The problem with MMO COMBAT is that its a waiting game or a spamming game. Its all about your super-skills and basic attacks eventually do less than 1% damage. In fact a point arrives where its all about "Stats vs Stats" and nothing else.
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I remember UT2004's Invasion mode.....which pretty much proved to me how outdated most MMORPG combat truly is.
The thing is, if it is an RPG then it is a game of stats vs stats. In most cases, that is the very nature and definition of the RPG. There are a lot of very interesting "real life" RPGs now that are more about storytelling, but that is not what the genre is based on. Computer AI is not advanced enough to referee or graphically present these kinds of games yet. You are comparing it to a totally different mechanic and definition, the FPS. Just because they are totally different gaming concepts doesn't mean that somehow the RPG is a dated concept compared to the FPS. While they are both combat-centric, I feel they fairly seperate concepts and shouldn't be confused. Of course I would expect the "average" person to cross the two in their minds, but pretty much everyone on this site has a lot of experience in both types of games. The difference should be clear and both types of game should be valued equally.
A genuinely interesting, well made and well thought out article, holding some great points, I'm guessing that from a standpoint of your hardcore gamer that MMO's are following the same progression as early games, Game play types increasing and graphics slowly getting better an educated guess would be that after this period is done it will either focus on 1 of 3 things, Heavy engine improvements allowing MMO's to have a much more interactive world and higher graphics using alot less resources like most single player games, a heavy increase in interactivity via human motion or (something thats already happing to this day) Heavy transgression to console gaming (to a balancedish proportion of pc mmo's of course) what are your guys opinion on this?
A genuinely interesting, well made and well thought out article, holding some great points, I'm guessing that from a standpoint of your hardcore gamer that MMO's are following the same progression as early games, Game play types increasing and graphics slowly getting better an educated guess would be that after this period is done it will either focus on 1 of 3 things, Heavy engine improvements allowing MMO's to have a much more interactive world and higher graphics using alot less resources like most single player games, a heavy increase in interactivity via human motion or (something thats already happing to this day) Heavy transgression to console gaming (to a balancedish proportion of pc mmo's of course) what are your guys opinion on this?
I'm not sure. It's one thing to get software / hardware to the point where your gaming sysem can start handling changable environments and alternative input devices (MS Kinect).....its another to be able to do all of that with networking, latency, etc. involved.
As for the direction of MMOs.....who's to say that the genere doesn't slip further down the "casual" slide? There are more Farmville players than registerd Twitter accounts. Like how MMORPG devs decided to drop the barriers of entry to bring in more gamers from FPS, RTS, RPG, 3rd Person Action games...........could they do one better and further expand market share by bringing in the millions of people hooked in to ultra-casual facebook / iPhone games?
If so, would everyone be in support of the MMO "evolution" that removes even MORE barriers to allow mafia wars / farmville types?
To me, the problem with modern MMOs is that most developers and gamers seem to come from console games. I see that in that there has to be tons of content and quests, and combat has to be fast and furious with no downtime. Back in the old days a group had to sit down and rest after a fight, and it offered people time to get to know each other. That way communities developed. These days there is no downtime, nor any penalties for dying, so people just keep trucking along without getting to know each other the few times they bother to group up. The old games were designed so that people could solo if they wanted, but if you grouped up xp could be earned faster by taking on tougher monsters. Nowadays, a group often slows people down because the time it takes to set up a group is not rewarded compared to soloing.
Another indicator of the console infusing shows itself in that players breeze through the game in weeks, rather than years as of old, and then move on to the next hot title. Spending time immersing itself in the world is not happening, often because the setting is very generic, with just a slight twitch to separate itself from the rest.
The result of this is that I agree with the side that claim that MMOs are regressing rather than progressing.
First off the MMORPG genre isn't approaching it's 12th anniversary, it's already bypassed it's 13th. Not a good start there Bill, how can the accuracy of anything else you mention not be questioned when your first sentence is wrong?
Further I'd rather think the MMO market has been put on pause, I've seen little in the way of new innovation. Graphics and Sound does not a game make. As long as games are continually produced based on the "EQ" model, you know Level and Grind, something WoW, LOTRO, DDO, Atlantica Online, AC and well Pick something not Ultima Online and you'll get the point, have all adopted and stuck to. The MMO market is in a rut, glutted with EQ clones, and no I will not refer to games as WoW clones, WoW uses the basic EQ equation.
What needs to change is the mechanics the End User relies on the most, level and grind is dull, everyone despises killing 100's of rats, boars, badgers, bats etc. just to progress towards the coveted "End Game". Btw the conecpt of "End Game" needs to go as well, but that's more user releated. Go back to the MMORPG's roots, the old pen and paper table top RPG's, the game wasn't about the goal it was about the journey something Development Studios have forgotten. Now most of us as players are stuck on a linear track where the start point is based on Race, Class, and Equipment Available. Where the only personality is what color we dye our gear and what we type into a chat box.
Where is the Adventure? I can go to any of dozens of Websites and find a strategy on how to progress my character. This is something Ultima Online for example still has that no other MMO active on the Market does. It doesn't matter what gear you have, what monsters you can slay when you break it down the game is still what you make of it because nothing is tied into a ridigid framework. You don't want to be a warrior? Fine you can make it as a Crafter, heck you can do well on that game fishing and begging, because personality and community is more improtant than being Capped out on Skills with 1337 gear. How can most MMO's even claim to have a "RP" community? How can you be unique when you are playing in a world full of cookie cutter characters? There is a whole different side of the market out there that is constantly ignored, and it shouldn't be.
First off the MMORPG genre isn't approaching it's 12th anniversary, it's already bypassed it's 13th. Not a good start there Bill, how can the accuracy of anything else you mention not be questioned when your first sentence is wrong?
I usually don't do this, but Cronjo I wrote twentieth... not twelfth. And indeed it is approaching it's 20th, by my standards which includes NWN on AOL as the first graphical MMORPG.
As for the rest of your opinions, by all means continue to think that way, but you'll just have to get used to the fact that we're in disagreement and that's OKAY.
Additionally, I actually very much agree with a lot of what you have to say. Where we differ is merely in so much as that I believe the games are getting there, and you feel they're not. Otherwise, it seems we're on the same page.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Well, I have mixed feelings about this. To me, the first two developments are *horrible*. They are pushing MMOs in directions i do not enjoy, closer to fighter or an FPS. These are genres I basically hate. In order to grow their audience, the current round of MMOs are alienating the entire fan base that made them popular in the first place. It also does not seem to be working, as teh last MMO to come out that was really successful was in 2004 or so, before any of these changes took place.
I couldn't agree more. The things that made for community were sacrificed in order to grow ba-hair on the kiddies' chests.
Now we have these silly mongrel wannabe games that are neither fish nor fowl, but are certainly anti-community, which was the bedrock of older MMOs. They instead foster competition for kills, loot, and crafting essentials--thereby pitting players against each other from the get-go. Might as well style them as RP/FPS with lag, lol. You are right, Bill--I sure see LOTS of puberty here. I just don't see much growing up.
I am resting my hope for change on Guild Wars2. I surely hope it lives up to its promises. If it does, we just might see the return of community and maturity to multiplayer gaming.
An interesting article indeed. I don't agree with much of it, but that's mostly down to personal preference, thus still an interesting and well-written article.
Have these games changed? Sure they have, in many ways. To the better? Not in my book but I'm well aware that other people have other preferences and have welcomed the changes. And for some people the genre hasn't even changed enough.
In the process the companies have lost many players of the old games (UO, EQ, DAoC and the like) and instead catered to a new target market. They dropped much of the immersion and RP part of the genre, they focused on providing content for achievers and killers and stopped providing content for explorers and socializers, they made combat faster, less tactical but more action-y, more arcade-y and generally provided much more instant gratification. They reduced gameplay elements like grouping, housing, travelling and crafting and instead introduced cinematic cutscenes, eyecandy, voice overs and exclamation marks hovering above NPCs.
The funny thing is that with all these changes they seemingly also dropped the recipe for financial success from the genre. We had very few games during the last 4 or 5 years that exceeded or fulfilled financial expectations. Instead we got a string of failures from a business point of view. One wonders whether the decision to switch target markets was a sane one ...
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
An interesting article indeed. I don't agree with much of it, but that's mostly down to personal preference, thus still an interesting and well-written article.
Have these games changed? Sure they have, in many ways. To the better? Not in my book but I'm well aware that other people have other preferences and have welcomed the changes. And for some people the genre hasn't even changed enough.
In the process the companies have lost many players of the old games (UO, EQ, DAoC and the like) and instead catered to a new target market. They dropped much of the immersion and RP part of the genre, they focused on providing content for achievers and killers and stopped providing content for explorers and socializers, they made combat faster, less tactical but more action-y, more arcade-y and generally provided much more instant gratification. They reduced gameplay elements like grouping, housing, travelling and crafting and instead introduced cinematic cutscenes, eyecandy, voice overs and exclamation marks hovering above NPCs.
The funny thing is that with all these changes they seemingly also dropped the recipe for financial success from the genre. We had very few games during the last 4 or 5 years that exceeded or fulfilled financial expectations. Instead we got a string of failures from a business point of view. One wonders whether the decision to switch target markets was a sane one ...
The decision was made by Blizzard. While Blizz's main focus was to remove most of the barriers to entry for other types of gamers, they created HUGE barriers to entry for other game developers to tap into the same new market they were getting into.
Just the customizable interface and open approach to mods alone make it VERY hard for a WOW player to try anything else. As soon as they log into another game and find they can't move their hot bar where they want, resize health bars and have buff alerts added to the interface, they quickly go back to whats familiar.
Ontop of that......Blizzard has all the money in the world to pump out endgame content on a level that many can't compete with and the game is more polished than any other. It's just too hard for the Aions and Warhammers of the world to be successful when they are putting out essentially a less refined version of WOW. Thats why it appears the linear theme park model is bad from a financial standpoint for the MMORPG industry.....but good for WOW.
First off the MMORPG genre isn't approaching it's 12th anniversary, it's already bypassed it's 13th. Not a good start there Bill, how can the accuracy of anything else you mention not be questioned when your first sentence is wrong?
Further I'd rather think the MMO market has been put on pause, I've seen little in the way of new innovation. Graphics and Sound does not a game make. As long as games are continually produced based on the "EQ" model, you know Level and Grind, something WoW, LOTRO, DDO, Atlantica Online, AC and well Pick something not Ultima Online and you'll get the point, have all adopted and stuck to. The MMO market is in a rut, glutted with EQ clones, and no I will not refer to games as WoW clones, WoW uses the basic EQ equation.
What needs to change is the mechanics the End User relies on the most, level and grind is dull, everyone despises killing 100's of rats, boars, badgers, bats etc. just to progress towards the coveted "End Game". Btw the conecpt of "End Game" needs to go as well, but that's more user releated. Go back to the MMORPG's roots, the old pen and paper table top RPG's, the game wasn't about the goal it was about the journey something Development Studios have forgotten. Now most of us as players are stuck on a linear track where the start point is based on Race, Class, and Equipment Available. Where the only personality is what color we dye our gear and what we type into a chat box.
Where is the Adventure? I can go to any of dozens of Websites and find a strategy on how to progress my character. This is something Ultima Online for example still has that no other MMO active on the Market does. It doesn't matter what gear you have, what monsters you can slay when you break it down the game is still what you make of it because nothing is tied into a ridigid framework. You don't want to be a warrior? Fine you can make it as a Crafter, heck you can do well on that game fishing and begging, because personality and community is more improtant than being Capped out on Skills with 1337 gear. How can most MMO's even claim to have a "RP" community? How can you be unique when you are playing in a world full of cookie cutter characters? There is a whole different side of the market out there that is constantly ignored, and it shouldn't be.
This is an excellent summary of the situation. The early games, particularly EQ and UO, came up with a formula. WoW honed it and made it accessible to a much larger audience, while catering to a player style that is wrapped around how fast a character can be leveled and outfitted. The idea of the most important objective being the experience is totally lost. I played WoW 3-4 years, about as long as I played EQ, and it was fun. But it wasn't the same experience by several miles. An old EQ player will recount his adventures (and with crystal clarity years later). An old WoW player will count up his gear. And I guess that is ok for some people, but it is not progress to this old gamer.
The only trend that I do not like in the "Maturing" of the MMORPG industry is the movelent tword "Twitchy" combat and the need for specialized controllers.
I am playing the DCUO Beta and I hate to say it the game movement and combat system requireing a gamepad type controller is a real turn off for me.
I appreciate people who like this type of control and I really appreciate games that support both. But the movement toward twitch based MMORPG activity I feel actually begins to start exclude players from these games.
Stating the MMO world is "maturing" is like saying the monstrous brats on Jersey Shore are acting like "mature" men and women now, not spoiled little 10 year olds.
Those people on Jersey Shore are certainly bigger than they were when they were 10, the guys with cut abs and pecs, the ladies filled out (eye-candy), but the substance is non-existant, very little maturation having occurred. Same with MMOs. They've gotten bigger and fatter, flashier, sometimes sporting better tech, but evolving?
Not really. I'm more in the devolving camp, generally speaking. This opinion is based on the following criteria:
MMOs far too often FAIL to support core foundational concepts for a sport/game, instead throwing out bucketfulls of fluff and eye-candy to distract us:
Competition, Participation, Danger/Risk, Reward, Motivation/Morall vs Demoralization
To put this opinion into context, I'll offer an opinion of WoW Word PvP over the course of 5+ years:
Unbracketted, open-level PvP across all zones. This destroys Competition, participation, et. al. It relegates players to non-participant spectators to PvP across an insane level grind (now to 80). FAIL
Blizzard also executes a deployment strategy that highlights, in neon lights, the fact they aren't interested in taking care of their customers and player base, but instead have become comfortable with a culture of the player base is actually their Testing Department. Thus, whatever hair-brained idea their devs (or the new crop of cycled in devs to the department) comes up with is fine, the player base is there to support their immature screwing around.
In short, MMO companies are FAST to implement The Grind to ensnare players to sub, and keep subbing, by virtue of promoting a strong sense of ownership by players, yet in the same breath show zero respect for that sense of ownership and pleasure in ownership.
Think I'm exaggerating during an emo-rant? Lets check that:
WoW is several years old, it isn't supposed to be an "immature", new in it's first year product. It's supposed to be, well, several years old, now mature. To any reasonable person the expectation for "mature" would be: fewer class problems, finer and finer granularity on class changes, a flatter, more stable graph. Instead, Blizzard introduced changes to classes in their Burning Crusades and Wrath of the Lich King expansions that totally turned some classes inside out.
Does Blizzard have the power to do these things? Sure. It's their game. Also utterly irrelevant. This discussion is evaluating HOW Blizzard, or any other gaming company, wields that power on behalf of the game and it's game community.
Lets put the DEVOLUTION of the idea of development maturation into perspective with some real-deal examples out of Wow:
Hunters at one point were predominantly Beast spec'd. A Blizzard Accountant somewhere didn't like the fact his spreadsheet showed 80+% (going on memory) were Beast, then 15%ish Marksman, with 5%ish Survival.
Blizzards well-thought out, mature, and cleanly executed (not really) "fix"? In service of the game, and particularly the community? They nerfed the Beast spec so badly it FORCED Hunters into the newly transmorgified Survival spec, which was completely ALTERED to no longer be Survival (e.g. tactical, trap based) but to now be the new NUKER spec.
And they botched that total overhaul nicely not taking into account an unintended effect the player base quaintly started calling Trap Dancing. Then to fix that blunder they introduced a new shot as a hot fix called Black Arrow, then they tied Trap Cooldowns to Black Arrow which means the Survival Tree,the only tree with TRAP SPECIALIZATION talents in it continually kept traps OFFLINE as the Hunter tried to kill stuff with his DPS rotation!
lololololo . . . lulz. Who would do such a thing?! Blizzard did, to their shame.
The outcry was so ferocious over the bolluxing up of Hunters, Ghostcrawler, a Blizz Blue poster and "lead" Hunter guy there, came out with a couple of revelations in posts to the community:
A) They nerfed Beast Spec too hard, yeah, they have to agree, golly.
They completely transmorgrified the Hunter class to simply PUSH players out of Beast spec into Survival. For what game-play reason no one could ever figure out other than a disconnected, Excel Spreadsheet Bean Counter didn't like numbers in column A and D.
Without taking this any further into a past-history diatribe, I'm not in agreement MMOs are coming out of their Puberty. It's more a case of their being STUCK in Puberty, just bigger and flashier with more muscle. Just like a Jersey Shore brat acting like a total fool, even though it's a 20-something, not an 8 to 10 year old.
And MMOs will stay that way until we see some REAL dev teams lead by astute designers guided by solid principles of progressive evolution.
Instead of pie-in-the sky changes that turns the world inside out for players, and golly, don't worry, it'll all work out, trust us.
My only issue with AOL's NWN claim is that it was restricted by network, no different than many of the early partily graphical MUDs like Island of Kesmai. Meridian 59 (1996) was the first open network MMO the first that I would claim had the capacity of becoming 'Massively-Multiplayer' since it wasn't restricted by network. It's a matter of degrees really on what scale was the game capable for adoption.
As to why I don't think games are getting there? Look at where market trends have shifted. There have been few truely innovative MMO's in the past 8 years, unfortunately everyone in the Development arena seems to feel a desire to try and grab a slice of the same pie WoW is eating and not going out and baking their own. In a way I understand, it's a risk, it's costly to develop a game and doing so with an unproven strategy could quickly create a flop, but isn't that sometimes worth the risk? Meridian 59, Ultima Online, and Everquest are arguably the forefathers of the modern MMO movement, and just look, they are still here, they've already outlived 2 generations of Console systems, and working on beating down their 5th generation of CPUs and 10th generation of GPUs. Why have these games had such long term success, even if they can't claim the huge numbers in terms of subscriptions? They provide the purest forms of game play that every other MMO running today in some way makes use of, they innovated.
I strongly dissagree with this article where it is saying that the genre has diversified. After the release of WoW, and MMORPG becoming mainstream, the genre has become dumbified, so that a child can hit the level cap, and almost all elements that were hard to achieve has become relatively easy to achieve.
As for combat, offline RPGs are way more fun than MMORPGs. Dragon Age Origins blows any MMORPG out of the water when it comes to fantasy and a score of FPS and third person shooter does combat better than sci-fi RPGs. MMORPGs combat has always been weak and that is because it was never its selling point. Now that persistence world and immersion is all but gone, those single player elements are coming back into focus.
So what has essentially happened is that MMORPGs has become more and more like single player games and that is anything but good and there is basically only one good sandbox MMORPG left and that is a space sci-fi one.
Stating the MMO world is "maturing" is like saying the monstrous brats on Jersey Shore are acting like "mature" men and women now, not spoiled little 10 year olds.
Those people on Jersey Shore are certainly bigger than they were when they were 10, the guys with cut abs and pecs, the ladies filled out (eye-candy), but the substance is non-existant, very little maturation having occurred. Same with MMOs. They've gotten bigger and fatter, flashier, sometimes sporting better tech, but evolving?
.
.
.
Without taking this any further into a past-history diatribe, I'm not in agreement MMOs are coming out of their Puberty. It's more a case of their being STUCK in Puberty, just bigger and flashier with more muscle. Just like a Jersey Shore brat acting like a total fool, even though it's a 20-something, not an 8 to 10 year old.
And MMOs will stay that way until we see some REAL dev teams lead by astute designers guided by solid principles of progressive evolution.
Instead of pie-in-the sky changes that turns the world inside out for players, and golly, don't worry, it'll all work out, trust us.
Could not have said it better myself. The MMORPG genre has gotten bigger and hence more money for the devs/publishers/whatever but from a quality, innovation and depth it has not evolved at all, rather devolved.
There has not been one single MMORPG released in the past 3-4 years that had any measure of the qualities I described above. 9/10 have been rehashed WoW clones which are easy, casual and with zero innovation and this will continue until a dev team comes along that puts quality and innovation first and profitability second.
The MMORPG genre needs artists, not beancounters and suits.
Stating the MMO world is "maturing" is like saying the monstrous brats on Jersey Shore are acting like "mature" men and women now, not spoiled little 10 year olds.
Those people on Jersey Shore are certainly bigger than they were when they were 10, the guys with cut abs and pecs, the ladies filled out (eye-candy), but the substance is non-existant, very little maturation having occurred. Same with MMOs. They've gotten bigger and fatter, flashier, sometimes sporting better tech, but evolving?
.
.
.
Without taking this any further into a past-history diatribe, I'm not in agreement MMOs are coming out of their Puberty. It's more a case of their being STUCK in Puberty, just bigger and flashier with more muscle. Just like a Jersey Shore brat acting like a total fool, even though it's a 20-something, not an 8 to 10 year old.
And MMOs will stay that way until we see some REAL dev teams lead by astute designers guided by solid principles of progressive evolution.
Instead of pie-in-the sky changes that turns the world inside out for players, and golly, don't worry, it'll all work out, trust us.
Could not have said it better myself. The MMORPG genre has gotten bigger and hence more money for the devs/publishers/whatever but from a quality, innovation and depth it has not evolved at all, rather devolved.
There has not been one single MMORPG released in the past 3-4 years that had any measure of the qualities I described above. 9/10 have been rehashed WoW clones which are easy, casual and with zero innovation and this will continue until a dev team comes along that puts quality and innovation first and profitability second.
The MMORPG genre needs artists, not beancounters and suits.
it is a business, and as a business they will invest in a product which will sell. That proven product is a wow-clone. Expect to see more not less.
Stating the MMO world is "maturing" is like saying the monstrous brats on Jersey Shore are acting like "mature" men and women now, not spoiled little 10 year olds.
Those people on Jersey Shore are certainly bigger than they were when they were 10, the guys with cut abs and pecs, the ladies filled out (eye-candy), but the substance is non-existant, very little maturation having occurred. Same with MMOs. They've gotten bigger and fatter, flashier, sometimes sporting better tech, but evolving?
.
.
.
Without taking this any further into a past-history diatribe, I'm not in agreement MMOs are coming out of their Puberty. It's more a case of their being STUCK in Puberty, just bigger and flashier with more muscle. Just like a Jersey Shore brat acting like a total fool, even though it's a 20-something, not an 8 to 10 year old.
And MMOs will stay that way until we see some REAL dev teams lead by astute designers guided by solid principles of progressive evolution.
Instead of pie-in-the sky changes that turns the world inside out for players, and golly, don't worry, it'll all work out, trust us.
Could not have said it better myself. The MMORPG genre has gotten bigger and hence more money for the devs/publishers/whatever but from a quality, innovation and depth it has not evolved at all, rather devolved.
There has not been one single MMORPG released in the past 3-4 years that had any measure of the qualities I described above. 9/10 have been rehashed WoW clones which are easy, casual and with zero innovation and this will continue until a dev team comes along that puts quality and innovation first and profitability second.
The MMORPG genre needs artists, not beancounters and suits.
it is a business, and as a business they will invest in a product which will sell. That proven product is a wow-clone. Expect to see more not less.
The problem is, and what many of us are starting to feel, is like any product the market can only sustain so much of it. While we might not have reached "peak" saturation, it's coming. How many brands of the same product can be sitting around before it all starts looking and feeling the same. Someone needs to mix it up a bit.
The game originally cost standard AOL hourly rates to play. Depending on the user's rate plan, this could be USD$6.00 per hour for a flat rate plan, or $8.00 per hour during premium (daytime) hours or $4.00 during off hours.[citation needed] As the years progressed, Internet connection costs dropped, AOL and NWN membership grew, the servers became faster and the hourly player charge declined. As a result of these upgrades, the capacity of each server grew from 50 players in 1991 to 500 players by 1995. Ultimately the game became a free part of the AOL subscriber service.
Near the end of its run in 1997 the game had 115,000 players and typically hosted 2,000 adventurers during prime evening hours, a 4000% increase over 1991."
"Neverwinter Nights has a user base of 115,000, say protesters, although it draws about 2,000 regular players, said Miles. In the Neverwinter Nights forums on AOL, gamers are crying for boycotts, and a large number of gamers in the forums have announced their intention of canceling their AOL accounts when the games go down. But, as one protest letter being circulation puts it, "the idea of a 'boycott' is ... very appealing, but again, there are 8 million AOL subscribers and we question whether or not AOL would notice a few 'dropouts.'"
Certainly not. The game ran on one server only, and was built to hold 200 players at one time. This number was slowly expanded over the years when additional areas were added, and then again when the game continued to be a favorite. Neverwinter Nights spanned from version 1.0 to version 2.2, during which many new areas, bug fixes, and plenty of quests were added to the code. The final capacity upgrade was 500 players, and every night there was a bottleneck of hundreds waiting on that one person to leave the game so they could log in. This occurred till the night the game was taken offline, which was July 18th, 1997."
50-500 is hardly "massive" by definition, imho. The Wiki article itself defines it as a "Multiplayer" game, rather than a "Massive Multiplayer" game.
Massive for it's time? That argument could be made. A predecessor to MMO's, quite probable.
I have to agree with Einherjar_LC, that the first widely acknowledged/recognized MMO would probably be UO, released in 1997.
"Ultima Online is a fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe. It is online-only and played by thousands of simultaneous users (who pay a monthly fee) on various game servers, also known as shards."
Once you hit the "Thousands" mark, I think you get the right to be referred to as "Massive".
;-)
Hmmm.... I guess it would depend on what standards qualify an MMORPG.... Meridian 59 predated UO by a bit and I think it hit the Thosands mark at some point.
If we ditch the "Graphical" requirement then Simutronics Gemstone could probably qualify as well... and it's origional release was back in the late 80's (available on Genie).... so I guess it really depends on what qualifications one requires in order to be considered an MMORPG..... granted though UO was probably this first "Widely Known" one.
I agree with some stuff but not others. For example I really haven't seen squat in the way of innovation. Yes, combo moves in AOC were cool (as they were in warhammer), but one little novelty doesn't make up for the rest of the trash game. On the other hand, I agree that casual gamers SHOULD be included in this genre. There ARE ways that one can combine the casual with the hardcare (and much better than they did with wow), while still satisfying both audiences. After all, the first M stands for Massive, and casuals help to make a game truly massive.
I could agree with the analogy for most points, that being that the mmo is ending puberty. But to truly end puberty the mmo must move to hybrid status, that is the proper combination of the sandbox and the themepark. Until that day comes, mmos are still a pimply 15-year old.
Is it just me or how come every person that believes the MMORPG industry hasn't progressed cannot put up one solid argument outside of "Zomg, 90% (inaccurate statistic) of MMOs today are WoW clones", really by that argument then, 90% of MMO's would also be Everquest clones though, quit generalizing. Just because its a fantasy based game, in a 3D virtual world with hotkey bars doesn't turn it into a WoW clone. We don't go run around calling every new FPS shooter game a Counter Strike clone and I believe FPS's have much closer resemblence cross games.
Let's not forget, progress comes in many forms and we can at least say this, visually it has gone a long way. No argument there hence that is some form of progress within the industry. Oh what about the quest system evolution, have we forgotten where Everquest or Ultima Online has came from or did all the complainers not even play in that era? I wouldn't trade anything in the world from today to have whatever that was in the past, albeit fond memories do exist in my mind. Today, I would shoot myself in the face if I had to sit in a corner of a non-instanced dungeon fighting 2-3 other groups for 2-3 respawnable NPC's to beat down for hours on end. Oh exciting and nothing like outnumbering players to monster 3 to 1.
In terms of diversity, it used to be that we had about 5-6 choices of any decent MMO titles at a certain age and even at the very early stages 1-2 depending on your tastes and preferences. Today, we have too many to choose from and not enough time to fully experience even a handful of them since MMO's are generally never-ending games with an early, mid and late/end game aspect (which can never be taken away, that is an element of an MMO). If you can't notice the differences and subtleties of the various MMO's, maybe the genre isn't for you. There's nothing wrong with that and if it isn't satisfying you, then why are you sticking around.
Finishing thoughts, someone mentioned previously how MMO's are becoming more like single-player games. I disagree, I think MMO's were mainly watered down/simplified version of games with a massive multiplayer aspect to account for. The complexity in the game are how different players strung together affect an environment and each other on multiple basis such as economy, PvP, PvE, group organization, crafting etc. The gameplay and mechanics have to be more simplified than the single-player games or else it would be too hard for a development team to manage and control in a proper way. We all know how people love to cry about imbalances imagine if the mechanics were as deep as its social system. It'll be impossible to properly manage and know how to address issues such as that. And if they were as complex gameplay wise, then there would be no need for single player RPGs and I think sometimes you need to play one every once in awhile to get away from the hustle and bustle of MMO's.
In a business sense MMOs have been "maturing" in the sense they they are being altered and re-branded toward a broader audience. That does no necessarily make them better per their original intent, to create virtual worlds where players could be immersed in and have fun beign apart of. Instead MMOs have turned mostly into arcadey instant gratification games, where the game 'world' is nothing more than a side note backdrop that is largely disposable.
I hate to agree with this, but I do. I think it's very accurate.
I play/try many new MMO's that come out (checking screenshots and reviews first), and I wonder where the lore, and/or "world" is and why it's not an important part of the game.
I mainly try a lot of f2p games as without a retail price tag, and lack of a manditory sub to play it, they are really accessable, but at the same time, most are pure garbage. They barely tell any kind of story, have almost 0 adventuring/discovery/etc to them, and always seem to be missing A LOT of what games 10 years prior had. They're just "grinders" as they say, and lack any real substance. Just do X, Y times and you will level. Zzzzzzzz. Somoeone wake me up when a something worth my time, GW2?, actually comes out.
I never understood the motivation to constantly churn out "garbage" grinders was or still is. Just a way to possibly make a quick buck? I would think developers would try to do something different, and BETTER than games that started out over 10 years ago, not to mention what's currently out there.
To make a point, I have the following example. I think of most new MMO's that come out, can be represented with just 6 buttons, that correspond to features and each game comes out with only some of them available, with NOTHING new (and old) to add to the market. So, it's always like this:
Game X comes out and it has the 4 main features, or selling points, the letters in captials. So, ABcdEF. "c and d" are features that are in many other games, but for some reason, do not exist this game.
Game Y, and Z come out and they have abDEFG, and AbCDeF. Instead of, game Y+ coming out with ABCDEGHIJ+, and so on. Understand what I'm saying?
I've been a software developer for many years and still try to put every "great", or even common, well liked, expected, etc, feature, in each peice of software I work on.
I don't understand who or what is designing and released these "grinders". Most aren't worth the download time, let alone play time.
Remember taking your UO character and just exploring? You'd stumble across so many different things and places. Especially in UO. Monsters that were not there before, dynamically spawing chests of loot, new mobs, etc. Eploration seems just about dead in MMO's now. They're all too predictable. The same exact monsters that re-spawn in the same exact places, causing campers, etc.
I would really love to see developers stop copying each other, then even dropping great features/aspects of previous MMO's, in favor of mindless grinding, Kill X of Y quests, etc.
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The thing is, if it is an RPG then it is a game of stats vs stats. In most cases, that is the very nature and definition of the RPG. There are a lot of very interesting "real life" RPGs now that are more about storytelling, but that is not what the genre is based on. Computer AI is not advanced enough to referee or graphically present these kinds of games yet. You are comparing it to a totally different mechanic and definition, the FPS. Just because they are totally different gaming concepts doesn't mean that somehow the RPG is a dated concept compared to the FPS. While they are both combat-centric, I feel they fairly seperate concepts and shouldn't be confused. Of course I would expect the "average" person to cross the two in their minds, but pretty much everyone on this site has a lot of experience in both types of games. The difference should be clear and both types of game should be valued equally.
A genuinely interesting, well made and well thought out article, holding some great points, I'm guessing that from a standpoint of your hardcore gamer that MMO's are following the same progression as early games, Game play types increasing and graphics slowly getting better an educated guess would be that after this period is done it will either focus on 1 of 3 things, Heavy engine improvements allowing MMO's to have a much more interactive world and higher graphics using alot less resources like most single player games, a heavy increase in interactivity via human motion or (something thats already happing to this day) Heavy transgression to console gaming (to a balancedish proportion of pc mmo's of course) what are your guys opinion on this?
I'm not sure. It's one thing to get software / hardware to the point where your gaming sysem can start handling changable environments and alternative input devices (MS Kinect).....its another to be able to do all of that with networking, latency, etc. involved.
As for the direction of MMOs.....who's to say that the genere doesn't slip further down the "casual" slide? There are more Farmville players than registerd Twitter accounts. Like how MMORPG devs decided to drop the barriers of entry to bring in more gamers from FPS, RTS, RPG, 3rd Person Action games...........could they do one better and further expand market share by bringing in the millions of people hooked in to ultra-casual facebook / iPhone games?
If so, would everyone be in support of the MMO "evolution" that removes even MORE barriers to allow mafia wars / farmville types?
To me, the problem with modern MMOs is that most developers and gamers seem to come from console games. I see that in that there has to be tons of content and quests, and combat has to be fast and furious with no downtime. Back in the old days a group had to sit down and rest after a fight, and it offered people time to get to know each other. That way communities developed. These days there is no downtime, nor any penalties for dying, so people just keep trucking along without getting to know each other the few times they bother to group up. The old games were designed so that people could solo if they wanted, but if you grouped up xp could be earned faster by taking on tougher monsters. Nowadays, a group often slows people down because the time it takes to set up a group is not rewarded compared to soloing.
Another indicator of the console infusing shows itself in that players breeze through the game in weeks, rather than years as of old, and then move on to the next hot title. Spending time immersing itself in the world is not happening, often because the setting is very generic, with just a slight twitch to separate itself from the rest.
The result of this is that I agree with the side that claim that MMOs are regressing rather than progressing.
Sorry not buying this post.
First off the MMORPG genre isn't approaching it's 12th anniversary, it's already bypassed it's 13th. Not a good start there Bill, how can the accuracy of anything else you mention not be questioned when your first sentence is wrong?
Further I'd rather think the MMO market has been put on pause, I've seen little in the way of new innovation. Graphics and Sound does not a game make. As long as games are continually produced based on the "EQ" model, you know Level and Grind, something WoW, LOTRO, DDO, Atlantica Online, AC and well Pick something not Ultima Online and you'll get the point, have all adopted and stuck to. The MMO market is in a rut, glutted with EQ clones, and no I will not refer to games as WoW clones, WoW uses the basic EQ equation.
What needs to change is the mechanics the End User relies on the most, level and grind is dull, everyone despises killing 100's of rats, boars, badgers, bats etc. just to progress towards the coveted "End Game". Btw the conecpt of "End Game" needs to go as well, but that's more user releated. Go back to the MMORPG's roots, the old pen and paper table top RPG's, the game wasn't about the goal it was about the journey something Development Studios have forgotten. Now most of us as players are stuck on a linear track where the start point is based on Race, Class, and Equipment Available. Where the only personality is what color we dye our gear and what we type into a chat box.
Where is the Adventure? I can go to any of dozens of Websites and find a strategy on how to progress my character. This is something Ultima Online for example still has that no other MMO active on the Market does. It doesn't matter what gear you have, what monsters you can slay when you break it down the game is still what you make of it because nothing is tied into a ridigid framework. You don't want to be a warrior? Fine you can make it as a Crafter, heck you can do well on that game fishing and begging, because personality and community is more improtant than being Capped out on Skills with 1337 gear. How can most MMO's even claim to have a "RP" community? How can you be unique when you are playing in a world full of cookie cutter characters? There is a whole different side of the market out there that is constantly ignored, and it shouldn't be.
Suddenly, a 1970's Game Show Buzzer sounds.
Audience: "Awwww..."
Gameshow Host: "I'm sorry. Let us spin the wayback machine wheel and it lands... slowly... on GEnie.
Audience applause, and... cut to commercial.
-- The Maxx
I usually don't do this, but Cronjo I wrote twentieth... not twelfth. And indeed it is approaching it's 20th, by my standards which includes NWN on AOL as the first graphical MMORPG.
As for the rest of your opinions, by all means continue to think that way, but you'll just have to get used to the fact that we're in disagreement and that's OKAY.
Additionally, I actually very much agree with a lot of what you have to say. Where we differ is merely in so much as that I believe the games are getting there, and you feel they're not. Otherwise, it seems we're on the same page.
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I couldn't agree more. The things that made for community were sacrificed in order to grow ba-hair on the kiddies' chests.
Now we have these silly mongrel wannabe games that are neither fish nor fowl, but are certainly anti-community, which was the bedrock of older MMOs. They instead foster competition for kills, loot, and crafting essentials--thereby pitting players against each other from the get-go. Might as well style them as RP/FPS with lag, lol. You are right, Bill--I sure see LOTS of puberty here. I just don't see much growing up.
I am resting my hope for change on Guild Wars2. I surely hope it lives up to its promises. If it does, we just might see the return of community and maturity to multiplayer gaming.
So... You are happy that mmo's are becoming more and more like console games, and that they are taking away the immersion... You suck.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
An interesting article indeed. I don't agree with much of it, but that's mostly down to personal preference, thus still an interesting and well-written article.
Have these games changed? Sure they have, in many ways. To the better? Not in my book but I'm well aware that other people have other preferences and have welcomed the changes. And for some people the genre hasn't even changed enough.
In the process the companies have lost many players of the old games (UO, EQ, DAoC and the like) and instead catered to a new target market. They dropped much of the immersion and RP part of the genre, they focused on providing content for achievers and killers and stopped providing content for explorers and socializers, they made combat faster, less tactical but more action-y, more arcade-y and generally provided much more instant gratification. They reduced gameplay elements like grouping, housing, travelling and crafting and instead introduced cinematic cutscenes, eyecandy, voice overs and exclamation marks hovering above NPCs.
The funny thing is that with all these changes they seemingly also dropped the recipe for financial success from the genre. We had very few games during the last 4 or 5 years that exceeded or fulfilled financial expectations. Instead we got a string of failures from a business point of view. One wonders whether the decision to switch target markets was a sane one ...
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The decision was made by Blizzard. While Blizz's main focus was to remove most of the barriers to entry for other types of gamers, they created HUGE barriers to entry for other game developers to tap into the same new market they were getting into.
Just the customizable interface and open approach to mods alone make it VERY hard for a WOW player to try anything else. As soon as they log into another game and find they can't move their hot bar where they want, resize health bars and have buff alerts added to the interface, they quickly go back to whats familiar.
Ontop of that......Blizzard has all the money in the world to pump out endgame content on a level that many can't compete with and the game is more polished than any other. It's just too hard for the Aions and Warhammers of the world to be successful when they are putting out essentially a less refined version of WOW. Thats why it appears the linear theme park model is bad from a financial standpoint for the MMORPG industry.....but good for WOW.
This is an excellent summary of the situation. The early games, particularly EQ and UO, came up with a formula. WoW honed it and made it accessible to a much larger audience, while catering to a player style that is wrapped around how fast a character can be leveled and outfitted. The idea of the most important objective being the experience is totally lost. I played WoW 3-4 years, about as long as I played EQ, and it was fun. But it wasn't the same experience by several miles. An old EQ player will recount his adventures (and with crystal clarity years later). An old WoW player will count up his gear. And I guess that is ok for some people, but it is not progress to this old gamer.
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Rose-lipped maidens,
Light-foot lads...
The only trend that I do not like in the "Maturing" of the MMORPG industry is the movelent tword "Twitchy" combat and the need for specialized controllers.
I am playing the DCUO Beta and I hate to say it the game movement and combat system requireing a gamepad type controller is a real turn off for me.
I appreciate people who like this type of control and I really appreciate games that support both. But the movement toward twitch based MMORPG activity I feel actually begins to start exclude players from these games.
The state of current mmo's and mmo development is horrendous. Developers have become executives and are no longer rpg gamers.
There needs to be a revolution ... and it is the gamers who need to lead the uprising.
You stay sassy!
Stating the MMO world is "maturing" is like saying the monstrous brats on Jersey Shore are acting like "mature" men and women now, not spoiled little 10 year olds.
Those people on Jersey Shore are certainly bigger than they were when they were 10, the guys with cut abs and pecs, the ladies filled out (eye-candy), but the substance is non-existant, very little maturation having occurred. Same with MMOs. They've gotten bigger and fatter, flashier, sometimes sporting better tech, but evolving?
Not really. I'm more in the devolving camp, generally speaking. This opinion is based on the following criteria:
MMOs far too often FAIL to support core foundational concepts for a sport/game, instead throwing out bucketfulls of fluff and eye-candy to distract us:
Competition, Participation, Danger/Risk, Reward, Motivation/Morall vs Demoralization
To put this opinion into context, I'll offer an opinion of WoW Word PvP over the course of 5+ years:
Unbracketted, open-level PvP across all zones. This destroys Competition, participation, et. al. It relegates players to non-participant spectators to PvP across an insane level grind (now to 80). FAIL
Blizzard also executes a deployment strategy that highlights, in neon lights, the fact they aren't interested in taking care of their customers and player base, but instead have become comfortable with a culture of the player base is actually their Testing Department. Thus, whatever hair-brained idea their devs (or the new crop of cycled in devs to the department) comes up with is fine, the player base is there to support their immature screwing around.
In short, MMO companies are FAST to implement The Grind to ensnare players to sub, and keep subbing, by virtue of promoting a strong sense of ownership by players, yet in the same breath show zero respect for that sense of ownership and pleasure in ownership.
Think I'm exaggerating during an emo-rant? Lets check that:
WoW is several years old, it isn't supposed to be an "immature", new in it's first year product. It's supposed to be, well, several years old, now mature. To any reasonable person the expectation for "mature" would be: fewer class problems, finer and finer granularity on class changes, a flatter, more stable graph. Instead, Blizzard introduced changes to classes in their Burning Crusades and Wrath of the Lich King expansions that totally turned some classes inside out.
Does Blizzard have the power to do these things? Sure. It's their game. Also utterly irrelevant. This discussion is evaluating HOW Blizzard, or any other gaming company, wields that power on behalf of the game and it's game community.
Lets put the DEVOLUTION of the idea of development maturation into perspective with some real-deal examples out of Wow:
Hunters at one point were predominantly Beast spec'd. A Blizzard Accountant somewhere didn't like the fact his spreadsheet showed 80+% (going on memory) were Beast, then 15%ish Marksman, with 5%ish Survival.
Blizzards well-thought out, mature, and cleanly executed (not really) "fix"? In service of the game, and particularly the community? They nerfed the Beast spec so badly it FORCED Hunters into the newly transmorgified Survival spec, which was completely ALTERED to no longer be Survival (e.g. tactical, trap based) but to now be the new NUKER spec.
And they botched that total overhaul nicely not taking into account an unintended effect the player base quaintly started calling Trap Dancing. Then to fix that blunder they introduced a new shot as a hot fix called Black Arrow, then they tied Trap Cooldowns to Black Arrow which means the Survival Tree,the only tree with TRAP SPECIALIZATION talents in it continually kept traps OFFLINE as the Hunter tried to kill stuff with his DPS rotation!
lololololo . . . lulz. Who would do such a thing?! Blizzard did, to their shame.
The outcry was so ferocious over the bolluxing up of Hunters, Ghostcrawler, a Blizz Blue poster and "lead" Hunter guy there, came out with a couple of revelations in posts to the community:
A) They nerfed Beast Spec too hard, yeah, they have to agree, golly.
Without taking this any further into a past-history diatribe, I'm not in agreement MMOs are coming out of their Puberty. It's more a case of their being STUCK in Puberty, just bigger and flashier with more muscle. Just like a Jersey Shore brat acting like a total fool, even though it's a 20-something, not an 8 to 10 year old.
And MMOs will stay that way until we see some REAL dev teams lead by astute designers guided by solid principles of progressive evolution.
Instead of pie-in-the sky changes that turns the world inside out for players, and golly, don't worry, it'll all work out, trust us.
Wherever you go, there you are.
My only issue with AOL's NWN claim is that it was restricted by network, no different than many of the early partily graphical MUDs like Island of Kesmai. Meridian 59 (1996) was the first open network MMO the first that I would claim had the capacity of becoming 'Massively-Multiplayer' since it wasn't restricted by network. It's a matter of degrees really on what scale was the game capable for adoption.
As to why I don't think games are getting there? Look at where market trends have shifted. There have been few truely innovative MMO's in the past 8 years, unfortunately everyone in the Development arena seems to feel a desire to try and grab a slice of the same pie WoW is eating and not going out and baking their own. In a way I understand, it's a risk, it's costly to develop a game and doing so with an unproven strategy could quickly create a flop, but isn't that sometimes worth the risk? Meridian 59, Ultima Online, and Everquest are arguably the forefathers of the modern MMO movement, and just look, they are still here, they've already outlived 2 generations of Console systems, and working on beating down their 5th generation of CPUs and 10th generation of GPUs. Why have these games had such long term success, even if they can't claim the huge numbers in terms of subscriptions? They provide the purest forms of game play that every other MMO running today in some way makes use of, they innovated.
I strongly dissagree with this article where it is saying that the genre has diversified. After the release of WoW, and MMORPG becoming mainstream, the genre has become dumbified, so that a child can hit the level cap, and almost all elements that were hard to achieve has become relatively easy to achieve.
As for combat, offline RPGs are way more fun than MMORPGs. Dragon Age Origins blows any MMORPG out of the water when it comes to fantasy and a score of FPS and third person shooter does combat better than sci-fi RPGs. MMORPGs combat has always been weak and that is because it was never its selling point. Now that persistence world and immersion is all but gone, those single player elements are coming back into focus.
So what has essentially happened is that MMORPGs has become more and more like single player games and that is anything but good and there is basically only one good sandbox MMORPG left and that is a space sci-fi one.
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Could not have said it better myself. The MMORPG genre has gotten bigger and hence more money for the devs/publishers/whatever but from a quality, innovation and depth it has not evolved at all, rather devolved.
There has not been one single MMORPG released in the past 3-4 years that had any measure of the qualities I described above. 9/10 have been rehashed WoW clones which are easy, casual and with zero innovation and this will continue until a dev team comes along that puts quality and innovation first and profitability second.
The MMORPG genre needs artists, not beancounters and suits.
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it is a business, and as a business they will invest in a product which will sell. That proven product is a wow-clone. Expect to see more not less.
Currently bored with MMO's.
The problem is, and what many of us are starting to feel, is like any product the market can only sustain so much of it. While we might not have reached "peak" saturation, it's coming. How many brands of the same product can be sitting around before it all starts looking and feeling the same. Someone needs to mix it up a bit.
Hmmm.... I guess it would depend on what standards qualify an MMORPG.... Meridian 59 predated UO by a bit and I think it hit the Thosands mark at some point.
If we ditch the "Graphical" requirement then Simutronics Gemstone could probably qualify as well... and it's origional release was back in the late 80's (available on Genie).... so I guess it really depends on what qualifications one requires in order to be considered an MMORPG..... granted though UO was probably this first "Widely Known" one.
I agree with some stuff but not others. For example I really haven't seen squat in the way of innovation. Yes, combo moves in AOC were cool (as they were in warhammer), but one little novelty doesn't make up for the rest of the trash game. On the other hand, I agree that casual gamers SHOULD be included in this genre. There ARE ways that one can combine the casual with the hardcare (and much better than they did with wow), while still satisfying both audiences. After all, the first M stands for Massive, and casuals help to make a game truly massive.
I could agree with the analogy for most points, that being that the mmo is ending puberty. But to truly end puberty the mmo must move to hybrid status, that is the proper combination of the sandbox and the themepark. Until that day comes, mmos are still a pimply 15-year old.
Is it just me or how come every person that believes the MMORPG industry hasn't progressed cannot put up one solid argument outside of "Zomg, 90% (inaccurate statistic) of MMOs today are WoW clones", really by that argument then, 90% of MMO's would also be Everquest clones though, quit generalizing. Just because its a fantasy based game, in a 3D virtual world with hotkey bars doesn't turn it into a WoW clone. We don't go run around calling every new FPS shooter game a Counter Strike clone and I believe FPS's have much closer resemblence cross games.
Let's not forget, progress comes in many forms and we can at least say this, visually it has gone a long way. No argument there hence that is some form of progress within the industry. Oh what about the quest system evolution, have we forgotten where Everquest or Ultima Online has came from or did all the complainers not even play in that era? I wouldn't trade anything in the world from today to have whatever that was in the past, albeit fond memories do exist in my mind. Today, I would shoot myself in the face if I had to sit in a corner of a non-instanced dungeon fighting 2-3 other groups for 2-3 respawnable NPC's to beat down for hours on end. Oh exciting and nothing like outnumbering players to monster 3 to 1.
In terms of diversity, it used to be that we had about 5-6 choices of any decent MMO titles at a certain age and even at the very early stages 1-2 depending on your tastes and preferences. Today, we have too many to choose from and not enough time to fully experience even a handful of them since MMO's are generally never-ending games with an early, mid and late/end game aspect (which can never be taken away, that is an element of an MMO). If you can't notice the differences and subtleties of the various MMO's, maybe the genre isn't for you. There's nothing wrong with that and if it isn't satisfying you, then why are you sticking around.
Finishing thoughts, someone mentioned previously how MMO's are becoming more like single-player games. I disagree, I think MMO's were mainly watered down/simplified version of games with a massive multiplayer aspect to account for. The complexity in the game are how different players strung together affect an environment and each other on multiple basis such as economy, PvP, PvE, group organization, crafting etc. The gameplay and mechanics have to be more simplified than the single-player games or else it would be too hard for a development team to manage and control in a proper way. We all know how people love to cry about imbalances imagine if the mechanics were as deep as its social system. It'll be impossible to properly manage and know how to address issues such as that. And if they were as complex gameplay wise, then there would be no need for single player RPGs and I think sometimes you need to play one every once in awhile to get away from the hustle and bustle of MMO's.
I hate to agree with this, but I do. I think it's very accurate.
I play/try many new MMO's that come out (checking screenshots and reviews first), and I wonder where the lore, and/or "world" is and why it's not an important part of the game.
I mainly try a lot of f2p games as without a retail price tag, and lack of a manditory sub to play it, they are really accessable, but at the same time, most are pure garbage. They barely tell any kind of story, have almost 0 adventuring/discovery/etc to them, and always seem to be missing A LOT of what games 10 years prior had. They're just "grinders" as they say, and lack any real substance. Just do X, Y times and you will level. Zzzzzzzz. Somoeone wake me up when a something worth my time, GW2?, actually comes out.
I never understood the motivation to constantly churn out "garbage" grinders was or still is. Just a way to possibly make a quick buck? I would think developers would try to do something different, and BETTER than games that started out over 10 years ago, not to mention what's currently out there.
To make a point, I have the following example. I think of most new MMO's that come out, can be represented with just 6 buttons, that correspond to features and each game comes out with only some of them available, with NOTHING new (and old) to add to the market. So, it's always like this:
Game X comes out and it has the 4 main features, or selling points, the letters in captials. So, ABcdEF. "c and d" are features that are in many other games, but for some reason, do not exist this game.
Game Y, and Z come out and they have abDEFG, and AbCDeF. Instead of, game Y+ coming out with ABCDEGHIJ+, and so on. Understand what I'm saying?
I've been a software developer for many years and still try to put every "great", or even common, well liked, expected, etc, feature, in each peice of software I work on.
I don't understand who or what is designing and released these "grinders". Most aren't worth the download time, let alone play time.
Remember taking your UO character and just exploring? You'd stumble across so many different things and places. Especially in UO. Monsters that were not there before, dynamically spawing chests of loot, new mobs, etc. Eploration seems just about dead in MMO's now. They're all too predictable. The same exact monsters that re-spawn in the same exact places, causing campers, etc.
I would really love to see developers stop copying each other, then even dropping great features/aspects of previous MMO's, in favor of mindless grinding, Kill X of Y quests, etc.
Blah!