I have been playing MMOs since Everquest and I have noticed a disturbing trend. Prior to EQ, those of us that loved the fantasy genre played roleplaying games with dice, paper, pencil and a group of friends. The game was best enjoyed with a group, all contributing both through their charaacters skills but probably even more importantly through their wit and roleplaying. The memories of those years of paper and pencil gaming will last me a lifetime and I think of them fondly.
Of course, as technology allowed our paper and pencil games to move to computer (i.e., Bards Tale, Ultima and Wizardry) and ultimately the internet (Everquest) the games at the beginning of the computer version of the fantasy genre were very similar to paper and pencil gaming as they placed a huge emphasis on grouping for EVERYTHING. I have played every major MMO since EQ1 and while the game play and graphics are always improving, the PvE part of the games is not in my opinion. Quests in EQ were hard and long. EQOA had questlines that took weeks to complete and you needed a group for basically every part of the quest. EQ2 came out and added a solo-element to the game. While for me at first this was a welcomed change and allowed me to enjoy the genre without the time sink necessary to have a regular group, I didn’t realize until Guild Wars 2 how much I have missed grouping as a requirement and how much MMOs have changed, negatively in my opinion, since EQ1.
I will give GW2 great applause for a very polished gameplay experience but what is missing in mind (and RIFT had the same problem) is the community. No one really chats and there is very little reason to group. As an old paper and pencil fuddy-duddy from the 1970s what is missing from GW2 (and it is missing from RIFT, WOW, SWTOR, LOTRO and others) is the need to group for more than just raids or dungeons. Grouping for regular grinding or epic quests creates lots of opportunities for meaningful and prolonged interaction, banter, which lead to meaningful in-game friendships.With the elimination of a standalone healer class this downward slide away from grouping was the last straw for me.
So, to those that I have played with online (Dairith, Qen, Nicci, Windbear, Xerios, Windbear, and Maxpain) thank you for the memories from the EQ and WoW franchise. As of an hour ago, I have decided that GW2 was the last MMO I will ever play. I have deleted the game from the computer and actually pulled out my paper and pencil PATHFINDER books and am forming a local group of adults (have 4 so far) and we are going to have the interaction that we hoped could have been achieved from videogames. So my departure from GW2 (and retirement from MMOs) should not be taken as a reflection on the gameplay, but instead a fundamental flaw in the MMO market--- the lost art of meaningful and longer term interaction with other players. Prior to my retirement, I choose to play MMOs over Single-player RPG because I desired the company of other individuals to create shared memories, experiences, and friendships. I have been playing GW2 since beta and found that there is very minimal chatting…. People are just too busy smashing buttons. Quests are short and travel distances are short… it seems that others who are playing this game just don’t have the same need that I do for the connection with other players. So farewell MMOs….. I will be slaying my dragons with 4 friends in the same room, a number of cold beers, plastic dice, metal miniatures and graph paper.
Teak Dharan
Premise: who said that MMo and PnP cannot go together? I play regularly both and they are not very similar, nope. not even EQ was. To LARPs, yeah.. there you are right.
I think your premise is flawed, OP. Especially with GW2.
You want people to HAVE to group, I do not accept that, it was the reason MMos were so archaic, difficult and downright user unfriendly back then, I just did not like it and it was a big reason I played them a lot... but never really seriously.. meaning never was max level in EQ and things like that.
Now you ARE right that modern MMOs made grouping unnecessary, maybe they went to the other extreme: you HAVE to solo. I think WoW Cataclysm is the pinnacle of this. Even duoing, my favorite form of grouping, has been made not just unnecessary but negative, meaning your experience is better alone than in a group.
Gw2 however permits you to group IF YOU WANT to. Infact I do not see anything in the game that would prevent you from doing exactly what you want, grab 4 of your friends and fo have merry adventures together. The content scales with you.
So that seems the best of both worlds to me and I do not see why would you want to compell everyone to play as you want when the game permits your gameplay style fine as it is.
Maybe you can explain what is stopping you from grabbing your buddies and go around in a group in GW2? With the mechanics as they are... you can even go away from the 5 man limit of a party by making a guild and using guild chat as your party chat.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
i agree with the OP very much EverQuest brought the paper and pencil game to life for me and just about every mmorpg after has brought more solo content to the genra, i miss player interaction waiting for mana you would sit and chat with your group members with games like GW2 no time really for talk smash bttons get the loot or goal completed and move on. its to bad i hope EverQuest Next brings the elements of paper and pencil back to the genra.
The only way to get a such close community as in pen and paper in a MMO is to have a small guild and turn off the general chat and see all other players as NPCs.
In P&P you usually are 4-6 guys in the same room and you cant beat that social aspect in a computer game.
But for GW2 we have put up a lan at a friends house and play a few friends there when we have time, I can only recommend you to do the same. While it still aint P&P since you are more limited in actions we do have the same group sense and it is a lot more fun than just sitting at our own place with Vent.
Some beers helps as well.
That's how we roll.
Small guild of people we know in real life. Most of us join in LAN, all of us are on voice chat. I havn't played 1 second of GW2 whithout my best friend playing GW2 next beside me.
We have an awesome time.
Me too even though we just can play like that on the weekend. The rest of the time we do as best as we can but it aint really the same thing even if it still is pretty fun.
Originally posted by pacov once you do this and still say your opinion I will applaud you...1) Get to level 70+2) Go to Orr3) Try to do stuff on your own...4) Realize how essential grouping up with people is5) Apologize
The "get to level 70+" part already shows you don't understand ;p
An MMO didn't use to be focused on 'getting to max level'. Levelling was it's own goal and you grouped ALL THE WAY. There was no 'endgame content' since few people actually got to max level - All the content was designed around the levelling path, not the endpoint. EQ, Ultima Online, EVE Online, Anarchy Online, a lot of MMO's pre-wow are still alive that use these principles, some of them are even thriving and still growing.
What the OP means is that MMO's have become too focused on the (gear)grind, the rush to max level and pandering to the mass market demographic of people who don't want to spend more than half an hour a week playing but still want to experience all the content (ala WoW). MMO's focus on this demographic almost exclusively nowadays, which is the very reason why so many of them fail (why play a game that tries to be WoW when there's WoW).
An MMO used to be about playing with or against other people, all the time. Now it's just an optional extra, taking the MM out of MMO (the RPG has dissappeared years ago), the very thing that made the genre unique. Personally, for my singleplayer fantasy romps i now just play Skyrim, which simply does that a lot better.
Dungeon content in the game requires grouping, and also provides the highest challenge and best equipment (other than legendary weapons). So the most challenge and best rewards in the game come from grouping-required content.
High level large-scale events, including much of the open-world content at max level (and actually a decent amount of the events in lower-level zones) require groups. This content scales and can be completed by pick-up type "loose" groups...but it can be social if you choose to make it so, and there's nothing stopping someone from forming a formal group to do this open-world content.
You certainly don't have to get to max level to find group content...there is open-world group content in the starting zones (only a little, but it increases with each new zone) as well as dungeons starting at level 30.
The OP clearly either didn't stick around long enough to realize the above, or just discounted it for some reason. The OP also didn't stick with the game long enough for the server communities and guilds to get established. There are elements of the game design (like WvW and the ability to form alliances) that will lead to server communities developing over time, but even in EQ, those great communities didn't develop the first week after launch. It takes some time, and some effort on the part of the players. The community is what we make it...and no game is going to have a well-established community one week after launch.
The OP seems to have spent a decade looking for a game that provided a community like EQ's without the time and effort involved in building EQ's community. Unrealistic expectations are the source of most disappointment.
The "get to level 70+" part already shows you don't understand ;p
An MMO didn't use to be focused on 'getting to max level'. Levelling was it's own goal and you grouped ALL THE WAY. There was no 'endgame content' since few people actually got to max level - All the content was designed around the levelling path, not the endpoint. EQ, Ultima Online, EVE Online, Anarchy Online, a lot of MMO's pre-wow are still alive that use these principles, some of them are even thriving and still growing.
What the OP means is that MMO's have become too focused on the (gear)grind, the rush to max level and pandering to the mass market demographic of people who don't want to spend more than half an hour a week playing but still want to experience all the content (ala WoW). MMO's focus on this demographic almost exclusively nowadays, which is the very reason why so many of them fail (why play a game that tries to be WoW when there's WoW).
An MMO used to be about playing with or against other people, all the time. Now it's just an optional extra, taking the MM out of MMO (the RPG has dissappeared years ago), the very thing that made the genre unique. Personally, for my singleplayer fantasy romps i now just play Skyrim, which simply does that a lot better.
That is indeed true but at least you can group in GW2 and the game will scale for it. In most MMOs you solo, or if you group things get so stupidly boring that I fall asleep.
This does not count dungeons.
But this really isnt OPs problem at all. OP should put up a LAN with his buddies, it still wont be as pen and paper but it is as close as you can get in a MMO.
I always find it interesting that 10 people could post about how they miss about virtual worlds from past MMORPGs and then 15 people talk about how "they used to be like you" but moved on to ventrillo, how different is from PnP etc etc and give all these reasons why the move is good.
Thing is... those 15 people miss the point and were never like that 10 to begin with.
I play Pen and Paper and LARP. I still miss EQ and if I wanted to play by myself.... single player RPGs destroy MMORPGs for solo play in this market and there is *NO GAMING REPLACEMENT* for the virtual world. The point is diversity of assets.
Single Player RPGS do story and PvE better than MMORPGs will ever do
PnP will do small group content better than MMORPGs will ever do
LARP will do community building better than MMORPGs will ever do
Action Adventure RPGs will do mechanics better than MMORPGs will ever do.
So you people might be asking well then "what do you want from a MMORPG oh old PnP RPG'r that fell in love with EQ?"
A massive world full of new things to explore, strangers to interact with, economies and social politics to influence and tons of fantasy world-esque baddies to overcome with a group of people you would have never met or talked to in your personal everyday life.
And for you all you naysayers... there are definitely a group of people who want this that are falling off the mmorpg charts because they no longer deliver. To say these people are wrong for wanted to recapture the EQ-esque type immersive world is sad because we are people and consumers too. There are enough of us for you to hear about it all the time.
If the OP is really serious about pen and paper gaming theres a game called Wolrd of Dungeons that uses the D&D rule sets and even has dice rolls....You and 11 other characters explore dungeons together with 14 different classes available (3 are free)......The game does the story telling for you and you can roleplay till your heart is content.
I dunno, I've been chatting on /map chat quite a bit lately and there's definitely a reason to group- you get bonus XP even when members aren't within range. Events near you get people together and you get credit for it even when you're not grouped with others.
Originally posted by Nadia personally, guilds go a long way to making a difference w community
I really don't understand how people can start playing a MMORPG and then not join a guild and make new friends (or play with old friends) and then complain about community...
Playing a MMO without a guild/friends is like going to an amusement park by yourself.
Sure, the rides may be fun the first few times, but eventually you'll get bored and leave (unless you are Cartman.)
In most MMOs, this would be you going to the amusement park by yourself and being the only one on the rides.
In GW2, the rides are always full of other people, but if you don't talk to anyone or try and be social/friendly, it won't be too different for you than being on the ride alone anyway.
YOU DEFINE YOUR EXPERIENCE.
I'm sorry there is not a Match.com built into the game to find people friends to play with so that "the game has community and feels like the MMORPG's of old."
Originally posted by Nadia personally, guilds go a long way to making a difference w community
I joined a guild but I guess because you don't need the group help, everyone was just quietly doing their own thing I.e. no guild,chat or grouping - which backs up,what the OP was saying.
I only have three issues with the game that I don't think will change (everything else, I love).
1. The lack of a need for grouping and sense of a lack of group accomplishment.
2. The fact that most undiscovered vistas, waypoints, hearts etc are shown on the map - I want to explore to find them myself.
3. Crafting - because unlocking the discovery items is too linear I.e. based on your crafting level, everyone is crafting the same things and in the same order of progression, so when you come to sell them, there are usually at least 10 of each on the Trading Post. I'd take the crafting level requirement out of discovery and based it on the mats used etc, making the harder/better items a combination of requiring more of the mats AND using the rarer ones - so in theory, with hard work, you could craft the best items in the game, so that the trading post is not saturated with all the same gear.
Originally posted by pacov once you do this and still say your opinion I will applaud you...
1) Get to level 70+
2) Go to Orr
3) Try to do stuff on your own...
4) Realize how essential grouping up with people is
5) Apologize
The "get to level 70+" part already shows you don't understand ;p
An MMO didn't use to be focused on 'getting to max level'. Levelling was it's own goal and you grouped ALL THE WAY. There was no 'endgame content' since few people actually got to max level - All the content was designed around the levelling path, not the endpoint. EQ, Ultima Online, EVE Online, Anarchy Online, a lot of MMO's pre-wow are still alive that use these principles, some of them are even thriving and still growing.
What the OP means is that MMO's have become too focused on the (gear)grind, the rush to max level and pandering to the mass market demographic of people who don't want to spend more than half an hour a week playing but still want to experience all the content (ala WoW). MMO's focus on this demographic almost exclusively nowadays, which is the very reason why so many of them fail (why play a game that tries to be WoW when there's WoW).
An MMO used to be about playing with or against other people, all the time. Now it's just an optional extra, taking the MM out of MMO (the RPG has dissappeared years ago), the very thing that made the genre unique. Personally, for my singleplayer fantasy romps i now just play Skyrim, which simply does that a lot better.
Forced grouping does not work.
The sooner ya'll accept that, the better you'll feel.
Find people who LIKE to play together, who LIKE to play 100% grouped 100% of the time, and roll with them.
Any game that makes you sit in town spamming LFG will fail in 2012 - accept that and move on.
I really don't understand how people can start playing a MMORPG and then not join a guild and make new friends (or play with old friends) and then complain about community...
Playing a MMO without a guild/friends is like going to an amusement park by yourself.
Sure, the rides may be fun the first few times, but eventually you'll get bored and leave (unless you are Cartman.)
In most MMOs, this would be you going to the amusement park by yourself and being the only one on the rides.
In GW2, the rides are always full of other people, but if you don't talk to anyone or try and be social/friendly, it won't be too different for you than being on the ride alone anyway.
YOU DEFINE YOUR EXPERIENCE.
I'm sorry there is not a Match.com built into the game to find people friends to play with so that "the game has community and feels like the MMORPG's of old."
I can understand it (Shyness) but you do miss the whole point of playing a MMO and might as well play a singleplayer game.
While PUGing actually can be pretty fun it will never replace a good guild. It might be hard for a new player who doesnt know anyone to find a good guild though and there is PUGing great since you will learn to know some people that later can invite you to their nice guild.
The sooner ya'll accept that, the better you'll feel.
Find people who LIKE to play together, who LIKE to play 100% grouped 100% of the time, and roll with them.
Any game that makes you sit in town spamming LFG will fail in 2012 - accept that and move on.
Actually, forced grouping do work but only in stanced CORPGs like DDO and GW1. A specific small party game with instances still work (as long as you dont overcharge it).
But CORPGs are a very specific type of games and even in them you can usually replace a player by a bot if needed.
Everquest and FF XI are in the past and would never become hits today, but a P&P styled CORPG could still work fine.
op, the problem is mmo games now are being made to satisfy the solo gamer, the single player game type of player. they want to sell the box and give you about as much to do as a single player game. they expect people to quit after a month or two, then come back when more content is released. basically video game companies are making games designed to pacify ADD players. That is it. MMOs as us old school gamers know it are dead, there will never be another eq, ac, ultima because people have come to expect a game to have no soul, no content for more than a month.
I feel the same way you do, not interested in mmos in general, i picked up tsw simply because it had zombies and funcom at least tried to do something a little different, yet they failed in one major way to me. the game was too short and while I dont mind running dungeons several times, I dont wanna do it every night for months on end just to get all my gear. would prefer less of a grind. until i find a great mmo though, ill stick to world of tanks, at least i get to blow stuff up there.
If you are not aware however goblinworks is making a pathfinder online game. it is my last hope for the mmo genre all together. if it dont deliver then mmos will be dead to me. sounds like personally your just not a themepark type player, maybe you should try some sandbox type games. only problem with that is there is no good sandbox fantasy games, might have to wait till pathfinder comes out.
Guild Wars 2 is the best MMORPG to release since World of Warcraft in 2004(NA Release).
THis is only my opinion but considering i've been mmo gaming since 1997 in UO, most people that know me take my Opinions pretty seriously. im kind of known as grand pa gamer to them lol.
Guild Wars 2 is the best MMORPG to release since World of Warcraft in 2004(NA Release).
THis is only my opinion but considering i've been mmo gaming since 1997 in UO, most people that know me take my Opinions pretty seriously. im kind of known as grand pa gamer to them lol.
Veteran status is not remarkable around here. My best advice is to avoid leading with Appeal to Authority.
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 wish you all the best. I'm of two minds here. I quite agree, some of my best memories have been of interactions with other players, over the years. But also some of my worst memories. Its reached the point that I really have no interest in dealing with 95% plus of the gaming population, so being able to play solo has been a bonus.
I'm very interested in seeing where MMO's go, as technology advances. Perhaps once VR manages to solve its various problems, and becomes wide spread, we will find more of the group interaction we are looking for. Until that time, I'll play solo, and I wish you and your friends the very best of luck and fun.
Same as everything else in life, no? You take in the good with the bad. You can't have one without the other, imo. At least, not in this world.
At least not at this time period. It didn't seem to be quite this bad, at the start, years and years ago, before gaming went main stream. Sure, you still had the Goonie types, but not nearly as many entitlement, ignorant, out right barbarians as we see way too many of today. As long as I find games entertaining, and I can play them solo (or with a few people I can stand to deal with), I'll stick around.
Originally posted by Wraithone At least not at this time period. It didn't seem to be quite this bad, at the start, years and years ago, before gaming went main stream. Sure, you still had the Goonie types, but not nearly as many entitlement, ignorant, out right barbarians as we see way too many of today. As long as I find games entertaining, and I can play them solo (or with a few people I can stand to deal with), I'll stick around.
It's really funny how everyone who makes posts like that implies that he is an angel in the flesh and - most importantly - he has always been this way.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
The problem with guys like the OP. Is they don't get the game is designed to be very optional. You can solo and never say a word to anyone all the way to 80. Some people like that some people don't. But its nice to have the option there to not be bothered with fail trolls etc...You can also group and be very social that is up to you. No one is going to hold your hand and push you into the fray. My server people talk all the damn day so i don't know how you say no community is there. From the looks of it alot of people servers are the same. It sounds to me you want to have your hand held to make friends. Rather then getting off your backside and being a group leader or chat advocate. That's not a game flaw thats a flaw in you and many other guys who expect everyone to run to them and hold a convo.
Originally posted by Wraithone At least not at this time period. It didn't seem to be quite this bad, at the start, years and years ago, before gaming went main stream. Sure, you still had the Goonie types, but not nearly as many entitlement, ignorant, out right barbarians as we see way too many of today. As long as I find games entertaining, and I can play them solo (or with a few people I can stand to deal with), I'll stick around.
It's really funny how everyone who makes posts like that implies that he is an angel in the flesh and - most importantly - he has always been this way.
You do know that implications tend to be projections with many people?... You might wish to examine your basic assumptions more carefully in the future.
Originally posted by Wraithone At least not at this time period. It didn't seem to be quite this bad, at the start, years and years ago, before gaming went main stream. Sure, you still had the Goonie types, but not nearly as many entitlement, ignorant, out right barbarians as we see way too many of today. As long as I find games entertaining, and I can play them solo (or with a few people I can stand to deal with), I'll stick around.
It's really funny how everyone who makes posts like that implies that he is an angel in the flesh and - most importantly - he has always been this way.
Don't know about others, but i am indeed angel in flesh..well as long as you don't ruffle my feathers (literally).
Comments
Premise: who said that MMo and PnP cannot go together? I play regularly both and they are not very similar, nope. not even EQ was. To LARPs, yeah.. there you are right.
I think your premise is flawed, OP. Especially with GW2.
You want people to HAVE to group, I do not accept that, it was the reason MMos were so archaic, difficult and downright user unfriendly back then, I just did not like it and it was a big reason I played them a lot... but never really seriously.. meaning never was max level in EQ and things like that.
Now you ARE right that modern MMOs made grouping unnecessary, maybe they went to the other extreme: you HAVE to solo. I think WoW Cataclysm is the pinnacle of this. Even duoing, my favorite form of grouping, has been made not just unnecessary but negative, meaning your experience is better alone than in a group.
Gw2 however permits you to group IF YOU WANT to. Infact I do not see anything in the game that would prevent you from doing exactly what you want, grab 4 of your friends and fo have merry adventures together. The content scales with you.
So that seems the best of both worlds to me and I do not see why would you want to compell everyone to play as you want when the game permits your gameplay style fine as it is.
Maybe you can explain what is stopping you from grabbing your buddies and go around in a group in GW2? With the mechanics as they are... you can even go away from the 5 man limit of a party by making a guild and using guild chat as your party chat.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Me too even though we just can play like that on the weekend. The rest of the time we do as best as we can but it aint really the same thing even if it still is pretty fun.
The "get to level 70+" part already shows you don't understand ;p
An MMO didn't use to be focused on 'getting to max level'. Levelling was it's own goal and you grouped ALL THE WAY. There was no 'endgame content' since few people actually got to max level - All the content was designed around the levelling path, not the endpoint. EQ, Ultima Online, EVE Online, Anarchy Online, a lot of MMO's pre-wow are still alive that use these principles, some of them are even thriving and still growing.
What the OP means is that MMO's have become too focused on the (gear)grind, the rush to max level and pandering to the mass market demographic of people who don't want to spend more than half an hour a week playing but still want to experience all the content (ala WoW). MMO's focus on this demographic almost exclusively nowadays, which is the very reason why so many of them fail (why play a game that tries to be WoW when there's WoW).
An MMO used to be about playing with or against other people, all the time. Now it's just an optional extra, taking the MM out of MMO (the RPG has dissappeared years ago), the very thing that made the genre unique. Personally, for my singleplayer fantasy romps i now just play Skyrim, which simply does that a lot better.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Dungeon content in the game requires grouping, and also provides the highest challenge and best equipment (other than legendary weapons). So the most challenge and best rewards in the game come from grouping-required content.
High level large-scale events, including much of the open-world content at max level (and actually a decent amount of the events in lower-level zones) require groups. This content scales and can be completed by pick-up type "loose" groups...but it can be social if you choose to make it so, and there's nothing stopping someone from forming a formal group to do this open-world content.
You certainly don't have to get to max level to find group content...there is open-world group content in the starting zones (only a little, but it increases with each new zone) as well as dungeons starting at level 30.
The OP clearly either didn't stick around long enough to realize the above, or just discounted it for some reason. The OP also didn't stick with the game long enough for the server communities and guilds to get established. There are elements of the game design (like WvW and the ability to form alliances) that will lead to server communities developing over time, but even in EQ, those great communities didn't develop the first week after launch. It takes some time, and some effort on the part of the players. The community is what we make it...and no game is going to have a well-established community one week after launch.
The OP seems to have spent a decade looking for a game that provided a community like EQ's without the time and effort involved in building EQ's community. Unrealistic expectations are the source of most disappointment.
That is indeed true but at least you can group in GW2 and the game will scale for it. In most MMOs you solo, or if you group things get so stupidly boring that I fall asleep.
This does not count dungeons.
But this really isnt OPs problem at all. OP should put up a LAN with his buddies, it still wont be as pen and paper but it is as close as you can get in a MMO.
I always find it interesting that 10 people could post about how they miss about virtual worlds from past MMORPGs and then 15 people talk about how "they used to be like you" but moved on to ventrillo, how different is from PnP etc etc and give all these reasons why the move is good.
Thing is... those 15 people miss the point and were never like that 10 to begin with.
I play Pen and Paper and LARP. I still miss EQ and if I wanted to play by myself.... single player RPGs destroy MMORPGs for solo play in this market and there is *NO GAMING REPLACEMENT* for the virtual world. The point is diversity of assets.
Single Player RPGS do story and PvE better than MMORPGs will ever do
PnP will do small group content better than MMORPGs will ever do
LARP will do community building better than MMORPGs will ever do
Action Adventure RPGs will do mechanics better than MMORPGs will ever do.
So you people might be asking well then "what do you want from a MMORPG oh old PnP RPG'r that fell in love with EQ?"
A massive world full of new things to explore, strangers to interact with, economies and social politics to influence and tons of fantasy world-esque baddies to overcome with a group of people you would have never met or talked to in your personal everyday life.
And for you all you naysayers... there are definitely a group of people who want this that are falling off the mmorpg charts because they no longer deliver. To say these people are wrong for wanted to recapture the EQ-esque type immersive world is sad because we are people and consumers too. There are enough of us for you to hear about it all the time.
I dunno, I've been chatting on /map chat quite a bit lately and there's definitely a reason to group- you get bonus XP even when members aren't within range. Events near you get people together and you get credit for it even when you're not grouped with others.
Actually OP I'm writing a research paper and am curious if my findings are correct:
Do you workout at all or watch what you eat? What's your height and weight?
I think I've made a correlation between old school paper RPGs with trends of obesity and health issues.
I really don't understand how people can start playing a MMORPG and then not join a guild and make new friends (or play with old friends) and then complain about community...
Playing a MMO without a guild/friends is like going to an amusement park by yourself.
Sure, the rides may be fun the first few times, but eventually you'll get bored and leave (unless you are Cartman.)
In most MMOs, this would be you going to the amusement park by yourself and being the only one on the rides.
In GW2, the rides are always full of other people, but if you don't talk to anyone or try and be social/friendly, it won't be too different for you than being on the ride alone anyway.
YOU DEFINE YOUR EXPERIENCE.
I'm sorry there is not a Match.com built into the game to find people friends to play with so that "the game has community and feels like the MMORPG's of old."
I joined a guild but I guess because you don't need the group help, everyone was just quietly doing their own thing I.e. no guild,chat or grouping - which backs up,what the OP was saying.
I only have three issues with the game that I don't think will change (everything else, I love).
1. The lack of a need for grouping and sense of a lack of group accomplishment.
2. The fact that most undiscovered vistas, waypoints, hearts etc are shown on the map - I want to explore to find them myself.
3. Crafting - because unlocking the discovery items is too linear I.e. based on your crafting level, everyone is crafting the same things and in the same order of progression, so when you come to sell them, there are usually at least 10 of each on the Trading Post. I'd take the crafting level requirement out of discovery and based it on the mats used etc, making the harder/better items a combination of requiring more of the mats AND using the rarer ones - so in theory, with hard work, you could craft the best items in the game, so that the trading post is not saturated with all the same gear.
Forced grouping does not work.
The sooner ya'll accept that, the better you'll feel.
Find people who LIKE to play together, who LIKE to play 100% grouped 100% of the time, and roll with them.
Any game that makes you sit in town spamming LFG will fail in 2012 - accept that and move on.
I can understand it (Shyness) but you do miss the whole point of playing a MMO and might as well play a singleplayer game.
While PUGing actually can be pretty fun it will never replace a good guild. It might be hard for a new player who doesnt know anyone to find a good guild though and there is PUGing great since you will learn to know some people that later can invite you to their nice guild.
Actually, forced grouping do work but only in stanced CORPGs like DDO and GW1. A specific small party game with instances still work (as long as you dont overcharge it).
But CORPGs are a very specific type of games and even in them you can usually replace a player by a bot if needed.
Everquest and FF XI are in the past and would never become hits today, but a P&P styled CORPG could still work fine.
op, the problem is mmo games now are being made to satisfy the solo gamer, the single player game type of player. they want to sell the box and give you about as much to do as a single player game. they expect people to quit after a month or two, then come back when more content is released. basically video game companies are making games designed to pacify ADD players. That is it. MMOs as us old school gamers know it are dead, there will never be another eq, ac, ultima because people have come to expect a game to have no soul, no content for more than a month.
I feel the same way you do, not interested in mmos in general, i picked up tsw simply because it had zombies and funcom at least tried to do something a little different, yet they failed in one major way to me. the game was too short and while I dont mind running dungeons several times, I dont wanna do it every night for months on end just to get all my gear. would prefer less of a grind. until i find a great mmo though, ill stick to world of tanks, at least i get to blow stuff up there.
If you are not aware however goblinworks is making a pathfinder online game. it is my last hope for the mmo genre all together. if it dont deliver then mmos will be dead to me. sounds like personally your just not a themepark type player, maybe you should try some sandbox type games. only problem with that is there is no good sandbox fantasy games, might have to wait till pathfinder comes out.
Guild Wars 2 is the best MMORPG to release since World of Warcraft in 2004(NA Release).
THis is only my opinion but considering i've been mmo gaming since 1997 in UO, most people that know me take my Opinions pretty seriously. im kind of known as grand pa gamer to them lol.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Veteran status is not remarkable around here. My best advice is to avoid leading with Appeal to Authority.
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.
At least not at this time period. It didn't seem to be quite this bad, at the start, years and years ago, before gaming went main stream. Sure, you still had the Goonie types, but not nearly as many entitlement, ignorant, out right barbarians as we see way too many of today. As long as I find games entertaining, and I can play them solo (or with a few people I can stand to deal with), I'll stick around.
It's really funny how everyone who makes posts like that implies that he is an angel in the flesh and - most importantly - he has always been this way.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
Get some online buddies.
Trust me. Game's a #%*&#$ BLAST!
You do know that implications tend to be projections with many people?... You might wish to examine your basic assumptions more carefully in the future.
Don't know about others, but i am indeed angel in flesh..well as long as you don't ruffle my feathers (literally).