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RPG is the reason MMOs are not evolving
Lobotomist
Member EpicPosts: 5,965
Looking back on MMO genre and its recent slump, one has to ask what is the reason MMORPG reached the stuck point it find itself now.
It is easy to blame WOW and Themepark mentality. But where lies the real problem ? In RPG.
The original MMOs like Ultima Online or Everquest were very open. Their only resemblance to traditional RPG games was the character building. It is only when Blizzard decided to improve the formula and bring important part of RPG experience : questing , that MMORPG as we know it now was born.
This RPG formula is improved among with everything else and today we have games like ESO or KOTOR that can stand without shame beside single player RPGs in any way. Or even some that are innovating RPG experience like GW2
And this is the problem. RPG gameplay became the shackles of MMO.
MMO should be massive social experience. A virtual world. But RPG is single or at best small group experience. Completely opposite to what MMO should acomplish.
Only by renouncing RPG will MMO truly soar forward.
And we are begining to see emergence of this "non rpg" games.
Elite, Star Citizen, Minecraft, Survival games ...
New genre is emerging. MMO without RPG , and it was about the damn time.
Comments
The way current MMOs work, i would have to agree even tho i strongly disagree. For now tho, yes you are right.
Everquest was a RPG btw. And you had plenty of story in every dungeon. It was was not in the form of quests. YOu had to open your eyes and look around. Or listen to what mobs said, checked what they did ect. THAT is what i call real RPG. Sadly those days are gone, unless pantheon can do it.
That being said: I don't want MMOs to evolve. I want them to go back to when they used to be fun. Paying 80+ bucks for games a month and still getting less play time then i had with one sub in MMOs before.... damn this got expensive fast.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Most MMOs now are not RPGs. So lets call a spade a spade shall we? Game developers want to get a larger market share with their product so they include an RPG element to suck in more players. If they stopped doing that they'd lose the RPG players so I doubt they will in the future.
For myself I also loved EQ for its RPG elements. I am not someone who enjoys rushing through content or maxing my character in 3 weeks of standard play. Why even have a leveling process at all. Just have a robust character creation system and level through that interface to max. Throw in gear for the class you are playing and go PVP your brains out.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
I see you trollin'... and hatin'.
Well, now they do the RPG part for you with all the relentless quest hubs telling you what to do, rushing you from place to place with the rest of the mob.. In the old games we had a nice framework in order to do that mostly ourselves, and the games were better for it. The high production value of games like GW2 are exactly what kills it for me; it tells your story for you. I have much more fun in big open worlds where I make my own story.
This. Everquest was an RPG done the right way.
Today's themeparks are just glorified single player games with the option to PvP after you complete the content.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
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Been playing MMO'rpg's since they were born and I have hardly ever seen any rpg in any MMO.
Players with names like hdsdfhfujfhgahadi running around or 'GregDk' or 'xxOlegRUSxx' etc etc...RP? Hell no.
And the handful that did RP, it was a scary scene where you doubted whether to call the white coats or not.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I'm starting to think that a lot of folks around here just love to hear themselves speak. First off, what recent MMO slump? Do you mean You are in a slump? I'm playing eso with a whole lotta buncha other players and there's no talks of slumps in game. I think some players mistake the fact that they are not happy with any games out for a problem with the genre as a whole. For every one of the vocal posters on this site, there are 50 people playing games and no coming to forum sites to complain. This site and others like it are the overwhelming minority of gamer opinion, not the other way around. Just because people come here to complain doesn't mean that there's a problem with the genre. The genre is making plenty of money with happy gamers. I'm one of them.
what slump are we talking about here? If you are talking about your own personal disconnection with the current crop of MMOs, then fine.
I see a lot of generalized comments made here. I see billions of dollars invested annually in the development of games that would suggest the perceived notion of a slump, is just that.....a perceived notion.
RPG has as much to do with your perception of the genre as your own personal experiences has to do with the general state of the genre in 2015.
ITs a very personal experience and respectfully, I am not trying to take that away from you. But there are millions of gamers paying billions of dollars that contradict the notion that all games suck because you've played a lot of them.
Unfortunately old school games took only stats from RPG and left everything else behind. Stats do not RPG make.
Modern games tried to mitigate it with quests, but its still very primitive.
But i agree, discard stats (only part of RPG in MMOs) because they are only hindrance and serve no real function except "bigger number for sake of bigger numbers" until tech evolves to sufficient level to actually make mmoRPG.
Those games you mentioned, Elite, Star Citizen and Minecraft all have single player options.
Elite has never been an RPG, it's a space simulator, like it was back in 80's. Star Citizen is also a space sim.
The main problem is people thinking MMOs can only be one type/style of game.
It wasn't Blizzard who bought the type of questing we see in most MMOs today it wasn't SOE and EQ2. People forget it was EQ2 that came out before WOW, it was the first true fully theme park MMO.My concern with some recent mmos; it feels like a single player game based on a storyline. In Crowfall for instance it include the masses with huge scale conquests, alliances, politics, monarchy, medieval destructible castles with Voxel tech. in a fog of War map environment and that's the plan.
The player is the content related to both economy and crafting, strategic wargame based on a monarch governmental fantasy system 'online'. A game of thrones or Throne war with actual consequences in-game, a true PvP game.
well to be fair I think some of the old school table top RPG players can agree that RPG doesnt mean storyline by default. I can mean that but its doesnt have to.
Regardless, I personally loathe story based games. To me it violates what a game is supposed to be in my mind so its refreshing to see some true sandbox approaches being taken finally.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Most MMORPGs are pretty bad at the RPG part. Not all but most. This was not true during the MUD era, many MUDs had some pretty kickass RPG stuff in them. The best Necromancer class I have ever seen was in a MUD. That in includes ALL professional games that have Necromancer class including such luminaries as Diablo 2. Still beat by the Necromancer in GateMUD.
Most MMORPGs are piss poor imitation of ARPGs, which are pretty barebones when it comes to RPG themselves and mostly just a vehicle for power gaming. There are a few notable exceptions.
I pesonally think the RPG parts of Asheron's Call were pretty good. It is interesting to note that AC was in fact vastly more actiony than the other 1st gen games and was skill based. In AC you could actually manually dodge spells. This makes it radically different than EQ of DAOC.
Edit:
I think it is also important to note that games like AC and Neocron basically counter the OPs point pretty soundly. Its probably powergaming (I don't really know this is just a guess) more than anything else that is killing things. Everything is just a shallow ARPG-like powergaming treadmill. This necessarily means they use the same old same old RPG formula.
But right from the beginning there were games like AC and Neocron that had pertty real RPG depth and very real Action aspects as well. Notably both games gave a skill to increase your run speed as an option for RPG investment.
RPG isn't the problem. Too much is put into the never ending chase of graphics. You can never keep up with the bleeding edge and some people constantly complain about stylized graphics. You can't win.
However, how much has gone into adding brand new game mechanics?
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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No damn cut scenes, no drawn out stories...let the players make their own stories/adventures and community in the world.
What you said!
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
We have a million non RPG MMO games now. Hell even the RPG's aren't really RPG's when "buy me now" is constantly popping on your screen and immersion is a concept long since forgotten.
The problem is developers are no longer making believable worlds. They're just making "games."
Preach it! Amen brother! Down with the RPG heretic!!
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes
Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge
Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
MMO is not a genre. It's an adjective.
RPG is a genre. MMO modifies RPG. And the only thing MMO means is massive multiplayer and online.
So MMO means almost nothing by itself.
RPG describes a specific type of gameplay. MMO does not.
This does mean there are a lot of possibilities for the different genres MMO is attached to, but MMO itself means almost nothing and it's always the genre itself that does all of the work.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm sure this is going to go over their heads lol
The problem is not the RPG.. It is the people..Lets look back at MMO
People whine that they wanted to group with their friends. Well the RPG made that happen..
People whine they wanted more benefits while they group.. RPG caved and made that happen.
People whine and wanted PVP and again RPG made that Happen..
People whine and wanted a Chat and again RPG made it happen
Etc,etc,etc,etc,the list goes on..
I do believe the RPG did a lot and cater to a lot of whiners.
There is no formula.. I dont like to PVP, I hate to group with idiots and the Chats are nothing but crap..Give me a MMORPG with out all this crap and cater to my azz...Their i am all done whining...
I retired retroactively..Haha