Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Faith in MMORPGs: Restored
Plasmicredx
Member Posts: 629
My timeline.
Dark Age of Camelot releases some time in 2001. Awareness to the existence of MMORPGs for the first time is formed. Immediately fallen in love.
Dark Age of Camelot releases Trials of Atlantis in 2003. Game turns into a raid-a-holic atmosphere. Faith in MMORPGs begins to diminish. Quit playing.
World of Warcraft releases in 2004. Hopes begin to rise. Hits 60 and realizes the game is about an end game gear grind. Quit playing except for new expansions.
Faith in MMORPGs dies in 2005.
Many MMOs come out using the same gear grind systems between 2004 and now.
Arenanet says they will make an MMORPG that fixes common MMORPG problems with Guild Wars 2.Guild Wars 2 releases. Faith in MMORPGs (and humanity) is restored.
Comments
Amen. Pretty much same here.
My Guild Wars 2 blog. Read it. The bestestest and most TRUTHEST BLOG EVER!!
Been playing GW2 since BWE1...still waiting for that disappointment to hit. My guess is that I will realize how disappointed I am after I play the game for 3 years.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Sorry for not giving an explanation. It's supposed to be my representation of a timeline. It describes how I subjectively viewed the MMORPG space from 2001 to now. What I'm trying to say is that, for me, GW2 is the biggest MMORPG to come out since Dark Age of Camelot in 2001.
Lets see if you thoughts are the same 2 month in.
Not bashing it really enjoying it myself having had zero expectations and avoiding the hype and just grabbing it on a whim I'm absolutely loving it, I'm just not naive enough to go proclaiming it the saviour of the MMO genre or to say it has enhanced my faith in MMO's, its good solid fun (bugs aside) but lets see how it feels after the honeymoon period.
Hey OP you do know EQ2 came out before WoW right?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I respect your opinion, you've got a level head. Do you really believe this game is going to last three years, or even more than six months, and what are the key indicators that point you in this direction?
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
"EVE is likely the best MMORPG that you've never really understood or played" - Kyleran
I tried to stay away from games based primarily on pve like the EverQuest games - though I did try them a couple of times - oh yes - I tried almost all the MMORPGs.
Key indicators? Maybe he briefly glanced at Guild Wars 1, a game not as much fun or as interesting as Guild Wars 2, and which is still going, seven years later.
Seems to be a good indicator, dont you think?
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
If they release expacs around the same size and frequency they did with GW1 than it will definitely last much longer than that. Not to mention the live team and their steady stream of new events and content. Despite what the haters say there is an endgame in GW2 and it is loaded with stuff to do and various gear sets to grind for.
If WoW was released today even in its' entirety it would be f2p in 3 months.
Why is it still such a big deal?
No? I'm not talking about the product staying online, the original fucking Everquest is still online. I'm talking about retaining interest and providing longevity, long term goals to work toward or some hint that this isn't as shallow as the mechanics read on paper. What is there for MMO players who aren't just looking for "fun"?
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
What will keep GW2 playable for years is its goodgame play and build/combo depth, especailly in dungeons and Orr (basically a huge raid).
I'm amazed how people keep disregarding the gameplay of a game as one of the main factors that will keep people hooked in favor of "goals" and "content size".
New content will just be the icing.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The difference is being an online game versus single. Single player games have different expectations which are more relative to the company developing them compared to the genre as a whole. So mmos, an online game, sets expectations which can be grouped as sand box or themepark and something in between.
So in mmos that want to have pvp in the open world, while being a themepark mmo are mixing expectations and creating content that has yet to be fine tuned to an epic scale of having both sand box and themepark mechanics in one mmo. So pvpers will want more immersion and simulated realities than a limiting themepark will provide.
And it seems the genre itself makes people set up expectations which are never developed towards.
For example open world pvp, that has pve content which can relate to housing, construction and destruction as well.
By avoiding that, the mmo is just a themepark of a journey to beginning to end and making it as enjoyable without making it simulate any kind of pvp reality in the open world.
Does GW2 have open world pvp in it's questing areas? I enjoyed the game but I am too experienced with MMos to continue any kind of grind without getting the content I wish to play as a pvper mostly or whatever high quality content a game may offer. In gw2 case the only content worth playing is DE, story, raids. However without enough DE, and no open world pvp to make it interesting for me, I had to stop.
That's just me though. I stopped at lvl 15. And maybe the experience does get better. Correct me if i am wrong.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
What are you looking for in a video game if not "fun"? If you mean a pointless gear grind, there are games with that, and games on the horizon with that. Is it logical to inherently doubt the success of something because it's different? I don't know, seems like foggy crystal ballin' to me.
It's being called World versus World and it's separate from the pve areas. This was most likely done to appease the pvp pacifists and to make the game less hardcore.
There is pve content in world vs. world like dynamic events, secrets, and monsters.
Basically if you stopped at level 15 you stopped at very easy AI.
The level 30 story mode dungeon (which is the easy mode) is something like hard AI.
Do you know why I talk about AI?
Because your point of views come exactly from this long line of MMORPGs that have no difficulty curve during their levelling phase.
In GW2, the challenge grows with level, not just the levelling phase/end-game divide.
Now, GW2 doesn't have world PvP (or even any kind of open world player competition) - they want people to play together as as a big team.
Stil, sPvP is available at level 2, fully balanced - you are bumped to level cap and given every piece of equipment. WvW is also available at level 2, but to be true, even though you are bumped to level 80, you aren't a real level 80 and so much weaker. Additionally, WvW is much more enjoyable with organized groups, either small or massive.
I understand the need for distractions from very easy AI, like housing, open world PvP, etc, in MMORPGs where AI is dumb ad stays dumb until some raid - but GW2 is much more akin to a single player game in terms of its difficulty curve.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The doubt doesn't stem from the product being different, but rather too much of the same. Also, I play single player games for fun. I play lobby based multiplayer games, or FPS's with friends, if I want to have fun. Fun is fleeting, and it doesn't last. The reason I play MMO's is for the competitive nature of the environment, and knowing that I have something to attain for a long period of time. That doesn't necessarily distill strictly into a gear grind, but could come in the form of territorial control, politics or the economy, and countless other mechanics I'm sure exist but I'm not imaginative enough to come up with. PvE and realm vs. realm simply isn't enough for me, which is why I originally asked the question: where's the longevity, and what mechanics specifically from GW2 do you think gives the product a chance to stay relevant?
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Almost everything in GW2 was designed with anarchy in mind - like a sandbox - so lone wolves are perfectly viable. Spontaneous order and all that. The minimap displays friendlies as green dots within a certain limited range so players can easily find where their team is.
Just because GW2 allows for people to work together without talking in a lot of areas doesn't mean that the experienced isn't enhanced with communication. We are social creatures after all (to say nothing of the superior level of planning communication provides).
I totally agree with the original poster. My faith in the genre and its initial promise is being restored. It's still possible to make a world that's huge and that feels alive and has depth and tons of things to do (with REAL cities). It's still possible to create visuals and music that leaves me in awe, even after 13 years. It actually is still possible to surprise me with elements that I never thought I'd see, and little details that nobody else has bothered building into their game.
I loved EQ, but it was my first love, and a lot of people said there would never be another feeling like that because everything was new back then. They said it wasn't as good as I remembered, because I was seeing it through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. In some ways I was beginning to believe those people...beginning to think that the genre had strayed to far down a single path towards games that I didn't enjoy and would never move in any other direction.
But I'm falling in love again, and it feels like the first time.