todays MMO's are boring.
And there is only one way to stop an addiction that lost any positive side effects. Stop doing it. I will do so. Bye all.
GRIND and PEN and PAPER.
pen and paper is basically a turned based version of an MMO when you stop and think about it. In an MMO, you 'grind' a few weeks to get to level 20 (as a baseline example) in a pen and paper game you spend the entire year getting to level 20, but instead you 'turn base' your grind.
The number of rats you have to kiill, quests you have to complete, and loot you have to sort is basically exactly the same, its just considerably slower.
What I am suggesting here is this, take your time enjoy the process not the end.
I think the two main differences in an pen and paper for the players is:
1. great story line that can change and adapt to the players over time assuming you have a good DM. IN an MMO its nearly impossible to do at the level that is possible for a good DM/player realtionship.
2. turned based allows you to study the numbers, the chance, the choices etc in battle. in MMO its all automated and/or so fast its over before it starts.
I adore small turned based combat. Silent Storm was a game that came out around year 2000 and it was done perfectly as a pen and paper dungeon run would be like (execpt it was set in WW2).
I think an MMO based on turnbased combat with a real life DM would be the perfect goal. The closest any eletronic game has gotten to that in my some 15 years of electronic gaming is NeverWinter nights and I get a feeling bioware is making an MMO version of NWN that will actually be true to the orginal NWN.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I felt the same way. I was in a MMO drought a year ago. Keep on trying new MMO, but none of them keep my desire since all of them felt alike.
Untill I tried Atlantica Online, at least it's battle style is original, and it keep me hook for a year.
But the problem now is I'm starting to get sick of Atlantica Online too, and want some thing new again. So this is the new beginning or a MMORPG search again.
OP could be suffering from burnout.
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Or maybe he outgrew the genre.
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I got burned out on WoW after five years. I currently don't play any MMO and haven't for quite some time.
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I have pre-ordered Cataclysm and will resub once that is out.
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The only way to cure burn out is to not play. MMOs are basically all similar. You tell me that Eve is not similar to WoW, but it is. Both have inventory, armor, ships in Eves case, armor in WoWs. Both have health. Both have a way to progress your skills, bot require travel, both have quests, both have group quest, both have guilds, chat, and I can go on.
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The only way to cure MMO burnout is to not play any MMO for some time, the longer the better.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Hehe what types of pen and paper RPG games do you play mate?? D&D?
I have played pen and paper RPG games for over two decades now and it stoped being about the numbers a long time ago. When we play RPGs now we play them as method acting free forms. People actually try to play another person. Many of my friends are actors in IRL and its a fun way to play these pen and paper games, where you have real charecter developent and people try and delve into the psyke of there charecters. And yes we have hot actor chicks in our group, and I have run long campagines centered around love stories of diffrent charecters in the group. Its the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life to be honest, and it beats the hell out of any MMO when it comes to freedom and indepth charecter creation. You cant realy RP in an MMO the way they function today....
SO NO pen and paper RPGs are not like MMOS if you play them right.. Most people dont and are amased at convents when I hold sessions, and want to be a part of what I do. I should charge IRL cash and do it full time as Im dam good at telling a good story.....
I am going through the same thing and it is certainly not burn out. There is just nothing new. . and by new I don't mean game mechanics. . I need an entirely new genre if interactive media.
It is like the Wii. . man people loved that . . and have it collecting dust somehwere. Or look at FPS games. . Doom was awesome! There were a few big inovations and now it is pretty much bland.
I have, like you, bounced around trials. .I have bought games and left though. . resubbed Wow, FE, when I thought about resubbing UO I knew I was in some kind of rut. It is an addiction. . and now. . like you. . I am on MMO forums instead.
Exchanging one addiction for another. . look at my join date and post count! Man. . see ya!
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
WoW dosent have harsh death penelties my friend and it dosent let you change the gameworld its static, 10 years from now the only thing that will have changed in WoW is what the developer has put in it. You as a player cant effect shit. If I play Poker I can beat another player and take his money. If I play EvE I can do the same. I cant do this in WoW so dont come in here and say that they are the same. They might look the same on the surface but the Core of the games function is totaly diffrently. Most people dont get the magic behind EvE becasue they approche it the same way they do other MMOs and say hey whers my quests? hey wheres my epics? What it just have boring grind missions and no epics??? why play? and say what! you actually have to play with others to have fun?? I cant solo it???
EvE is about comunity you fuck things up and people will remember and come after you, you cant escape to another server if you do bad shit. Scaming people is legal and suported, its just so mush more then a Carebare hold you by the hand game that WoW is. So dont go down the road of saying they are the same they are NOT!
Warhammer FRPG is the greatest. . 1st edition . . had problems but great game.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
yes its was a great game, sadly games workshop hasent come close to the grittyness with there never editons....
So true. I've been tired of every MMO I've tried for a while now. They just don't do it for me, yet I'm still addicted. I'm always looking for something new, or trying something out. I'm always ready to give up on the genre, but some new info about a new game, that might be great, always pops up.
Starcraft 2 coming out in a month and a half so I'm not worried about mmos. I'm actually looking forward to more console games than pc ones other than SC2 right now.
Lobotomist, I'm sort of going through the same thing as you with the MMO genre.
I haven't really been subscribed to a specific game in a very long time. I have tried nearly every credible MMO that has a free trial out there but nothing seems to make that spark like it used to. I do stick around the community (various forums, online friends, etc) just waiting for that one perfect game to finally get me back on the train. I often wonder if I am just growing out of the genre.
What you said is dead on about the way people act in MMOs. Now that the market is flooded the community is not tight knit anymore and games are designed to where you no longer rely on your fellow gamers, so nobody gives a damn about the next person and common courtesy is thrown out the window. I think the last game I played with polite gamers was Final Fantasy XI, but that was during the earlier half of the decade and I feel that community has deteriorated as well.
I think the only way to fix this genre is probably to just let it crash and start all over again.
I think you need to learn what a sociopath is, clearly misusing the word. Also greifers/jerks give you someone to hate. It makes them the bad guy and for you to be the good guy you need to have a nemesis. Unless you are ok with killing pixeled forest creatures played by a line of code, which makes you more of a sociopath than the guys you are putting down. If I noticed one thing in my 12+ yrs of online gaming, its that the people who hate PvP and PK'ing are most often the worst people to get along with and have the biggest egos, so fragile that if they did engage in PvP it would break and they would murder their mother irl on their very first death in a universe of pixels.
Sorry friend, but most of us pvp'ers don't pk because we dream of mass murder and lack social skills, we do it because we love the challenge only another person can bring to the table. We love to fight someone possibly as intelligent as ourself. On the other hand, non pk'ers love to fight things that have no plausible way of defending themselves once you look up in the guide how to beat it. You slaughter thousands of squirels and wolfs for no other reason than to advance yourself.
This is besind the point i am trying to make, but...
As you see in my sig. I am quite active in BFBC2. Which means i love the challenge other people bring to table.
But in competitive games everyone starts with same , and not some 20 lvls higher twinked character ganking newbies that can not even make 1 hp damage to him. And doing it over and over again everytime they spawn.
When i was talking about sociopaths I was talking about - gankers, griefers, ninja looters, kill stealers, roflcopters, and jerks in general.
The MMOs are full of them. Perhaps its the lack of consequences ? True death penalty... i dont know. Perhaps the quality of the community reflects the quality of the game ? Or perhaps its exact community the game is tailored to please ?