Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The games available to play aren't bad as a whole but it's the average gamer that ruins the game
Twenty five years of mmos has taught me to make my own fun in most games as the gamers have changed drastically over the years. At one time I was a joiner of groups, a lover of getting to know the people behind the avatar and sure there were bad eggs that weren't much fun to be around but most were in it to have an adventure and enjoy the comraderie of others. You earned your spot in a lot of players where everyone mutually supported others.
Now gaming is about how fast you can reach the cap, how strong your character is vs others, collecting the rare equipment, mounts, pets, ect and not about finding that spot where you fit in with others. It's become a game of jumping through hoops set by the game company as fast as possible and if any of the usual features aren't there and the game mechanics aren't nearly flawless it's time to move on to the next game.
If enough stick with a game then the masses flood in to race up the ladder of levels to begin the end-game competition once again. Perfectly good games get cast asside with their only major flaw being that not enough stuck with it long enough for it to build a followship of players. I should of seen it coming when years ago my son (now long grown and gone) declared he had beaten the latest offering in record time while using the latest cheats but that was of no consequence. The game was done. That single-player attitude moved on into mmo's and the developers weren't blind to an opportunity. That has led us to where we are. Such as it is.
Comments
Please define the parameters of "average gamer".
Because I'm almost certainly imagining a fellow very different from the one you're imagining.
"Twenty five years of mmos"
:Cough: Count forward from 1996.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I couldn't agree more
x2
Though I have found that now more than ever it is of utmost importance to be in a guild that shares your view and opinions of what you want out of the game.
Gone are the days when this niche market provided a world full of like-minded people to join up with and form tight knit communities. But you can still find a similar level of comraderie (on a smaller scale) if you look hard enough.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Do you blame the gamer,s or do you blame the developers who changed the design of their MMO's to encompass a larger, yet less "dedicated" sort of customer?
Is there really any blame to assign at all? MMO's are really about making money, and it makes sense that their design follows the path most likely to draw in a large number of customers.
"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
No its not the gamer, while I do agree that the avarage gamer is virus infected by the must reach cap as fast as we can mentality.
But its the games that done that to them, the games have become endgame heavy games, were the start/mid section of the game is nothing more then repeating the same gameplay whitt he perpose to slow you down so you pay a extra month more sub prize.
Do note however that in every game ever made the cap was always the goal, how you got to the cap was a diferent story, even in UO everyone tried to grandmaster thier skills as fast as possible but the worlds were new the game gerne was new and we all loved exploring not minding the rather boring grind mechanincs that were not so boring back then due to it being shiny and new.
its all relative to the age you live in and these days its just a known fact that end game is were people play togetter ,were the most challance in pvp is and were the rewards are the only meaning full ones (as anyting lower then the "epic"gear is just a place holder for your.."epic"gear)
ps: I would like to know what MMO you bin playing past 25 years.. meridian 59 is considered the first mmo while UO is considered the mother of all mmo's in thier current format. (meridian was more of a mud/starting mmo hybrith)
Meridian came out in 1995 its 2011 so thats 16 years, your a decade off
personaly I started out in UO that came a few years later. (did play meridian but after UO just to check it out)
He's including the MUD era.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Cough: I had friends playing MUDs in 1992 on University networks and they were not brand new then
uch then i bin playing euhh.. 33-8= 25 years whoohoo ! im a silver player! or is it bronze..meh supose that rating aint counting as I divorced from many games :P
If so, then he knows speed-racers existed throughout the MUD era too.
Granted, they couldn't get there as quickly when time-to-cap was measured in years, not hours--but they certainly tried.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I think we might be coloring the entire community of gamers with the dirty, but obvious brush of douche gamers. I actually think most gamers are just quiet people who enjoy what they enjoy and move on silently if it doesn't fit their style. The gamers you describe as average, in my opinion, are just like a pimple... small, but more obvious than the smooth skin they infest.
If a game doesn't have player retention, it's probably not because everyone now suffers some personality disorder that requires them to rush it and leave it.
You bring up a great concept, though, of making the game fun for yourself. If you can accomplish that, you'll have fun no matter what you play. But I also think it's the developers responsibility to provide my entertainment. That's why I bought the game, right? It's a service I'm paying for. I wouldn't go into a restuarant and be very pleased if I was required to cook my own food and serve myself (unless I'm at like a buffet or something, but you get it).
Lets see. Average gamers - at fault. Devs - at fault. Both - at fault. Doesn't leave many of you elite players I guess. You can always post on forums.
Devs listened to the whiners on the forums and made the changes, thats why we have special olympic MMOs now days.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
It's more like people are less inclined to stick around and play a mediocre game for years.
For the most part, it's the developers. They began to employ operant conditioning in their games and the players followed because it is simple psychology.
Also, gaming is a business. They do what they can to meet their bottom line. It's just like the movie business. They meet the demands of their viewers and hope to sell tickets. Most films are very similar nowadays and most are fluff pieces. The artistic ones never sell as much and the one that make a real point or actually should impact the community, don't make it. It's the same with games, music, etc.
Maybe instead of gamers and devs, we should blame the introduction of money to society.
The inability to lighten up doesn't make you hardcore.
Op, when I first read the title of your thread I automatically assumed you were talking about the lack of civility players show one another in modern games rather than the evolution of current design theories…Take it for what you will, but I sure wish 57 Chevy’s and Chevelles (1970 SS396) still dominated the roads but things changed for a reason. In just a few years, the games of today will be outdated dinosaurs replaced by something else too. Everything changes.
The biggest change from then to now is there are more games now. When dump it and move on wasn't an option, of course players would stick around. Today games are like trophies on your belt... "I'm cool 'cause I played 37 games this year and they all sucked." How many times do we hear that? It's like MMO ADD. People don't give the games a real chance.