Games are of less substance, but have a lot more eye candy. Games nowadays are very linear. Look at Assassin's Creed. Heck, look at Dragon Age 1 and 2. You have to pick out of a few choices where you want to go and how to progress your character. Compare that to Oblivion or Morrowind. Heck, compare that to Fallout 1 or 2. Or even the old Forgotten Realms gold box games where you could go anywhere, anytime. Or Bard's Tale 1-3. Or the early Might and Magics. Final Fantasy 1-3(US). Remember all those amazing RPGs on Sega, Nintendo and the SNES? Sure those old games lack the amazing eye candy, but their substance and replayability can't be matched by a lot of "blockbusters" today. All those games are from the 80s and early 90s. One would be hard-pressed to pick any games of that caliber from 2000 on up. Morrowind, Oblivion, NWN, and Dragon Age.
I stopped buying new games a long time ago. They are not worth the 50-60 dollar price tag. I did buy Dragon Age 2 brand new, and regretted it. It was far inferior to the first one. I usually wait until they are on sale at one of the popular websites.
For whatever reason we are not seeing too many games even make it to market, let alone actually being good.
With you 200% on this
The games are getting seriously boring , No challenge and easy win.
I have spent the last 3 weeks revisting Old RPG GAmes; and am having a fantastic time with a few roguelike variants:
ADON and Dwarven Fortress.
Sadly the market has enough of a mass low intelligence player base that they will continue to focus on Graphics and whack a mole , rather than in depth gameplay systems and advancement via methods other than killing MOBs.I hope that sometime soon a few games come up with something special and i see one or two that will ..... Watch this space.
As per your post above I have a adventure compendium with 19 games in it includes all the ULtimas / Bards Tales all the SSI Gold box sets. Theres a Site calld http://www.old-games.com/games where you can download a lot of the classics for free, if you ever need to remember ....
The other option is that their are half a dozen fantastic MUDs if you don't care about graphics.
THe only upcoming game I would say may have a chance is : Citadel of Sorcery, the AI and approach to Skill/Ability based advancement is something dreams are made of with a world the size of the real world as well.....
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Games are of less substance, but have a lot more eye candy. Games nowadays are very linear. Look at Assassin's Creed. Heck, look at Dragon Age 1 and 2. You have to pick out of a few choices where you want to go and how to progress your character. Compare that to Oblivion or Morrowind. Heck, compare that to Fallout 1 or 2. Or even the old Forgotten Realms gold box games where you could go anywhere, anytime. Or Bard's Tale 1-3. Or the early Might and Magics. Final Fantasy 1-3(US). Remember all those amazing RPGs on Sega, Nintendo and the SNES? Sure those old games lack the amazing eye candy, but their substance and replayability can't be matched by a lot of "blockbusters" today. All those games are from the 80s and early 90s. One would be hard-pressed to pick any games of that caliber from 2000 on up. Morrowind, Oblivion, NWN, and Dragon Age.
I stopped buying new games a long time ago. They are not worth the 50-60 dollar price tag. I did buy Dragon Age 2 brand new, and regretted it. It was far inferior to the first one. I usually wait until they are on sale at one of the popular websites.
For whatever reason we are not seeing too many games even make it to market, let alone actually being good.
LOL! I do the same as far as buying games. I'll see something that looks remotely interesting...then wait months down the road when it goes on sale to get it. It's much like Hollywood with the game industry if you think about it.
I remember growing up as a kid in the 80's going to the movies was the thing to do....well, one of the things to do anyways. At least 7 of 10 movies that came out were worth the money to go see. Now? Maybe 3 of 10 (And even that is pushing it) are worth the loan you have to take out at the bank for a ticket, drink, popcorn, and candy (BTW, they should include a barf bag for the nausea you endure when you eat all that and then see the garbage you paid to see). It's mostly eye candy with a crap story anymore. Or the slaughtered rehash of a classic anyways.
Same for games. They use to not be as visually stunning, but they made up for it in game mechanics, story, and replayability. Now? Eye candy and crap linear play is the norm it seems. Not to mention easy enough for any foam helmet wearign drool bib recipient to play and beat. When my friend bought XBox360 games...he'd have me play them to earn him the points (Don't ask me why he didn't play himself....IDK). I'd beat every game in less than a week..without really even trying. $50-$60 for that?!? /yawn
I've this same problem as of late. I just starting playing Deus Ex HR and just can't believe how easy/boring it is. The game actually automatically kills enemies in melee for you, all you need to do is walk up to them and hit one button...pathetic. So basically all I am doing is walking down a linear path untl I get to the next cutscene. Sadly, this is what all games are coming to; games wtihout any challenge or originality but pretty graphics so they will sell on consoles.
I was reading an article about Duke Nukem Forever about how FPS games' map designs have gotten so ridiculously linear. One side of this diagram they showed what games used to have for maps, then on the right was the "modern" way of doing things. The left side had a very intricately designed area with a complex layout, and the right side? It was a single path with stops along the way for cutscenes. I think that pretty much sums up the problems with modern gaming.
There's also the fact that we've had the exact same "genres" of games forever. I recently played Starcraft 2 and couldn't understand why I was so quickly bored with it. Then I thought, this exact same game design has been around forever. I first played an RTS game, Dune 2, on my SEGA GENESIS *18* YEARS AGO! Other than the graphics/sound improving, the gameplay is identical to that game from so long ago. The corporations that run things now won't allow anything to be developed that someone else hasn't already done and made money off of.
So, I don't think us gamers are at fault. A lot of the blame has to go to the current generation of gaming consoles dumbing/easying everything down for the masses and a lot has to go to pure corporate greed. Take Bioware for example. If Baldur's Gate 2 were released today, I'm sure at least 30-40% of the game would've been cut from the retail release and sold later as DLC. This at a time when the US is still in a recession but our corporations are all posting record profits.
I can really only speak for myself. Boring and unchallenging content is keeping me away frome them. And I am 60! And a grandma! If that doesn't give the developers a hint, I just do not know what would. I have been a avid player since EQ.
I see nothing in the near future that looks promising. I am going to look into Copernicus, when they start talking about it. Other wise I may play GW2, but not even sure about that one.
To the OP, yes, most MMOs are terrible. It's like every title tries to be an action-comedy, but they all wind up being remakes of remakes of remakes of classics. That's why I don't bother paying or even playing. *goes back to minecraft*
I just answered another thread, and I never really thought of it so much, but most games now seem to have easy mode crafting that is mostly trivial, and not much of a harvesting system for the most part.
I tend to get bored with a game if the crafting/harvesting is not worthwhile. I like player economies, I like to do all aspects of a game. I play a lot when I like something, and I like to have multiple things to do, to keep me busy.
Last game I really like was Vanguard.
It had a good harvesting system (common/rare/ultra rare raws)
It had a good crafting system, although some would say too hard...I liked it.
It had Diplomacy side game that had some benefits and was enjoyable (I didn't play a ton, but it was nice to do here and there)
It had very good PvE and nice classes.
The PvP was also on par with most games, until it was broken later, and withered away.
IT did have quest hubs, but it also a huge world, with places to adventure/explore and unique mobs/items to those areas, with rare spawns in all these places for the most part. Time was put into the world.
If Vanguard wasn't cursed by its launch, and was a newly launched game, I think it would be successful ( not multi-million success, but a money maker with new content being added). I had a brand new cpu, so I wasn't as hit with the poor performance when it came out, so it wasn't a game killer for me, that it was for many. If they do the refocus on VG properly, I will probably come back to the game, and I would love to see some PvP fixes to what was broken, and a server restarted for PvP again.
Comments
With you 200% on this
The games are getting seriously boring , No challenge and easy win.
I have spent the last 3 weeks revisting Old RPG GAmes; and am having a fantastic time with a few roguelike variants:
ADON and Dwarven Fortress.
Sadly the market has enough of a mass low intelligence player base that they will continue to focus on Graphics and whack a mole , rather than in depth gameplay systems and advancement via methods other than killing MOBs.I hope that sometime soon a few games come up with something special and i see one or two that will ..... Watch this space.
As per your post above I have a adventure compendium with 19 games in it includes all the ULtimas / Bards Tales all the SSI Gold box sets. Theres a Site calld http://www.old-games.com/games where you can download a lot of the classics for free, if you ever need to remember ....
The other option is that their are half a dozen fantastic MUDs if you don't care about graphics.
THe only upcoming game I would say may have a chance is : Citadel of Sorcery, the AI and approach to Skill/Ability based advancement is something dreams are made of with a world the size of the real world as well.....
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
LOL! I do the same as far as buying games. I'll see something that looks remotely interesting...then wait months down the road when it goes on sale to get it. It's much like Hollywood with the game industry if you think about it.
I remember growing up as a kid in the 80's going to the movies was the thing to do....well, one of the things to do anyways. At least 7 of 10 movies that came out were worth the money to go see. Now? Maybe 3 of 10 (And even that is pushing it) are worth the loan you have to take out at the bank for a ticket, drink, popcorn, and candy (BTW, they should include a barf bag for the nausea you endure when you eat all that and then see the garbage you paid to see). It's mostly eye candy with a crap story anymore. Or the slaughtered rehash of a classic anyways.
Same for games. They use to not be as visually stunning, but they made up for it in game mechanics, story, and replayability. Now? Eye candy and crap linear play is the norm it seems. Not to mention easy enough for any foam helmet wearign drool bib recipient to play and beat. When my friend bought XBox360 games...he'd have me play them to earn him the points (Don't ask me why he didn't play himself....IDK). I'd beat every game in less than a week..without really even trying. $50-$60 for that?!? /yawn
I've this same problem as of late. I just starting playing Deus Ex HR and just can't believe how easy/boring it is. The game actually automatically kills enemies in melee for you, all you need to do is walk up to them and hit one button...pathetic. So basically all I am doing is walking down a linear path untl I get to the next cutscene. Sadly, this is what all games are coming to; games wtihout any challenge or originality but pretty graphics so they will sell on consoles.
I was reading an article about Duke Nukem Forever about how FPS games' map designs have gotten so ridiculously linear. One side of this diagram they showed what games used to have for maps, then on the right was the "modern" way of doing things. The left side had a very intricately designed area with a complex layout, and the right side? It was a single path with stops along the way for cutscenes. I think that pretty much sums up the problems with modern gaming.
There's also the fact that we've had the exact same "genres" of games forever. I recently played Starcraft 2 and couldn't understand why I was so quickly bored with it. Then I thought, this exact same game design has been around forever. I first played an RTS game, Dune 2, on my SEGA GENESIS *18* YEARS AGO! Other than the graphics/sound improving, the gameplay is identical to that game from so long ago. The corporations that run things now won't allow anything to be developed that someone else hasn't already done and made money off of.
So, I don't think us gamers are at fault. A lot of the blame has to go to the current generation of gaming consoles dumbing/easying everything down for the masses and a lot has to go to pure corporate greed. Take Bioware for example. If Baldur's Gate 2 were released today, I'm sure at least 30-40% of the game would've been cut from the retail release and sold later as DLC. This at a time when the US is still in a recession but our corporations are all posting record profits.
I can really only speak for myself. Boring and unchallenging content is keeping me away frome them. And I am 60! And a grandma! If that doesn't give the developers a hint, I just do not know what would. I have been a avid player since EQ.
I see nothing in the near future that looks promising. I am going to look into Copernicus, when they start talking about it. Other wise I may play GW2, but not even sure about that one.
http://s36.photobucket.com/user/mhoward48/media/OnwYv97.jpg.html
To the OP, yes, most MMOs are terrible. It's like every title tries to be an action-comedy, but they all wind up being remakes of remakes of remakes of classics. That's why I don't bother paying or even playing. *goes back to minecraft*
A bit of both...
FEEL THE FULL
FREE-TO-FLAME
FANTASY.
I just answered another thread, and I never really thought of it so much, but most games now seem to have easy mode crafting that is mostly trivial, and not much of a harvesting system for the most part.
I tend to get bored with a game if the crafting/harvesting is not worthwhile. I like player economies, I like to do all aspects of a game. I play a lot when I like something, and I like to have multiple things to do, to keep me busy.
Last game I really like was Vanguard.
It had a good harvesting system (common/rare/ultra rare raws)
It had a good crafting system, although some would say too hard...I liked it.
It had Diplomacy side game that had some benefits and was enjoyable (I didn't play a ton, but it was nice to do here and there)
It had very good PvE and nice classes.
The PvP was also on par with most games, until it was broken later, and withered away.
IT did have quest hubs, but it also a huge world, with places to adventure/explore and unique mobs/items to those areas, with rare spawns in all these places for the most part. Time was put into the world.
If Vanguard wasn't cursed by its launch, and was a newly launched game, I think it would be successful ( not multi-million success, but a money maker with new content being added). I had a brand new cpu, so I wasn't as hit with the poor performance when it came out, so it wasn't a game killer for me, that it was for many. If they do the refocus on VG properly, I will probably come back to the game, and I would love to see some PvP fixes to what was broken, and a server restarted for PvP again.
Favorite games: UO, EQ, DAoC, SWG, Vanguard