Over half the games listed on the left aren't MMOs. Many of them aren't running anymore. Many more of them are from years ago. As of right now, all the AAA MMORPGs coming out are ONE type of game, the WoW clone. And its been that way for 8 years now. And saying they are the biggest is just laughably wrong. If they were the biggest, they wouldn't be merging servers all over the place in just about all of them.
So why am I not happy? Because the last AAA hardcore MMORPG was made in 2007.
Vanguard?
Yup, and SoE botched it.
Yes, they do. From what i heard, Vanguard is an big empty world with little to see and do. I don't want to run around in an empty world. If i want that, i will go to the closest national park.
I know you love following me from thread to thread and trying to derail the topic, but stick to things you know about, like LoL.
Vanguard has more content in it than the majority of MMORPGs on the market.
I think that main problem is with that the Developers are way to affraid to try anything different than standard Theme-park gameplay.
<snip>
If any developer ever came to these forums...I wouldn't be surprised if they were afraid to make a MMO at all...period.
Every game, every feature, every minute detail is attacked and overanalyzed to death to the point that there is literally no light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. Any glimmer of hope is quicky attacked and destoyed. A developer or an investor would have no choice but to think "why bother", we'd be better off investing in facebook games with less risk ...
1. Why dont more people still play UO? Surely its not just the quality of the pixels?
2. Has a more mature form of mass entertainment (the movies) become a paragon of diversity and cerebral excellence, or has it veered towards the lowest (and most profitable) common denominator? Why would a similar form of entertainment mature differently?
I loved UO, I'm enjoying TSW, Darkfall felt immersive, the opportunity to widen my view of Tolkien's world was entertaining, the politics of Lineage2 was engaging. WOW was like a half decent comedy, everyone enjoyed it for what it was.
Will someone get it all right and build something that pleases all of the people all of the time, I doubt it.
I will however appreciate the gems that do pop out when I find them and I'll be thankful that I have food, shelter, electricity, a job, a family and the time to look for entertainment when other needs are fulfilled.
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76) Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
You are quite right that quality often gets replaced by a cheap cash in. Lower quality, replacing higher production values is universal in media, art, business, politics, you name it.
But that does not mean we have to like it. Or pretend the genre can still be called MMORPG.
As for the guy who said we should play some games more to our liking, I did that years ago, but false hope and friends who play on no matter how bad MMO’s get bring us back into the fold. At least for a while, then we realise once more what a easy mode slush they have become.
Over half the games listed on the left aren't MMOs. Many of them aren't running anymore. Many more of them are from years ago. As of right now, all the AAA MMORPGs coming out are ONE type of game, the WoW clone. And its been that way for 8 years now. And saying they are the biggest is just laughably wrong. If they were the biggest, they wouldn't be merging servers all over the place in just about all of them.
So why am I not happy? Because the last AAA hardcore MMORPG was made in 2007.
Vanguard?
Yup, and SoE botched it.
Yes, they do. From what i heard, Vanguard is an big empty world with little to see and do. I don't want to run around in an empty world. If i want that, i will go to the closest national park.
I know you love following me from thread to thread and trying to derail the topic, but stick to things you know about, like LoL.
Vanguard has more content in it than the majority of MMORPGs on the market.
And i thought you were following me around.
Vanguard has content? ... just no one to play with, i guess.
You are quite right that quality often gets replaced by a cheap cash in. Lower quality, replacing higher production values is universal in media, art, business, politics, you name it.
But that does not mean we have to like it. Or pretend the genre can still be called MMORPG.
As for the guy who said we should play some games more to our liking, I did that years ago, but false hope and friends who play on no matter how bad MMO’s get bring us back into the fold. At least for a while, then we realise once more what a easy mode slush they have become.
Genre changes all the time. Are you going to call WOW something else now? I highly doubt you can get another name to stick.
"easy mode"? Have you played hard mode raids or hard core inferno Diablo 3? When only less than 2% of the players have run Sunwell, i would not call that easy mode.
Not pointing the finger here at Diablo, not played it, but not sure it is a MMO. As to a new name for what the genre has become I use EZMMO.
It is not easy to say an old MMO is of one type or another. They all started as MMO's in those days, but WoW bacame the template the modern ezMMO is based on. It has features like a cash shop, which is a good pointer to it having changed into a ezMMO, but as I don't play it, I can't really say.
I have been on Lotro since launch, it is moving in the ezMMO direction but I am not sure a older MMO can ever catch up with recent MMO's which are made ever more solo, ever simpler. We may find that there will always be a gap based purely on MMO age.
Not pointing the finger here at Diablo, not played it, but not sure it is a MMO. As to a new name for what the genre has become I use EZMMO.
It is not easy to say an old MMO is of one type or another. They all started as MMO's in those days, but WoW bacame the template the modern ezMMO is based on. It has features like a cash shop, which is a good pointer to it having changed into a ezMMO, but as I don't play it, I can't really say.
I have been on Lotro since launch, it is moving in the ezMMO direction but I am not sure a older MMO can ever catch up with recent MMO's which are made ever more solo, ever simpler. We may find that there will always be a gap based purely on MMO age.
LotRO was an EZMMO from the start. Barely an MMO, almost entirely focused on the singelplayer. They got rid of almost all their interested features and replaced them with ones from WoW.
Not pointing the finger here at Diablo, not played it, but not sure it is a MMO. As to a new name for what the genre has become I use EZMMO.
It is not easy to say an old MMO is of one type or another. They all started as MMO's in those days, but WoW bacame the template the modern ezMMO is based on. It has features like a cash shop, which is a good pointer to it having changed into a ezMMO, but as I don't play it, I can't really say.
I have been on Lotro since launch, it is moving in the ezMMO direction but I am not sure a older MMO can ever catch up with recent MMO's which are made ever more solo, ever simpler. We may find that there will always be a gap based purely on MMO age.
Diablo 3 is NOT a mmo. However, the play style is close enough for me ... essentially you hang out in a chat channel (or city in MMO) and then form a small group to go to a dungeon adventure.
Modern MMOs don't always have cash shops. My definition is that it has good scripted instanced content and you can form a group easy and drop into a dungeon (or a pvp arena) right away.
This genre isn't dead but it is hurting, and trolling, and not supporting games cuz they're not the second coming is what's causing it. Do you think anyone will invest in making these games, and pushing the genre forward if everytime someone tries its met with so much negativity and torn to pieces by trolls? It's gotten so bad that rotten tomatoes had to shut down anonymous reviews, and are now going to heavily moderate peoples reviews of movies by requiring that they be constructive, otherwise wont be approved. This is something that unfortunately needs to take place nowadays on the internet. People ruin potential success by doing what they can to bring each title down in flames because they're miserable themselves. If you want this genre to move forward, than support it. Rome wasnt built in a day, the perfect game isn't going to come out any time soon and never has with any genre. Don't be so unreasonable and maybe more companies will invest in MMO's.
This genre isn't dead but it is hurting, and trolling, and not supporting games cuz they're not the second coming is what's causing it. Do you think anyone will invest in making these games, and pushing the genre forward if everytime someone tries its met with so much negativity and torn to pieces by trolls? I
It hasn't been tried in about 5 years now, so I don't know, you tell me.
Haha right, sounds like you never played Vanguard.
Wouldn't say that if I didn't, but I did. Even the version which was deemed "this how it should've been at release". So no, you can't pull that card on me. Gave it 3 weeks. I want my money back.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
If you refer to the original genre of virtual world RPG's.. Yes, I think that genre is crippled and dying.. We are being forced out by the Esport console gamers demanding that MMO's play to their style of instance gaming of tier grinding... Oh well,, what are we to do.. The original genre is much smaller then this esporters.. But who knows.. it will be funny when and if the day comes these devs can find a way of atracting the "facebook" gamers .. Then the esporters can be pushed the back burner asking why the 50 million strong facebookers are taking over the mmorpg game world.. LOL
If you refer to the original genre of virtual world RPG's.. Yes, I think that genre is crippled and dying.. We are being forced out by the Esport console gamers demanding that MMO's play to their style of instance gaming of tier grinding... Oh well,, what are we to do.. The original genre is much smaller then this esporters.. But who knows.. it will be funny when and if the day comes these devs can find a way of atracting the "facebook" gamers .. Then the esporters can be pushed the back burner asking why the 50 million strong facebookers are taking over the mmorpg game world.. LOL
I wouldn't worry too much about facebook. Social networking sites are transitory and their customers are easily moved to the next big thing.
I'm also looking forward to making more money shorting their stock.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
This genre isn't dead but it is hurting, and trolling, and not supporting games cuz they're not the second coming is what's causing it. Do you think anyone will invest in making these games, and pushing the genre forward if everytime someone tries its met with so much negativity and torn to pieces by trolls? It's gotten so bad that rotten tomatoes had to shut down anonymous reviews, and are now going to heavily moderate peoples reviews of movies by requiring that they be constructive, otherwise wont be approved. This is something that unfortunately needs to take place nowadays on the internet. People ruin potential success by doing what they can to bring each title down in flames because they're miserable themselves. If you want this genre to move forward, than support it. Rome wasnt built in a day, the perfect game isn't going to come out any time soon and never has with any genre. Don't be so unreasonable and maybe more companies will invest in MMO's.
If the game itself is what made me miserable and I have a venue to vent, I'm going to do it. I also take a more Dawinian approach that only the strong should survive among games. Maybe they won't invest in and produce shit games after a few go into the gaping maw of public edification.
Originally posted by Valentina This genre isn't dead but it is hurting, and trolling, and not supporting games cuz they're not the second coming is what's causing it. Do you think anyone will invest in making these games, and pushing the genre forward if everytime someone tries its met with so much negativity and torn to pieces by trolls? It's gotten so bad that rotten tomatoes had to shut down anonymous reviews, and are now going to heavily moderate peoples reviews of movies by requiring that they be constructive, otherwise wont be approved. This is something that unfortunately needs to take place nowadays on the internet. People ruin potential success by doing what they can to bring each title down in flames because they're miserable themselves. If you want this genre to move forward, than support it. Rome wasnt built in a day, the perfect game isn't going to come out any time soon and never has with any genre. Don't be so unreasonable and maybe more companies will invest in MMO's.
The list of mmos Ive purchased from '09 to present is staggering. From AAA to Indie and everything in between. The genre stopped moving forward almost a decade ago. Its moving laterally across every other genre and supporting it doesn;t seem to be helping it get out of this rut. In fact, its just reinforcing this shallow formula of turning virtual worlds into arcade games.
Originally posted by BrightestDay Originally posted by Foomerang100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.If you were to tell me ten years ago that this is what MMORPGS would be like, I would have never even bothered to get involved.MMO versions of old console games from a decade ago. Thats what we have right now. The irony is that console games today are actually more open and diverse than these so called mmorpgs.Its a shame. I have faith in indie devs, as always. But the AAA mmo devs have really led the genre astray as of late. I wonder if it will ever get back on track.
haha. SWTOR and Secret World didn't save you and this is your swan song. /whooosh
When I was a kid and had plenty of time and no money to worry about, I loved dreaming up stuff, building with LEGO — and I don't mean LEGO Systems but just taking LEGO blocks and using them for my own designs.
Now... I have a job, and I earn money by channeling my time and creative energy into products and services that others consume. Work therefore is taking away a lot of my creative energies, imagination and most importantly, my time. And so, now whenever I pick up a game, I want it to entertain me without forcing me to spend my energy and time to figure out how I want to entertain myself using the games' mechanics.
I'm not saying current theme-park MMO's are perfect the way they are, but I am saying more people these days are willing to pay top-dollar to companies developing theme-park MMO's rather than Sandbox ones. You can blame/thank Blizzard for that, by the way, because they've shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that the market for constant and instantly-gratifying entertainment is easier to work with, more predictable and stable than the market that exists for games offering entertainment through inhabiting a Virtual World.
My suggestion? Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/ and start your own Virtual World project. Perhaps you'll gain support, perhaps not. I assure you however that the experience would be more satisfying and rewarding than this thread could ever be!
I'm not saying current theme-park MMO's are perfect the way they are, but I am saying more people these days are willing to pay top-dollar to companies developing theme-park MMO's rather than Sandbox ones.
Then how come WoW clones have all merged their servers a few months after launch and then stagnante into nothingness?
And virtual world != sandbox.
The strange idea that if its not a WoW clone its a sandbox, and that if its a virtual world then you can't play casually, needs to go away. It's perpetuated by the same short sighted WoW players who don't understand how a game without instancing would work.
Seriously, stick a fork in it: this bitch is done. It's bothersome to me that a mod for an FPS is doing better at recreating what it is I loved about MMO's, rather than the companies hiring experienced developers, designers, and managers from within the genre industry. Lesson learned? As far as I'm concerned, AAA MMO developlment might as well stand for Always Assume Atrocious.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Then how come WoW clones have all merged their servers a few months after launch and then stagnante into nothingness?
And virtual world != sandbox.
The strange idea that if its not a WoW clone its a sandbox, and that if its a virtual world then you can't play casually, needs to go away. It's perpetuated by the same short sighted WoW players who don't understand how a game without instancing would work.
What?! You want people to travel for hours to accomplish anything. You want people to take hours to shop and look for items. You want people to spend hours looking for the right group composition before engaging a dungeon (where they may be forced to wait for their turn).
All of those are directly against casual-friendliness. The game is not casual if it takes ages to do anything worthwhile. Casual is something where you can log in, do stuff, and log out all within 15min to half an hour.
That's why there's LFG tools, instant travel, jump-in PvP, auction house etc. -To make the game casual-friendly. Many features in virtual world is against this.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Comments
I know you love following me from thread to thread and trying to derail the topic, but stick to things you know about, like LoL.
Vanguard has more content in it than the majority of MMORPGs on the market.
If you can't find a game in the mmorpg genre, try other game genre. like I can't find any mmorpg interesting now so I went to play Diablo3 or skyrim.
If video game stop interesting you, I suggest you try to find new hobbies etc.
If any developer ever came to these forums...I wouldn't be surprised if they were afraid to make a MMO at all...period.
Every game, every feature, every minute detail is attacked and overanalyzed to death to the point that there is literally no light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. Any glimmer of hope is quicky attacked and destoyed. A developer or an investor would have no choice but to think "why bother", we'd be better off investing in facebook games with less risk ...
Two questions
1. Why dont more people still play UO? Surely its not just the quality of the pixels?
2. Has a more mature form of mass entertainment (the movies) become a paragon of diversity and cerebral excellence, or has it veered towards the lowest (and most profitable) common denominator? Why would a similar form of entertainment mature differently?
I loved UO, I'm enjoying TSW, Darkfall felt immersive, the opportunity to widen my view of Tolkien's world was entertaining, the politics of Lineage2 was engaging. WOW was like a half decent comedy, everyone enjoyed it for what it was.
Will someone get it all right and build something that pleases all of the people all of the time, I doubt it.
I will however appreciate the gems that do pop out when I find them and I'll be thankful that I have food, shelter, electricity, a job, a family and the time to look for entertainment when other needs are fulfilled.
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76)
Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
And i thought you were following me around.
Vanguard has content? ... just no one to play with, i guess.
Genre changes all the time. Are you going to call WOW something else now? I highly doubt you can get another name to stick.
"easy mode"? Have you played hard mode raids or hard core inferno Diablo 3? When only less than 2% of the players have run Sunwell, i would not call that easy mode.
Not pointing the finger here at Diablo, not played it, but not sure it is a MMO. As to a new name for what the genre has become I use EZMMO.
It is not easy to say an old MMO is of one type or another. They all started as MMO's in those days, but WoW bacame the template the modern ezMMO is based on. It has features like a cash shop, which is a good pointer to it having changed into a ezMMO, but as I don't play it, I can't really say.
I have been on Lotro since launch, it is moving in the ezMMO direction but I am not sure a older MMO can ever catch up with recent MMO's which are made ever more solo, ever simpler. We may find that there will always be a gap based purely on MMO age.
LotRO was an EZMMO from the start. Barely an MMO, almost entirely focused on the singelplayer. They got rid of almost all their interested features and replaced them with ones from WoW.
Diablo 3 is NOT a mmo. However, the play style is close enough for me ... essentially you hang out in a chat channel (or city in MMO) and then form a small group to go to a dungeon adventure.
Modern MMOs don't always have cash shops. My definition is that it has good scripted instanced content and you can form a group easy and drop into a dungeon (or a pvp arena) right away.
Copy-paste quests. Dumb mobs waiting to be killed. Wooptie doo. Rest of us have higher standards.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
This genre isn't dead but it is hurting, and trolling, and not supporting games cuz they're not the second coming is what's causing it. Do you think anyone will invest in making these games, and pushing the genre forward if everytime someone tries its met with so much negativity and torn to pieces by trolls? It's gotten so bad that rotten tomatoes had to shut down anonymous reviews, and are now going to heavily moderate peoples reviews of movies by requiring that they be constructive, otherwise wont be approved. This is something that unfortunately needs to take place nowadays on the internet. People ruin potential success by doing what they can to bring each title down in flames because they're miserable themselves. If you want this genre to move forward, than support it. Rome wasnt built in a day, the perfect game isn't going to come out any time soon and never has with any genre. Don't be so unreasonable and maybe more companies will invest in MMO's.
Haha right, sounds like you never played Vanguard.
It hasn't been tried in about 5 years now, so I don't know, you tell me.
Wouldn't say that if I didn't, but I did. Even the version which was deemed "this how it should've been at release". So no, you can't pull that card on me. Gave it 3 weeks. I want my money back.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
If you refer to the original genre of virtual world RPG's.. Yes, I think that genre is crippled and dying.. We are being forced out by the Esport console gamers demanding that MMO's play to their style of instance gaming of tier grinding... Oh well,, what are we to do.. The original genre is much smaller then this esporters.. But who knows.. it will be funny when and if the day comes these devs can find a way of atracting the "facebook" gamers .. Then the esporters can be pushed the back burner asking why the 50 million strong facebookers are taking over the mmorpg game world.. LOL
I wouldn't worry too much about facebook. Social networking sites are transitory and their customers are easily moved to the next big thing.
I'm also looking forward to making more money shorting their stock.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
If the game itself is what made me miserable and I have a venue to vent, I'm going to do it. I also take a more Dawinian approach that only the strong should survive among games. Maybe they won't invest in and produce shit games after a few go into the gaping maw of public edification.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
The list of mmos Ive purchased from '09 to present is staggering. From AAA to Indie and everything in between. The genre stopped moving forward almost a decade ago. Its moving laterally across every other genre and supporting it doesn;t seem to be helping it get out of this rut. In fact, its just reinforcing this shallow formula of turning virtual worlds into arcade games.
/whooosh
Dear OP,
When I was a kid and had plenty of time and no money to worry about, I loved dreaming up stuff, building with LEGO — and I don't mean LEGO Systems but just taking LEGO blocks and using them for my own designs.
Now... I have a job, and I earn money by channeling my time and creative energy into products and services that others consume. Work therefore is taking away a lot of my creative energies, imagination and most importantly, my time. And so, now whenever I pick up a game, I want it to entertain me without forcing me to spend my energy and time to figure out how I want to entertain myself using the games' mechanics.
I'm not saying current theme-park MMO's are perfect the way they are, but I am saying more people these days are willing to pay top-dollar to companies developing theme-park MMO's rather than Sandbox ones. You can blame/thank Blizzard for that, by the way, because they've shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that the market for constant and instantly-gratifying entertainment is easier to work with, more predictable and stable than the market that exists for games offering entertainment through inhabiting a Virtual World.
My suggestion? Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/ and start your own Virtual World project. Perhaps you'll gain support, perhaps not. I assure you however that the experience would be more satisfying and rewarding than this thread could ever be!
Goold luck,
LoP.
Then how come WoW clones have all merged their servers a few months after launch and then stagnante into nothingness?
And virtual world != sandbox.
The strange idea that if its not a WoW clone its a sandbox, and that if its a virtual world then you can't play casually, needs to go away. It's perpetuated by the same short sighted WoW players who don't understand how a game without instancing would work.
To the OP, it died long ago.
Seriously, stick a fork in it: this bitch is done. It's bothersome to me that a mod for an FPS is doing better at recreating what it is I loved about MMO's, rather than the companies hiring experienced developers, designers, and managers from within the genre industry. Lesson learned? As far as I'm concerned, AAA MMO developlment might as well stand for Always Assume Atrocious.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
What?! You want people to travel for hours to accomplish anything. You want people to take hours to shop and look for items. You want people to spend hours looking for the right group composition before engaging a dungeon (where they may be forced to wait for their turn).
All of those are directly against casual-friendliness. The game is not casual if it takes ages to do anything worthwhile. Casual is something where you can log in, do stuff, and log out all within 15min to half an hour.
That's why there's LFG tools, instant travel, jump-in PvP, auction house etc. -To make the game casual-friendly. Many features in virtual world is against this.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky