The first few MMO's I played (Lineage 1 and DAOC) had territory control and keep raiding as their primary end game. Sure, there were levels to grind through, and it took some time (over 3 months for my first level 50) but once you got to end game, you fought for control of keeps that gave you control of better PVE resources to help advance your character.
Sure, there was some gear progression, but before TOA it was all about earning enough cash to buy the best crafted gear and it wasn't the be all end carrot on a stick that its become today.
Mythic was really clever in they realized that all RVR all the time wasn't going to be enough, so they added in a 2nd tier of character progression, with their PVP Ranks and corresponding new skills that you could purchase with your accumulated realm points.
This progression was very slow, only the true die hards ever hit the max level (10/10) and when that happened, Mythic boosted the cap even higher. Myself I never stuck with a character much longer than realm rank 5 or 6 because I'd usually go roll an alt by then to see how well they played. But some folks stuck with it and got to the upper ranks and really enjoyed it.
More modern MMORPG's (starting with WOW for me) have been all about gear progression. Like the OP, when I was in Vanilla WOW and saw the path BC was laying out (and that all my hard won purple raiding gear was going to be outdone by level 62 greens) I promptly quit.
After 4 years I came back to cataclysm, quickly leveled a new character on a new server to 85, (unfortunately it turns out) and found myself awash with gold (so no real incentive there to continue), and a couple of gear progression treadmills, either follow one path towards resiliance and PVP gear or the alternate path of PVE heroics and raiding, for you guessed it, more purple gear.
Sigh.....
I just can't do it anymore, and I don't see many games (outside of indie sandboxes) trying to come up with anything new.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There are 2 types of end-games, and they rarely succeed if they cross. First is gear-based raiding PvE endgames to get new weapons/abilities. There are plenty of these kinds of games out there. The other is PvP endgames, where the success rate of games has been mixed at best.
In my opinion, the best PvP focused end-game MMO had to be the original Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC). The end-game of PvP had something for goal-based people in the grind of higher realm points for additional abilities. It had balance because there were 3 realms, almost ensuring that no one realm could dominate a server. It had consequences because holding enemy relics had benefits, and taking the keeps made leveling easier and taking the relics easier.
The primary problem of the DAOC end-game was lack of class balance (3 realms of unique classes to each made it nearly impossible) combined with the developer's desire to add a gigantic gear-grind end-game component (Trials of Atlantis) on top of the existing PvP end-game grind. This led to the mass exodus (combined with WOW) of the game and why today it is down to just 1 server (although very popular free-shards exist to put the game back to where it was prior to these changes).
What I believe many PvP players desire in an end-game is to take what DAOC used to have (3 realm combat for balance plus meaningful consequences for PvP activity for the entire realm) and put on top of that extensive class balance by having roughtly the same classes in each of the three realms. Combined with only a modest gear grind, I believe the game would be very successful in the end-game. Finally, I think players would like a change of scenery (after a while playing in the same setting gets boring), so the developers could rotate out the scenery/zones every few months to keep strategies fresh.
The concern I have on current MMO PvP end-games is that they tend to be 2-faction games (and one side that losses gives up, and the winners are bored and they give up, and servers consolidate, and repeat the process just like Warhammer) or they tend to be free-for-all PvP (Darkfall, Shadowbane) that I believe is a relatively small niche of the market.
Recently developers have been doing 2-faction games with a third NPC faction for balance (AION for example). This doesn't work because fighting NPCs simply doesn't motivate the PvP crowd, even in a PvP zone.
Because a balanced 3-faction meaningful PvP is always unpredictable, the amount of content update required by a developer would be relatively modest because players would make the content exciting. Like I said, the only real content would be probably a change of scenery every so often and only a modest gear-grind.
I must be one of the few people around who enjoys raiding. I agree with the notion of level cap being boring, but this an issue of leveling, not of raiding. You spend your leveling time exploring, uncovering storylines, fighting monsters, and completing quests. Then suddenly, at level cap, what you're doing changes. The real issue is not the addition of pvp, raids, etc. The issue is that loss of the questing. Suddenly, experience points become useless.
It is the fact that our previous activities stop that causes discomfort, not the fact that we add new ones. Imagine if we had little side classes to level up with experience points once we hit level cap for our main xp track. But these would make a much smaller difference than our main levels. Suddenly, we can keep questing, and do raids and pvp and whatever else we want.
What we really need to do is better integrate non-endgame activities with endgame ones. Questing, crafting, exploring... these should not stop at level cap. That, I think, is the real source of endgame blues.
Important facts: 1. Free to Play games are poorly made. 2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals. 3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE. 4. Community is more important than you think.
to solve over priceing issues, you simple have resaource vendors scattered around the game world selling the resources all of them for excessive prices.
this do two things. keeps player crafting prices competative and low and it ensures players cant do rediculous things and charge the earth for crap items.
it needs to be done in such a way that tradeing resources is a worth while play style that yields a decent reward in currency.
i do beleive in these games everything must be capped to some degree. for the simple reason as everythign is simple that the human being when ungoverned or not watched or not restricted is simply untrustworthy/greedy
and i think the above is the reason why we have these stupid grinds in the first place.
The endgame is what a company gives you to do after you've already done everything worth doing. Of course that's going to be boring.
Alternatively, the idea of an endgame is that it should be something to occupy players for a tremendous amount of time, while requiring little development time to create. That keeps the appropriate type of player busy and paying a monthly subscription for a long time after he's exhausted all of the game's real content. It's a business thing, not a good game design thing. Of course, if you've played online games for a decade, you've caught on that getting epics in a game that you're going to quit in a few months isn't that special; people whose first MMORPG is WoW might not have figured that out yet, so they'll sometimes be more into it.
If you don't like the gear grind of endgame, then there are games that do other things. Some games such as A Tale in the Desert, Puzzle Pirates, Uncharted Waters Online, or EVE Online don't have a clear demarcation of, now you're in the endgame. You play until you get bored and quit, and then you move on. Those, of course, aren't the traditional MMORPG designs that you might be looking for.
Another approach is that of Guild Wars. Basically, you get perfect gear pretty quickly, and likely before you even finish the game in the first place. Then the endgame is that you switch to hard mode and do whatever content you like, in whatever order you like. Hard mode bumps up the difficulty enough to be an appreciably different experience. And it's not grinding for gear, because you're not getting better gear, though you might use your loot to buy fancier looking gear that is functionally equivalent to what you had before.
Yes, I was also thinking about how Guild Wars approach this end-game and gear grinding completely differently, and plan to continue this approach for GW2. They've stated categorically that they don't want their games to be "grinds" and that they want players to be able to log and and have fun every time, without having to achieve certain gear to do certain instances to get certain gear to ...
Great topic, Bill. In fact this whole "end-game" thing has been on my mind quite a lot recently and I had toyed with the idea of starting a post entitled "start-game vs end-game". What I've found in recent years as I've wandered around from mmo to mmo is that I really just don't enjoy even the higher levels in a game as much as the beginning. I particularly hate returning to a game after a long break where I have a high level character. I take one look at the contents of my bags, my bank, my inventory (the state of my add-ons if it's WoW) and shudder.
I seem to make a lot of alts these days; there's something about creating a fresh character, experimenting with a class which is not so familiar and starting out on that adventurous journey which is way more satisfying to me than reaching end-game. I do enjoy taking one character right through to end-game in terms of actual exploration and completing quest lines, but once I've done that once, the joy in gaming tends to be start-game. Just seems simpler, cleaner, somehow. Less skills on the hotbars and so on. Hard to explain, but maybe someone else will know what I mean and express it better.
The fact remains you've only played those 10 games to the end. You've wasted a lot of time to reach a point where you can jump for joy for reaching the level cap and being in for a Rude Awakening!
Surprise! We have your money along with your time and energy wasted. Thanks, Come again. Of course rather than learning it in the first two times, it took you only 10 times...Nice!
Now what if you actually did play many games and got experience as a gamer enough to find how fun can be defined without giving way to too much temptation. You would have ended up being happier, of course you wouldn't have many people to say "I maxed out, yay!
which is what MMORPG gaming is about....
Wasting time to reach a certain level you can show off with your ego. Sounds like a Generalization? Go to your typical MMORPG forum and start reading how characters responds to post, acting like they are bigger than God. Most forgetting they don't have a high school degree, let alone any worthy education or decent job along with relationship problems...
After getting my old main to 85 in Cata, I found I just didn't have the will to carry on raiding any more. I got my alt to 83 and there it sits. Cancelled the account today. I may be back, but there are a lot of interesting games coming out now.
The MMO mechanics are generally boring for end-game since it is repeated content.
However, it has always been the social aspect that makes people logging in time and time again.
Having the large player-base is a definitely an advantage in this regard since there is a greater chance players will find a group they can engage with.
Except Wrath, I found WoW's endgame to be very enjoyable (except broken C'thun. -.-). But that might have to do with the fact my RL also played so that's all we talked about.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
The best "end game" content I ever played was the end of vanilla WoW. Because no one had anything else to do, all we did was roleplay. Our server had an enormous, robust and vital community that was merging stories and playing together and posting on a community site that let us even RP cross-factionally. It was amazing.
And the worst experience was TBC - because not only did the community disperse to go do different things, we couldn't get back together again because of the way the end game "stacked." You had to have keys and move up together - you couldn't just grab a friend who was stepping into a zone for the first time and bring them along if they didn't have their attunements. And by the time you ground your attunements, you never wanted to do that dungeon again anyway, not for friends and not for alts. It wrung all the goodwill that three years of the game had garnered and one day I just logged out in disgust and never logged in again.
In my opinion, not mentioning City of Heroes in this article (and mentioning DCUO, ugh) is a major failing.
City of Heroes has been going strong for six years with a complete lack of "endgame" style endgame. "Gear" drops and can be crafted at any level - very few enhancements require level 50, and those enhancements aren't the absolute best options for most characters anyway. There is one raid in the game, and a bunch of other "instances" (Task/Strike Forces) scattered throughout the leveling process. Sidekicking/exemplaring means you can team up with your friends at any level, so there's no need to play "catch up." And the devs consistently improve/add content at all levels of the game, instead of stacking all the shiny at the level cap.
The only exception to this is the new Incarnate content, which frankly makes me nervous that City of Heroes is finally selling out to the rest of the crappy endgame MMO styles out there.
Sorry, I didn't read it all, most were reiterating former posts, everyone has valid points, and we all agree that gaming can get so boring that we re-roll to add the randomness of a new skill set to get any charge.
But really, the actual thing that seems wrong to me is that the game developers do very little, if anything at all, to engender a sense of "community" that gives a player the incentive to come back for something other than - another level, gaining equipment, that one quest that's a bitch to complete and, endgame.
In subscription games the game makers are content to release only enough content to keep the player paying the sub. In freemium games they are content to release only enough content to keep you grinding hoping that you will finally give in and make purchases over the futility of it all.
People have historically said the ONLY reason they stay so long in a failing or bad game is because of their friends that play.
Yet there is little that the game developers do to allow the players the other side of gaming - being social.
Chat boxes are not enough. How many players pay an extra bit to get decent voice chat in games? Why isn't this a game feature?
Current Guild structure is not enough as it seems to force a rigid system that can end up feeling fascist and prejudicial.
Why do so many games not have dedicated spaces for the individual player to host small gatherings of friends?
Why isn't the entire subject of crafting better integrated into the game economies?
Why aren't private messaging systems in place and bug-free yet?
Player shops? Secure Trading? In-game Currency exchanges?
There is probably more to mention, but this is entirely off the top of my head. ;-D
Regarding content there is one thing I love that not all games have, or, it's restricted and/or made into a coin sink. Treasure finds. I hate the stupid chests and boxes. I just want to explore and find stuff "other folks left behind/lost" randomly. It can be a crap find, a mediocre/somewhat useful item, or real treasure. But, no boxes or chests that require keys to find.
I know that some games have one, maybe two of the above included, but not superbly executed. There is far too much that is done outside of the game which breaks immersion and makes gaming feel like a real world job.
To my mind the reason that game companies don't include features to create a sense of community is because they don't have to. Every year there is a new "crop" of younglings getting their first job willing to pay for a stunted community solely to pound someone's head in.
Maybe I'm just dreaming, but being online since 1994 I had hopes that eventually the games would get better and fully featured for humans, not atm machines ;-D
When looking at WoW, its not really skill-based rather than time based content in terms of End Content.
When you look at Raiding, you can do a raid once a week, this stops people farming them, if the restriction was removed im sure hardcore players could get it within a week.
This is why people get frustrated, why gearscore is important, you have to spend soo much time into raiding just to get a weapon and armorset.
Pugs are generally bad for raids since you spend time checking everyone, loose ppl and have to go back to inviting and checking, hours later your ready, and someone needs to go for lunch...
Then the pug does work well, either the dps is low or people just arent pulling there weight and dying silly, or people just not sure what there doing.
Guilds, well its much better depending if you have a group of people who will sign on to a specific time every week, if your not the best raider in the guild or you have bad gear, they might not include you in guild runs.
Anyway about time, yes, time!
One of the biggest annoyances for me was that a raid could take a whole evening up, and i'd probably end up with nothing to show for it. Whereas I could of done something else thats completely boring like mass produce items or make a new alt (thought 8 lvl 80s was enough for me).
Im all up for wasting time, but in a good way, and the current gear treadmill isnt a good way.
For all those poor souls who killed the lich king 20 times, I got the same greens from the quest when cata came out and i had stop playing for 4 months lol ^^ now for good. I see the error of me ways, (p.s. this probably doesnt make much sense as im in need of a good nap!).
Hmm, couldn't edit, but it cut off my last comment. In response to your last quote, I meant to say:
That's why it's so important to play with others - so you don't burn out on grind. I'm lucky that my fiance is as big a geek as me and loves MMOs - our experiences are defined by us playing together, experiencing content both themepark and sometimes otherwise, and remembering all the silly things that happen.
Vindicta, how would it sound to you if I said "That's why it's so important to play alone - so dealing with others like you have to in raiding doesn't grind you down so fast."
What you said may be true for you, but it isn't fundamentally true, and you are wrong to state it like it is. For me, one of the biggest problems with raiding is that I am forced to play with people I don't want to play with (I'm not going to get in to the "Multiplayer" argument here). It makes it MORE of a grind, for me, not less of one.
I'm not trying to pick on you, just get you to see there are other ways to look at these things, and why it's a good idea to speak in terms of what you like and not project onto others. You are not me, and what each of us want can be quite all right for each of us, and quite different in comparison.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
I still remember the feeling of hitting the wall in World of Wacraft back when the game was just Vanilla. Before the PvP system was even implemented, before there was much of anything to do outside of leveling really. It wasn’t the first game I’d played, but it was the first I remember getting to the cap in and wanting to keep going. I “Ding!”-ed in Guild Chat, got my congrats, and that was that. Almost immediately, I felt the confusion of “what do I do now?”
There's no end game in titles since 2004's WoW release because (and I don't blame you rather, I blame the advertising dept at Mythic) you along with many other people never played or were able to enjoy Dark Age of Camelot. Titles such as Age of Conan, WoW, EQ 2, Rifts, Warhammer, are all based on 2 or zero faction grind fests. Had you played Dark Age, along with many others, than the bar of expectation would be raised to meet her qualities. Why make 3 faction games with 44 race class combinations when you can fool the public and pretend we can only do a handful of both and copy past them to a second faction? Feed the players gear grinding dungeon quests until they are blue in the face (Warcraft). Or, make a graphically updated version of the same (Rifts) and do it again.
God forbid we bring back Dark Age of Camelot. That's like bringing honor classes and words with more than 2 syllables to the masses.
Anyway, the games nowadays have no realm pride, let alone players that spend much time reading the new fake lore of a given title. Everyone is stuck in an A vs A pvp model (same classes/races vs each other) or A vs B model (2 faction pvp).
When, as a player, you get to be a part of the driving force of your culture - and get to hold her honor in the field of battle against other like minded cultures, then - THEN you have something to do end game. Your castles are under siege! Go out and defend your realm or suffer the consequences of your greatest relics being stolen from your people!
May the gods bless the memory of Dark Age of Camelot. May a wealthy buyer come along some day and free her from her bonds: those slavers who are employed to promote Warhammer and likewise refuse.
Okay the problem as I see with many of these games isn't the game but the players. Hey lets rush to cap then bitch about not having anything to do... I have a suggestion step away from the damn game and enjoy some RL activities for a change. Been playing my last MMO for over 3 years, yes its a theme park game, and still love it. I attribute much of this to my willingness to enjoy the quests, because I read them - crazy I know, I take time to enjoy the world in which I am playing and not rushing through it. I may play several days in a row for 3-4 hours but I will also go days without ever logging in.
All of you guys bitching, including the article writer, all create your own misery and I have no sympathy for any of ya.
After getting my old main to 85 in Cata, I found I just didn't have the will to carry on raiding any more. I got my alt to 83 and there it sits. Cancelled the account today. I may be back, but there are a lot of interesting games coming out now.
I did the same exact thing. I had quit WoW during Wrath during that time when they introduced that Argent champion raid due to boredom. Over Christmas break someone gave me a best buy gift card, so I said what the hey, I'll go pick up Cataclysm. I played it for a total of two weeks, getting my main to 85 and an alt to 82. Once I hit 85 on my main....I literally played about two days after that....and haven't gone back since. Listening to my guild talk about how they needed to do some heroic and grind out some reputaion so they could do some raid just gave me a sickly feeling in my stomach. I can't do this anymore!
Well said article that many of us have the same opinion on.
I liked raiding purely for the sake of progressing through content that our guild hasn't done before, gear loot was just a secondary bonus. But now that I don't have the time for it, its either continue progressing(lvling) or quit.
If the raidleader says "Ok boys, this is now on farm status" I give a sigh of regret.
There comes a time in every MMO that I've played recently (luckily Im picking up on it sooner and sooner. Rift's was in beta) where I realize I don't care about end game. And if I don't care about the supposed goal... why am I even playing? I like alts (Alot) but if a game has grindy or boring end game I lose alot of intrest in playing the rest of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way, so having interesting end game and character progression beyond the level cap will bring in and keep alot more players I bet.
Personally the best end game to me is the game going "Good Job! Now make another character with X and Y bonuses!" It's like New game + online. New classes, new or altered races... at LEAST the ability to skip the first 10 or so levels that are designed to introduce new players to the game and would be redundant for you. (although I think the Death Knight starting out so close to max level in WoW is taking it a bit too far)
Finally with regards to the "Make a new main" endgame process, a game with varied and interesting starting areas (Not to mention plenty more quests than necessary to level as you go through the whole game) are, imo, another component of "end game". I hate that in Rift (Sorry, but its the only themepark MMO I've played lately) if I want to make a 2nd Defiant or guardian the story is EXACTLY the same with absolutely no difference. Not even class or race specific quests... or at least not many that I noticed.
Anyway, I've been playing alot of sandboxes recently because of this realization, at least!
-------------------------------- -Been there, done that: Xsyon, WoW, EVE, Maplestory, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, FF11, Rift -Currently playing: Not MMOs -Wants to check out: SWTOR, Dark Millennium
City of Heroes has been going strong for six years with a complete lack of "endgame" style endgame. "Gear" drops and can be crafted at any level - very few enhancements require level 50, and those enhancements aren't the absolute best options for most characters anyway. There is one raid in the game, and a bunch of other "instances" (Task/Strike Forces) scattered throughout the leveling process. Sidekicking/exemplaring means you can team up with your friends at any level, so there's no need to play "catch up." And the devs consistently improve/add content at all levels of the game, instead of stacking all the shiny at the level cap.
The only exception to this is the new Incarnate content, which frankly makes me nervous that City of Heroes is finally selling out to the rest of the crappy endgame MMO styles out there.
Comments
The first few MMO's I played (Lineage 1 and DAOC) had territory control and keep raiding as their primary end game. Sure, there were levels to grind through, and it took some time (over 3 months for my first level 50) but once you got to end game, you fought for control of keeps that gave you control of better PVE resources to help advance your character.
Sure, there was some gear progression, but before TOA it was all about earning enough cash to buy the best crafted gear and it wasn't the be all end carrot on a stick that its become today.
Mythic was really clever in they realized that all RVR all the time wasn't going to be enough, so they added in a 2nd tier of character progression, with their PVP Ranks and corresponding new skills that you could purchase with your accumulated realm points.
This progression was very slow, only the true die hards ever hit the max level (10/10) and when that happened, Mythic boosted the cap even higher. Myself I never stuck with a character much longer than realm rank 5 or 6 because I'd usually go roll an alt by then to see how well they played. But some folks stuck with it and got to the upper ranks and really enjoyed it.
More modern MMORPG's (starting with WOW for me) have been all about gear progression. Like the OP, when I was in Vanilla WOW and saw the path BC was laying out (and that all my hard won purple raiding gear was going to be outdone by level 62 greens) I promptly quit.
After 4 years I came back to cataclysm, quickly leveled a new character on a new server to 85, (unfortunately it turns out) and found myself awash with gold (so no real incentive there to continue), and a couple of gear progression treadmills, either follow one path towards resiliance and PVP gear or the alternate path of PVE heroics and raiding, for you guessed it, more purple gear.
Sigh.....
I just can't do it anymore, and I don't see many games (outside of indie sandboxes) trying to come up with anything new.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There are 2 types of end-games, and they rarely succeed if they cross. First is gear-based raiding PvE endgames to get new weapons/abilities. There are plenty of these kinds of games out there. The other is PvP endgames, where the success rate of games has been mixed at best.
In my opinion, the best PvP focused end-game MMO had to be the original Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC). The end-game of PvP had something for goal-based people in the grind of higher realm points for additional abilities. It had balance because there were 3 realms, almost ensuring that no one realm could dominate a server. It had consequences because holding enemy relics had benefits, and taking the keeps made leveling easier and taking the relics easier.
The primary problem of the DAOC end-game was lack of class balance (3 realms of unique classes to each made it nearly impossible) combined with the developer's desire to add a gigantic gear-grind end-game component (Trials of Atlantis) on top of the existing PvP end-game grind. This led to the mass exodus (combined with WOW) of the game and why today it is down to just 1 server (although very popular free-shards exist to put the game back to where it was prior to these changes).
What I believe many PvP players desire in an end-game is to take what DAOC used to have (3 realm combat for balance plus meaningful consequences for PvP activity for the entire realm) and put on top of that extensive class balance by having roughtly the same classes in each of the three realms. Combined with only a modest gear grind, I believe the game would be very successful in the end-game. Finally, I think players would like a change of scenery (after a while playing in the same setting gets boring), so the developers could rotate out the scenery/zones every few months to keep strategies fresh.
The concern I have on current MMO PvP end-games is that they tend to be 2-faction games (and one side that losses gives up, and the winners are bored and they give up, and servers consolidate, and repeat the process just like Warhammer) or they tend to be free-for-all PvP (Darkfall, Shadowbane) that I believe is a relatively small niche of the market.
Recently developers have been doing 2-faction games with a third NPC faction for balance (AION for example). This doesn't work because fighting NPCs simply doesn't motivate the PvP crowd, even in a PvP zone.
Because a balanced 3-faction meaningful PvP is always unpredictable, the amount of content update required by a developer would be relatively modest because players would make the content exciting. Like I said, the only real content would be probably a change of scenery every so often and only a modest gear-grind.
I must be one of the few people around who enjoys raiding. I agree with the notion of level cap being boring, but this an issue of leveling, not of raiding. You spend your leveling time exploring, uncovering storylines, fighting monsters, and completing quests. Then suddenly, at level cap, what you're doing changes. The real issue is not the addition of pvp, raids, etc. The issue is that loss of the questing. Suddenly, experience points become useless.
It is the fact that our previous activities stop that causes discomfort, not the fact that we add new ones. Imagine if we had little side classes to level up with experience points once we hit level cap for our main xp track. But these would make a much smaller difference than our main levels. Suddenly, we can keep questing, and do raids and pvp and whatever else we want.
What we really need to do is better integrate non-endgame activities with endgame ones. Questing, crafting, exploring... these should not stop at level cap. That, I think, is the real source of endgame blues.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
Why do you hate capitalism so much?
Yes, I was also thinking about how Guild Wars approach this end-game and gear grinding completely differently, and plan to continue this approach for GW2. They've stated categorically that they don't want their games to be "grinds" and that they want players to be able to log and and have fun every time, without having to achieve certain gear to do certain instances to get certain gear to ...
Great topic, Bill. In fact this whole "end-game" thing has been on my mind quite a lot recently and I had toyed with the idea of starting a post entitled "start-game vs end-game". What I've found in recent years as I've wandered around from mmo to mmo is that I really just don't enjoy even the higher levels in a game as much as the beginning. I particularly hate returning to a game after a long break where I have a high level character. I take one look at the contents of my bags, my bank, my inventory (the state of my add-ons if it's WoW) and shudder.
I seem to make a lot of alts these days; there's something about creating a fresh character, experimenting with a class which is not so familiar and starting out on that adventurous journey which is way more satisfying to me than reaching end-game. I do enjoy taking one character right through to end-game in terms of actual exploration and completing quest lines, but once I've done that once, the joy in gaming tends to be start-game. Just seems simpler, cleaner, somehow. Less skills on the hotbars and so on. Hard to explain, but maybe someone else will know what I mean and express it better.
The fact remains you've only played those 10 games to the end. You've wasted a lot of time to reach a point where you can jump for joy for reaching the level cap and being in for a Rude Awakening!
Surprise! We have your money along with your time and energy wasted. Thanks, Come again. Of course rather than learning it in the first two times, it took you only 10 times...Nice!
Now what if you actually did play many games and got experience as a gamer enough to find how fun can be defined without giving way to too much temptation. You would have ended up being happier, of course you wouldn't have many people to say "I maxed out, yay!
which is what MMORPG gaming is about....
Wasting time to reach a certain level you can show off with your ego. Sounds like a Generalization? Go to your typical MMORPG forum and start reading how characters responds to post, acting like they are bigger than God. Most forgetting they don't have a high school degree, let alone any worthy education or decent job along with relationship problems...
easy solution, start thinking about playing and supporting SANDBOX games. And not games like WOW or rift omg .
The first time around in wow i didnt pay attention to the story. The second time, I did. I found it was more interesting.
New contents definitely more fun, but once the only thing you do is Dailies, Weeklies, and Raids...it gets really boring really fast.
And I'm anti-raid system. I only go when I have to, like my guild is missing a ranged DPS. Other than that, I don't even sign-up for it.
Four stinking hours of raid and you get nothing for it most of the time, other a repair bill, that's not just stupidity, it's insanity.
I don't get how people can do this every week.
Ready for GW2!!!
After getting my old main to 85 in Cata, I found I just didn't have the will to carry on raiding any more. I got my alt to 83 and there it sits. Cancelled the account today. I may be back, but there are a lot of interesting games coming out now.
The MMO mechanics are generally boring for end-game since it is repeated content.
However, it has always been the social aspect that makes people logging in time and time again.
Having the large player-base is a definitely an advantage in this regard since there is a greater chance players will find a group they can engage with.
Except Wrath, I found WoW's endgame to be very enjoyable (except broken C'thun. -.-). But that might have to do with the fact my RL also played so that's all we talked about.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
The best "end game" content I ever played was the end of vanilla WoW. Because no one had anything else to do, all we did was roleplay. Our server had an enormous, robust and vital community that was merging stories and playing together and posting on a community site that let us even RP cross-factionally. It was amazing.
And the worst experience was TBC - because not only did the community disperse to go do different things, we couldn't get back together again because of the way the end game "stacked." You had to have keys and move up together - you couldn't just grab a friend who was stepping into a zone for the first time and bring them along if they didn't have their attunements. And by the time you ground your attunements, you never wanted to do that dungeon again anyway, not for friends and not for alts. It wrung all the goodwill that three years of the game had garnered and one day I just logged out in disgust and never logged in again.
In my opinion, not mentioning City of Heroes in this article (and mentioning DCUO, ugh) is a major failing.
City of Heroes has been going strong for six years with a complete lack of "endgame" style endgame. "Gear" drops and can be crafted at any level - very few enhancements require level 50, and those enhancements aren't the absolute best options for most characters anyway. There is one raid in the game, and a bunch of other "instances" (Task/Strike Forces) scattered throughout the leveling process. Sidekicking/exemplaring means you can team up with your friends at any level, so there's no need to play "catch up." And the devs consistently improve/add content at all levels of the game, instead of stacking all the shiny at the level cap.
The only exception to this is the new Incarnate content, which frankly makes me nervous that City of Heroes is finally selling out to the rest of the crappy endgame MMO styles out there.
Sorry, I didn't read it all, most were reiterating former posts, everyone has valid points, and we all agree that gaming can get so boring that we re-roll to add the randomness of a new skill set to get any charge.
But really, the actual thing that seems wrong to me is that the game developers do very little, if anything at all, to engender a sense of "community" that gives a player the incentive to come back for something other than - another level, gaining equipment, that one quest that's a bitch to complete and, endgame.
In subscription games the game makers are content to release only enough content to keep the player paying the sub. In freemium games they are content to release only enough content to keep you grinding hoping that you will finally give in and make purchases over the futility of it all.
People have historically said the ONLY reason they stay so long in a failing or bad game is because of their friends that play.
Yet there is little that the game developers do to allow the players the other side of gaming - being social.
Chat boxes are not enough. How many players pay an extra bit to get decent voice chat in games? Why isn't this a game feature?
Current Guild structure is not enough as it seems to force a rigid system that can end up feeling fascist and prejudicial.
Why do so many games not have dedicated spaces for the individual player to host small gatherings of friends?
Why isn't the entire subject of crafting better integrated into the game economies?
Why aren't private messaging systems in place and bug-free yet?
Player shops? Secure Trading? In-game Currency exchanges?
There is probably more to mention, but this is entirely off the top of my head. ;-D
Regarding content there is one thing I love that not all games have, or, it's restricted and/or made into a coin sink. Treasure finds. I hate the stupid chests and boxes. I just want to explore and find stuff "other folks left behind/lost" randomly. It can be a crap find, a mediocre/somewhat useful item, or real treasure. But, no boxes or chests that require keys to find.
I know that some games have one, maybe two of the above included, but not superbly executed.
There is far too much that is done outside of the game which breaks immersion and makes gaming feel like a real world job.
To my mind the reason that game companies don't include features to create a sense of community is because they don't have to. Every year there is a new "crop" of younglings getting their first job willing to pay for a stunted community solely to pound someone's head in.
Maybe I'm just dreaming, but being online since 1994 I had hopes that eventually the games would get better and fully featured for humans, not atm machines ;-D
Safra
When looking at WoW, its not really skill-based rather than time based content in terms of End Content.
When you look at Raiding, you can do a raid once a week, this stops people farming them, if the restriction was removed im sure hardcore players could get it within a week.
This is why people get frustrated, why gearscore is important, you have to spend soo much time into raiding just to get a weapon and armorset.
Pugs are generally bad for raids since you spend time checking everyone, loose ppl and have to go back to inviting and checking, hours later your ready, and someone needs to go for lunch...
Then the pug does work well, either the dps is low or people just arent pulling there weight and dying silly, or people just not sure what there doing.
Guilds, well its much better depending if you have a group of people who will sign on to a specific time every week, if your not the best raider in the guild or you have bad gear, they might not include you in guild runs.
Anyway about time, yes, time!
One of the biggest annoyances for me was that a raid could take a whole evening up, and i'd probably end up with nothing to show for it. Whereas I could of done something else thats completely boring like mass produce items or make a new alt (thought 8 lvl 80s was enough for me).
Im all up for wasting time, but in a good way, and the current gear treadmill isnt a good way.
For all those poor souls who killed the lich king 20 times, I got the same greens from the quest when cata came out and i had stop playing for 4 months lol ^^ now for good. I see the error of me ways, (p.s. this probably doesnt make much sense as im in need of a good nap!).
Vindicta, how would it sound to you if I said "That's why it's so important to play alone - so dealing with others like you have to in raiding doesn't grind you down so fast."
What you said may be true for you, but it isn't fundamentally true, and you are wrong to state it like it is. For me, one of the biggest problems with raiding is that I am forced to play with people I don't want to play with (I'm not going to get in to the "Multiplayer" argument here). It makes it MORE of a grind, for me, not less of one.
I'm not trying to pick on you, just get you to see there are other ways to look at these things, and why it's a good idea to speak in terms of what you like and not project onto others. You are not me, and what each of us want can be quite all right for each of us, and quite different in comparison.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
I still remember the feeling of hitting the wall in World of Wacraft back when the game was just Vanilla. Before the PvP system was even implemented, before there was much of anything to do outside of leveling really. It wasn’t the first game I’d played, but it was the first I remember getting to the cap in and wanting to keep going. I “Ding!”-ed in Guild Chat, got my congrats, and that was that. Almost immediately, I felt the confusion of “what do I do now?”
There's no end game in titles since 2004's WoW release because (and I don't blame you rather, I blame the advertising dept at Mythic) you along with many other people never played or were able to enjoy Dark Age of Camelot. Titles such as Age of Conan, WoW, EQ 2, Rifts, Warhammer, are all based on 2 or zero faction grind fests. Had you played Dark Age, along with many others, than the bar of expectation would be raised to meet her qualities. Why make 3 faction games with 44 race class combinations when you can fool the public and pretend we can only do a handful of both and copy past them to a second faction? Feed the players gear grinding dungeon quests until they are blue in the face (Warcraft). Or, make a graphically updated version of the same (Rifts) and do it again.
God forbid we bring back Dark Age of Camelot. That's like bringing honor classes and words with more than 2 syllables to the masses.
Anyway, the games nowadays have no realm pride, let alone players that spend much time reading the new fake lore of a given title. Everyone is stuck in an A vs A pvp model (same classes/races vs each other) or A vs B model (2 faction pvp).
When, as a player, you get to be a part of the driving force of your culture - and get to hold her honor in the field of battle against other like minded cultures, then - THEN you have something to do end game. Your castles are under siege! Go out and defend your realm or suffer the consequences of your greatest relics being stolen from your people!
May the gods bless the memory of Dark Age of Camelot. May a wealthy buyer come along some day and free her from her bonds: those slavers who are employed to promote Warhammer and likewise refuse.
/my 2 cents.
Great article. I completely despise the gear grind and games which emphasize it.
Okay the problem as I see with many of these games isn't the game but the players. Hey lets rush to cap then bitch about not having anything to do... I have a suggestion step away from the damn game and enjoy some RL activities for a change. Been playing my last MMO for over 3 years, yes its a theme park game, and still love it. I attribute much of this to my willingness to enjoy the quests, because I read them - crazy I know, I take time to enjoy the world in which I am playing and not rushing through it. I may play several days in a row for 3-4 hours but I will also go days without ever logging in.
All of you guys bitching, including the article writer, all create your own misery and I have no sympathy for any of ya.
I did the same exact thing. I had quit WoW during Wrath during that time when they introduced that Argent champion raid due to boredom. Over Christmas break someone gave me a best buy gift card, so I said what the hey, I'll go pick up Cataclysm. I played it for a total of two weeks, getting my main to 85 and an alt to 82. Once I hit 85 on my main....I literally played about two days after that....and haven't gone back since. Listening to my guild talk about how they needed to do some heroic and grind out some reputaion so they could do some raid just gave me a sickly feeling in my stomach. I can't do this anymore!
Well said article that many of us have the same opinion on.
I liked raiding purely for the sake of progressing through content that our guild hasn't done before, gear loot was just a secondary bonus. But now that I don't have the time for it, its either continue progressing(lvling) or quit.
If the raidleader says "Ok boys, this is now on farm status" I give a sigh of regret.
There comes a time in every MMO that I've played recently (luckily Im picking up on it sooner and sooner. Rift's was in beta) where I realize I don't care about end game. And if I don't care about the supposed goal... why am I even playing? I like alts (Alot) but if a game has grindy or boring end game I lose alot of intrest in playing the rest of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way, so having interesting end game and character progression beyond the level cap will bring in and keep alot more players I bet.
Personally the best end game to me is the game going "Good Job! Now make another character with X and Y bonuses!" It's like New game + online. New classes, new or altered races... at LEAST the ability to skip the first 10 or so levels that are designed to introduce new players to the game and would be redundant for you. (although I think the Death Knight starting out so close to max level in WoW is taking it a bit too far)
Finally with regards to the "Make a new main" endgame process, a game with varied and interesting starting areas (Not to mention plenty more quests than necessary to level as you go through the whole game) are, imo, another component of "end game". I hate that in Rift (Sorry, but its the only themepark MMO I've played lately) if I want to make a 2nd Defiant or guardian the story is EXACTLY the same with absolutely no difference. Not even class or race specific quests... or at least not many that I noticed.
Anyway, I've been playing alot of sandboxes recently because of this realization, at least!
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-Been there, done that: Xsyon, WoW, EVE, Maplestory, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, FF11, Rift
-Currently playing: Not MMOs
-Wants to check out: SWTOR, Dark Millennium
Never could understand the concept of an end game in an MMO...
MMO = Continuous/Persistent, seamless world. Go figure.
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
You aren't the only one worried.