I really feel all the "Your stuff was a grind!" vs. "Your stuff is a quest grind!" is pointless. People are basically arguing tastes at this point. Leave subjective taste out of the equation... what is left? Both are suboptimal solutions.
The solution is not in debating and determining if oldschool or themepark is better or the "way to go".
They aim at different segments anyway. Thus it's back to being a subjective taste issue. An oldschool gamer will not enjoy themeparks and vice versa. Duh.
The real challenge is to find ways to provide 100s of hours of fun without it being too repetitive (thus grindy) - and this applies to killing mobs, doing quests, crafting, whatever... all gameplay. This is the core issue, no matter which audience you are aiming at.
Definitely not an easy problem to solve, meaningful content is expensive. Single player games can get away with much much less content, most only provide 10 to 20 hours of focussed gameplay. In an MMO with staying power you literally need 100s of hours.
It's not a coicidence so many of the smaller (thus content / scope starved due to budget) MMORPGs go for the pvp crowd.
It's a great way to let the players generate their own fresh "content" (always different fights, power struggles between guilds and factions, an evolving meta in terms of specs and group setups, learning how to counter specific opponents, etc.)
In the same vein, there are also non-PvP oriented ways to keep it fresh and fun for longer timeframes (emergent gameplay, more focus on horizontal progression instead of the race to the top - thus keeping content-pieces / zones meaningful for longer periods, sandbox-ish worlds, dynamic worlds, deep player driven economy, etc.) and I really hope we will see games that will be more innovative in that direction and put more emphasis on these things.
Main thing is, we need actual innovation. And with this I mean new ideas, systems and gameplay-styles.
Going back to how it used to be is not innovation and won't get us anywhere really but rather keep us in the timeloop. That can't be the solution.
Just to be clear, this doesn't mean there is no room for games that specifically target the oldschool segment. A totally valid request to want your segment served.
But I truly feel this segment can also be served with games that are not just copies of the old dated systems with some fancy new makeup smeared on top. We can do much better than that nowadays.
Originally posted by Distopia Originally posted by Abuz0rAnd there's plenty of games out there tailored just for you, you're just here again, looking for another one to gobble up. I want a game that can't be gobbled. I want a game to take that true MMORPG slot.People have come up with these pejorative words like "grind" "chore" "mindless". Some of us consider farming monsters in search of extremely rare loot with a slow level progression relaxing and enjoyable. We don't want an "action packed adventure" we want a slow relaxing game to go develop our character a little bit further on. Spending an hour killing goblins that have a rare chance to drop this blue sword we want really bad... it relaxes us.Maybe you hate it, so there's this giant list of wow clone mmo wanna be quest grinders out there to pick from. There's even games that have approached progression from every new conceivable way, with every new way of funding themselves. None of it matters, There's this giant unserved market... The "ORIGINAL" runescape, Lineage, everquest, UO, SWG, ETC players... Will someone PLEASE make a game for us again. Not everyone is going to play it, like I'm never in my life going to play call of duty, but there's a TON of people starving for one of these games.
That isn't one market that's a bunch of different people all wanting different features because all of those games were extremely different with different focuses.
100% correct. You want a brutal grind, that's fine. But as a former swg player, I never did. Besides the village, most grinds were pretty short in swg. And the village broke that game anyway so no thanks.
And there's plenty of games out there tailored just for you, you're just here again, looking for another one to gobble up. I want a game that can't be gobbled. I want a game to take that true MMORPG slot.
People have come up with these pejorative words like "grind" "chore" "mindless". Some of us consider farming monsters in search of extremely rare loot with a slow level progression relaxing and enjoyable. We don't want an "action packed adventure" we want a slow relaxing game to go develop our character a little bit further on. Spending an hour killing goblins that have a rare chance to drop this blue sword we want really bad... it relaxes us.
Maybe you hate it, so there's this giant list of wow clone mmo wanna be quest grinders out there to pick from. There's even games that have approached progression from every new conceivable way, with every new way of funding themselves.
None of it matters, There's this giant unserved market... The "ORIGINAL" runescape, Lineage, everquest, UO, SWG, ETC players... Will someone PLEASE make a game for us again. Not everyone is going to play it, like I'm never in my life going to play call of duty, but there's a TON of people starving for one of these games.
That isn't one market that's a bunch of different people all wanting different features because all of those games were extremely different with different focuses.
They all progressed slowly and had no end in sight, that's the common characteristic they had that today's games are ALL missing. Every game today has a start and a finish, and the finish line is achievable to anyone who seeks it.
Op wants something new that lasts forever. But in a few years it will be something old that lasts forever, just like the old MMOs that are still around today. But that's not good enough so even if you got exactly what you wanted today, five years from now you'll be wanting another new forever game.
It took me almost 12 years to reach max level in Asheron's Call. I miss that. I think it would take the average gamer, even a hardcore one, about a year to hit max level in AC. I know not many want that but damn, to me, this was amazing and gave me ultimate incentive to keep going. For someone whose always been about the Journey rather then the destination (like I think most RPG purists are) long leveling times and intense grinding to progress is what has been missing from MMO's. Well that and open world, non-linear, seamless worlds.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
And there's plenty of games out there tailored just for you, you're just here again, looking for another one to gobble up. I want a game that can't be gobbled. I want a game to take that true MMORPG slot.
People have come up with these pejorative words like "grind" "chore" "mindless". Some of us consider farming monsters in search of extremely rare loot with a slow level progression relaxing and enjoyable. We don't want an "action packed adventure" we want a slow relaxing game to go develop our character a little bit further on. Spending an hour killing goblins that have a rare chance to drop this blue sword we want really bad... it relaxes us.
Maybe you hate it, so there's this giant list of wow clone mmo wanna be quest grinders out there to pick from. There's even games that have approached progression from every new conceivable way, with every new way of funding themselves.
None of it matters, There's this giant unserved market... The "ORIGINAL" runescape, Lineage, everquest, UO, SWG, ETC players... Will someone PLEASE make a game for us again. Not everyone is going to play it, like I'm never in my life going to play call of duty, but there's a TON of people starving for one of these games.
That isn't one market that's a bunch of different people all wanting different features because all of those games were extremely different with different focuses.
They all progressed slowly and had no end in sight, that's the common characteristic they had that today's games are ALL missing. Every game today has a start and a finish, and the finish line is achievable to anyone who seeks it.
I wouldn't call SWG a game of slow progression, it was actually rather quick, minus the Jedi grind. I could get a full combat build in a week give or take a day or two. That's not slow progression. The key to SWG was in it's social functions that added worth to communal play.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Op wants something new that lasts forever. But in a few years it will be something old that lasts forever, just like the old MMOs that are still around today. But that's not good enough so even if you got exactly what you wanted today, five years from now you'll be wanting another new forever game.
If a game could keep me entertained 5 years, that would be terriffic. I think the average right now is about 4 months. I stop playing the average quest tour at about level 18-20 when I realize I just need to autopath and click rocks for x more weeks and I'll be all finished up. Additionally, I can see all the people who zerged to max level (sometimes in about 72 hours) complaining about the end game content.
So I'm thinking to myself, when I finish autopathing all these quests and slaying all these fig newtons, I'm going to be "maxed out" and my goal will then be to switch from a leveling and development process to a grouping and gearing process. If I wanted a grouping and gearing game I'd go play Planetside.
If a publisher has a game that keeps it's player base entertained for 5 years, that's saying a LOT, we haven't seen a game like that...... since about 2003........... The reason being is because every game has been more focused on emulating or developing on the success of WoW and failing, rather than making a game for the traditional MMORPG player market. In fact, the WoW market and success was so big, that developers mistakenly identified it as some sort of "new mmorpg player market".
There's hundreds of games targeting those people, and every new game, every new kickstarter is trying to get a few more of those people to drop out and come play their game... However, come next WoW patch, they'll be right back in WoW.
For me personally, the reason I don't like WoW, is that it gives me a false sense of character development, I spend an amazingly long amount of time developing and building my character, and that part feels great. You run dungeons with friends over and over and farm for gear, which I like. What kills it..... that new patch... where they scale everything. They go out of their way to reset the game for you and put everyone back on the same level. At level 61, when those greens from hellfire were better than your NAXX raiding gear, it nullified every second I had spent playing the endgame content, and sucked the life out of the game for me. I had lost months of my life with nothing to show for it except some useless gear in my bank that I couldn't convince myself to delete.
This is perfectly OK for some people, and they're playing WoW right now. For a lot of people though it is heart breaking. The entire concept of 'endgame' is doomed as either a waste of time, or the end of the game I realized. If vanilla wow had been 300 levels with all these dungeons and difficulty levels in between, I'd probably still be playing it, maybe I'd only be level 110 and there's some guy that's at 279 right now... That's ok.
This concept of.... race to the end, then play 'endgame content'.. that's not for a lot of us. Every game uses that as it's schematic now. "We've got over 60 levels of action packed experience for you" Immediately tells me there's already some level 60 people who quit the game and are back on WoW already.
Anyway, I don't hate those games, and I don't want you not to play them, they're just not for me or people like me. Believe it or not, there's a lot of people like me, and basically 0 games for people like me since WoW came out. All of these (or maybe just 1 of these) desperate and failing MMORPG publishers needs to just for once make a game that targets the pre-WOW mmorpg audience. I don't want an everquest clone, or a lineage clone... I want a new game that follows the same schematic of an endless character development.
Op wants something new that lasts forever. But in a few years it will be something old that lasts forever, just like the old MMOs that are still around today. But that's not good enough so even if you got exactly what you wanted today, five years from now you'll be wanting another new forever game.
If a game could keep me entertained 5 years, that would be terriffic. I think the average right now is about 4 months. I stop playing the average quest tour at about level 18-20 when I realize I just need to autopath and click rocks for x more weeks and I'll be all finished up. Additionally, I can see all the people who zerged to max level (sometimes in about 72 hours) complaining about the end game content.
So I'm thinking to myself, when I finish autopathing all these quests and slaying all these fig newtons, I'm going to be "maxed out" and my goal will then be to switch from a leveling and development process to a grouping and gearing process. If I wanted a grouping and gearing game I'd go play Planetside.
If a publisher has a game that keeps it's player base entertained for 5 years, that's saying a LOT, we haven't seen a game like that...... since about 2003........... The reason being is because every game has been more focused on emulating or developing on the success of WoW and failing, rather than making a game for the traditional MMORPG player market. In fact, the WoW market and success was so big, that developers mistakenly identified it as some sort of "new mmorpg player market".
There's hundreds of games targeting those people, and every new game, every new kickstarter is trying to get a few more of those people to drop out and come play their game... However, come next WoW patch, they'll be right back in WoW.
For me personally, the reason I don't like WoW, is that it gives me a false sense of character development, I spend an amazingly long amount of time developing and building my character, and that part feels great. You run dungeons with friends over and over and farm for gear, which I like. What kills it..... that new patch... where they scale everything. They go out of their way to reset the game for you and put everyone back on the same level. At level 61, when those greens from hellfire were better than your NAXX raiding gear, it nullified every second I had spent playing the endgame content, and sucked the life out of the game for me. I had lost months of my life with nothing to show for it except some useless gear in my bank that I couldn't convince myself to delete.
This is perfectly OK for some people, and they're playing WoW right now. For a lot of people though it is heart breaking. The entire concept of 'endgame' is doomed as either a waste of time, or the end of the game I realized. If vanilla wow had been 300 levels with all these dungeons and difficulty levels in between, I'd probably still be playing it, maybe I'd only be level 110 and there's some guy that's at 279 right now... That's ok.
This concept of.... race to the end, then play 'endgame content'.. that's not for a lot of us. Every game uses that as it's schematic now. "We've got over 60 levels of action packed experience for you" Immediately tells me there's already some level 60 people who quit the game and are back on WoW already.
Anyway, I don't hate those games, and I don't want you not to play them, they're just not for me or people like me. Believe it or not, there's a lot of people like me, and basically 0 games for people like me since WoW came out. All of these (or maybe just 1 of these) desperate and failing MMORPG publishers needs to just for once make a game that targets the pre-WOW mmorpg audience. I don't want an everquest clone, or a lineage clone... I want a new game that follows the same schematic of an endless character development.
Thanks
WoW you just realized how ALL MMOs are pointless.
What exactly do you have to show from < insert MMO you played for 5 years>
not even a t-shirt, you just lost 5 years of your life
and, you do realize that what you want is UNSUSTAINABLE in the long run.
MMOs (yeah, even old school ones) implemented "catch up" mechanisms, not because of someones whim, but out of NECESSITY. Go play L2 today for instance, or any "old school" game that has more than handful of players.
All of the dick swinging arguments aside. MMO's were originally made to be fun games that the devs wanted to play, as well as the playerbase. They were passion projects that people put all of their ideas and hearts into. Like UO, EQ1, AC, DAoC, and even WoW in the beginning.
You could see their passion in little parts of each game. Like EQ1's silly quests, you had to read and respond, that took me all over the world and busted my ass for a sword that I thought was incredible but actually sucked ass. Or the actual sea travel while fishing, or exploring an island the ship stops at to instantly get eaten by Cyclopes. Or drinking so much mead that it becomes impossible to move or talk and you fall into water and drown.
Now those tiny things that made the game fun and funny to play are gone. MMO's are stripped down to a few basic core features, combat (PvE), combat (PvP), and crafting. And then there is a awful quest grind to link each of them together. You go from hub to hub to hub to hub, etc, etc. Doing mindless grindy tasks for people you won't even remember 5 minutes later. And if you get bored of it there is nothing else to do. And that is if the game is even remotely finished at launch.
I wouldn't mind playing current generation mmo's if they weren't so fuckin boring. Archeage had me pretty interested, but then Trion shit all over me during their "hey look, we are banning people" phase.
Give me a game with EQ1's alcohol tolerance mechanics and I will be a happy camper. I would play EQ1 but SOE.. I mean Daybreak ruined it long long ago.
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.
Good old FFXI days, spend weeks sometimes months level to get to 75 depending on how you did only to be greeted by the lovely merit system which had you busy for another few weeks to get those done depending on your job. Oh and good luck on anyone inviting you to endgame linkshells if you didn't have your merits done or at least one mage class up and merited as well. Also when group content was spanned out with 3 real life day cooldowns that could usually only be done with a group of 18. DKP systems! "MF'er! you're on doing exp and skipping events?!?! -50 dkp!"
This is one of the reasons I like ESO. You can't level to VR14 in 2 hours like most MMOs. In fact it reminds me alot of DAoC. You would go from 1-40, then the dreaded 40-50 levels and that one week you spent killing thousands of mobs to get from 49-50. ESO is kind of the same way. You get to 50, then the VR ranks go by so slowly. I love it so much I did it 5 times
I do miss the old days of MMOs where you could sink your teeth into a game abd play it for years. I also miss that feeling of community where you really got to know your friends and guildmates. Folks were in it for the long haul. Ascheron's Call was my game of choice and remains my favorite game. Never was tempted to play EQ because frankly some of the things I heard scared me away. Losing a level if you died or brutal corpse runs? No thanks, not my cup of tea. I stopped playing EQ2 right after launch for the exact reasons I didn't touch EQ. Group died, had several unsuccessful corpse recovery attempts, it was going on 2am and I had to work the next day. Terrible experince for me. I eventually returned when they added more solo content and took some sting out of the game. I'm far from being an ADD kid but some of the older MMOs had some very undesirable elements to them. At least for me.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Not even sure if a hardcore game is what players really want. I spent some time in ArcheAge and can tell you that the grind didn't appeal to many players including some nostalgic EQ players. Of course AA had numerous other problems but recall spending hours grinding for the Hasla weapons. While grind doesn't bother me that much, it sure bothered other folks. Would people be amenable to grinding fairies in EQ for 6 weeks now? I don't think so. Tastes do evolve.
On the other hand, I'm playing WoW again for the 3rd time. A previous poster is right. There is huge impatience if a dungeon run takes a few minutes extra. Woe to a person like me if it is their first time and they watch a cinematic. I'm having a blast but it is such a solitary experience. It is also a lightening fast experence. I started afresh on a new server and after 4? months have several level 100s and others high level. Suppose I need to find a good RP guild at some point to find other immersive elements to the game.
I do miss the old days of MMOs where you could sink your teeth into a game abd play it for years. I also miss that feeling of community where you really got to know your friends and guildmates. Folks were in it for the long haul. Ascheron's Call was my game of choice and remains my favorite game. Never was tempted to play EQ because frankly some of the things I heard scared me away. Losing a level if you died or brutal corpse runs? No thanks, not my cup of tea. I stopped playing EQ2 right after launch for the exact reasons I didn't touch EQ. Group died, had several unsuccessful corpse recovery attempts, it was going on 2am and I had to work the next day. Terrible experince for me. I eventually returned when they added more solo content and took some sting out of the game. I'm far from being an ADD kid but some of the older MMOs had some very undesirable elements to them. At least for me.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Not even sure if a hardcore game is what players really want. I spent some time in ArcheAge and can tell you that the grind didn't appeal to many players including some nostalgic EQ players. Of course AA had numerous other problems but recall spending hours grinding for the Hasla weapons. While grind doesn't bother me that much, it sure bothered other folks. Would people be amenable to grinding fairies in EQ for 6 weeks now? I don't think so. Tastes do evolve.
On the other hand, I'm playing WoW again for the 3rd time. A previous poster is right. There is huge impatience if a dungeon run takes a few minutes extra. Woe to a person like me if it is their first time and they watch a cinematic. I'm having a blast but it is such a solitary experience. It is also a lightening fast experence. I started afresh on a new server and after 4? months have several level 100s and others high level. Suppose I need to find a good RP guild at some point to find other immersive elements to the game.
I agree with pretty much everything posted here.. There used to be a time when people didn't fly through levels faster then politician spends tax dollars.. If you looted something good, it stayed with you for levels, which also meant weeks.. I remember crafting my own reinforced leather (which was an upgrade) and it lasting for months.. Hell, why even bother crafting anything today, because tomorrow you will out level it..
Then you look at how one experiences a zone.. The zones used to be fun and exciting.. You had the option to either GO FIND the action, or set up and camp.. Some mobs were static, however most of the mobs were roaming the zone.. To me this made things more dynamic.. It's why I loved EQ, and vanilla WoW.. Always had to watch out for Stitches.. lol or that damn Fel Reaver, just like the EQ Sand Giants.. Zones need to have surprises or the unexpected, it's what keeps you on your toes..
As for the dungeon thing.. OMG.. same thing there about how fast people consume the content.. GO GO GO.. and if you take more then 1 try and 15 minutes to clear a dungeon, the insults started to fly.. Heaven forbid you actually had to go AFK to answer the phone.. LOL
- Few grind spots means there's always a group (or more groups) there - you played with people from the moment you got to the spot; you could play for as much as you wanted to; if someone left, there was always a replacement
- Everyone was nice - this was a must, as you needed the others for grouping, leveling in a spot took weeks, likely to meet the same people for days in a row
-In the games I've played, a small difference in levels was not a 300% difference in power, like it is now, so if you were a few levels behind you could still be useful
- Good gear was rare, so when you got something, it was an achievement.
For me it's simple - too much options and too much gear made the above obsolete, while opening other paths.
I do remember and some things I miss while others not so much.
The actual use of running dungeons before max level is one thing I miss, you actually needed the gear which lasted a long time and you got plenty more XP for itthan just grinding (or questing for the few quests that games like M59 had).
Then other things were not so great, standing 8 hours spawn camping sucked, you were there with a bunch of other so it wasn't hard but it was a easy and fast way to level up.
Leveling was actually too slow in the first few MMOs so they speeded it up but the problem is that they didn't stop when they should have (somewhere in the middle between DaoC and vanilla Wow). It shouldn't take a year of hard work to get a max level character but neither should it take a few weeks of easy casual playing with zero risk.
Why does things always go from one extrem to the the other? And the annoying thing is that all western MMOs being made tend to take the same time (as it was in the early days as well).
My problem with modern MMOs is that 95% is made for the exact same group of players while the last 5% is made for the super hardcore FFA full loot PvP players but there is actually a pretty large group wanting something in between. Sure, the super casuaql players are several times larger but when every game goes for them most get slimmer picking then one aiming for the in between would get.
It did last a long time for leveling but now leveling doesn't take a long time. The first character to hit cap in Everquest took 9 months. How long would it take someone to reach cap with a brand new character in wow?
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."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I don't think things have really changed that much. I remember dancer exploit in SWG, a macro that allowed players to level to max in about an hour. I remember players racing to level to max spending lots of hours on their computer playing the game without break. I remember thousands of players being banned for using L2 walker cause they set it to relog if they went offline, the company had to take the servers down for some reason and saw thousands of players repeatedly trying to login, so they determined it was a bot and banned them. So even back then there were gold farmers, bots, exploits, players addicted to MMO's, players racing to mac level.
Today I hear of players saying they want to take their time to enjoy content and not rush through. And players sticking with their games from start or until their game is closed. As to what the majority of players are doing or have done must be pretty subjective as how can anyone really know without a complete set of hard numbers and not just limited counts from companies that pick and choose which games they compare.
Maybe one day 20 years from now players will be talking about how great we have it now.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I think the keyword in the title of this thread is 'seemed'.
I played AC in 1999, my first MMO, and I was instantly hooked.
"What!? A huge, interactive game world filled with other real people?! A story that involves the players and continues to evolve through monthly updates?! An enormous landmass to explore (and die in repeatedly)? A deep character development system?! Take all of my money now!"
I was transfixed, hypnotized you might say. No matter how far I ran there was always more. No matter what I did there was always something more to do. It was like everything I wanted from Final Fantasy or Diablo but it kept on going. No end boss, no final level. Best of all, I can do all those things with real friends from all over the world.
And then I grew up, rather suddenly, and was unable to play AC again for many years. When I was finally in a position financially and socially to put time into video games again I went back to Asheron's Call with vigor and intention. I wanted to see all this world had to offer, I wanted to develop a masterful character, I wanted to leave a mark on this virtual world. But somehow the mystique had worn off. I accomplished the things I set out to, but the more I did, the more I realized it was all the same. Been to the end of one dungeon, been to the end of them all. It became a chain of rushed accomplishments for the sake of the next accomplishment.
Still, there was no beating that first time feeling and i kept looking for it in other MMOs to no avail. This taught me that I wasn't looking for a game to play, no extent of pattern-mastery or challenges bested would give me what I wanted. What I was looking for was an immersive world that I could get lost in, a surrogate life as it were. For me, that's why AC seemed to go on forever; I was trying to replace my real life with an illusion. Put enough time into any game; oldschool, new, sandbox, or themepark; and you will find the limits that you've convinced yourself aren't there. But surrogate worlds never go on forever, there just aren't enough dev hours in any studio or GBs on a HDD.
I think the keyword in the title of this thread is 'seemed'.
I played AC in 1999, my first MMO, and I was instantly hooked.
"What!? A huge, interactive game world filled with other real people?! A story that involves the players and continues to evolve through monthly updates?! An enormous landmass to explore (and die in repeatedly)? A deep character development system?! Take all of my money now!"
I was transfixed, hypnotized you might say. No matter how far I ran there was always more. No matter what I did there was always something more to do. It was like everything I wanted from Final Fantasy or Diablo but it kept on going. No end boss, no final level. Best of all, I can do all those things with real friends from all over the world.
And then I grew up, rather suddenly, and was unable to play AC again for many years. When I was finally in a position financially and socially to put time into video games again I went back to Asheron's Call with vigor and intention. I wanted to see all this world had to offer, I wanted to develop a masterful character, I wanted to leave a mark on this virtual world. But somehow the mystique had worn off. I accomplished the things I set out to, but the more I did, the more I realized it was all the same. Been to the end of one dungeon, been to the end of them all. It became a chain of rushed accomplishments for the sake of the next accomplishment.
Still, there was no beating that first time feeling and i kept looking for it in other MMOs to no avail. This taught me that I wasn't looking for a game to play, no extent of pattern-mastery or challenges bested would give me what I wanted. What I was looking for was an immersive world that I could get lost in, a surrogate life as it were. For me, that's why AC seemed to go on forever; I was trying to replace my real life with an illusion. Put enough time into any game; oldschool, new, sandbox, or themepark; and you will find the limits that you've convinced yourself aren't there. But surrogate worlds never go on forever, there just aren't enough dev hours in any studio or GBs on a HDD.
I think the keyword in the title of this thread is 'seemed'.
I played AC in 1999, my first MMO, and I was instantly hooked.
"What!? A huge, interactive game world filled with other real people?! A story that involves the players and continues to evolve through monthly updates?! An enormous landmass to explore (and die in repeatedly)? A deep character development system?! Take all of my money now!"
I was transfixed, hypnotized you might say. No matter how far I ran there was always more. No matter what I did there was always something more to do. It was like everything I wanted from Final Fantasy or Diablo but it kept on going. No end boss, no final level. Best of all, I can do all those things with real friends from all over the world.
And then I grew up, rather suddenly, and was unable to play AC again for many years. When I was finally in a position financially and socially to put time into video games again I went back to Asheron's Call with vigor and intention. I wanted to see all this world had to offer, I wanted to develop a masterful character, I wanted to leave a mark on this virtual world. But somehow the mystique had worn off. I accomplished the things I set out to, but the more I did, the more I realized it was all the same. Been to the end of one dungeon, been to the end of them all. It became a chain of rushed accomplishments for the sake of the next accomplishment.
Still, there was no beating that first time feeling and i kept looking for it in other MMOs to no avail. This taught me that I wasn't looking for a game to play, no extent of pattern-mastery or challenges bested would give me what I wanted. What I was looking for was an immersive world that I could get lost in, a surrogate life as it were. For me, that's why AC seemed to go on forever; I was trying to replace my real life with an illusion. Put enough time into any game; oldschool, new, sandbox, or themepark; and you will find the limits that you've convinced yourself aren't there. But surrogate worlds never go on forever, there just aren't enough dev hours in any studio or GBs on a HDD.
TL;DR Suspension of disbelief.
You grew up and saw through the illusion. The only way to get ypour "first time" back would be memory erase or something completely new where you could be noob again.
New gameplay was forced on us as gaming companies chased a player base outside of MMO players. First solo gamers, then console gamers, now those who play app games.
So design has changed totally to suit solo easymode gamers.
Comments
Tricky topic.
I really feel all the "Your stuff was a grind!" vs. "Your stuff is a quest grind!" is pointless. People are basically arguing tastes at this point. Leave subjective taste out of the equation... what is left? Both are suboptimal solutions.
The solution is not in debating and determining if oldschool or themepark is better or the "way to go".
They aim at different segments anyway. Thus it's back to being a subjective taste issue. An oldschool gamer will not enjoy themeparks and vice versa. Duh.
The real challenge is to find ways to provide 100s of hours of fun without it being too repetitive (thus grindy) - and this applies to killing mobs, doing quests, crafting, whatever... all gameplay. This is the core issue, no matter which audience you are aiming at.
Definitely not an easy problem to solve, meaningful content is expensive. Single player games can get away with much much less content, most only provide 10 to 20 hours of focussed gameplay. In an MMO with staying power you literally need 100s of hours.
It's not a coicidence so many of the smaller (thus content / scope starved due to budget) MMORPGs go for the pvp crowd.
It's a great way to let the players generate their own fresh "content" (always different fights, power struggles between guilds and factions, an evolving meta in terms of specs and group setups, learning how to counter specific opponents, etc.)
In the same vein, there are also non-PvP oriented ways to keep it fresh and fun for longer timeframes (emergent gameplay, more focus on horizontal progression instead of the race to the top - thus keeping content-pieces / zones meaningful for longer periods, sandbox-ish worlds, dynamic worlds, deep player driven economy, etc.) and I really hope we will see games that will be more innovative in that direction and put more emphasis on these things.
Main thing is, we need actual innovation. And with this I mean new ideas, systems and gameplay-styles.
Going back to how it used to be is not innovation and won't get us anywhere really but rather keep us in the timeloop. That can't be the solution.
Just to be clear, this doesn't mean there is no room for games that specifically target the oldschool segment. A totally valid request to want your segment served.
But I truly feel this segment can also be served with games that are not just copies of the old dated systems with some fancy new makeup smeared on top. We can do much better than that nowadays.
100% correct. You want a brutal grind, that's fine. But as a former swg player, I never did.
Besides the village, most grinds were pretty short in swg.
And the village broke that game anyway so no thanks.
They all progressed slowly and had no end in sight, that's the common characteristic they had that today's games are ALL missing. Every game today has a start and a finish, and the finish line is achievable to anyone who seeks it.
Asheron's Call was unlimited too. I'm sure there have been others from time to time.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Op wants something new that lasts forever. But in a few years it will be something old that lasts forever, just like the old MMOs that are still around today. But that's not good enough so even if you got exactly what you wanted today, five years from now you'll be wanting another new forever game.
It took me almost 12 years to reach max level in Asheron's Call. I miss that. I think it would take the average gamer, even a hardcore one, about a year to hit max level in AC. I know not many want that but damn, to me, this was amazing and gave me ultimate incentive to keep going. For someone whose always been about the Journey rather then the destination (like I think most RPG purists are) long leveling times and intense grinding to progress is what has been missing from MMO's. Well that and open world, non-linear, seamless worlds.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Cap was 126 at launch. about 6 years ago they raised it to 275. Endgame content could be tackled at level 90, but 110 is safer.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
AC wasn't unlimited, but your character kept improving even at the level cap. Effectively unlimited, but still had a cap none the less.
After Hero Levels Asheron's Call 2 effectively had unlimited leveling like AC1 as well.
I wouldn't call SWG a game of slow progression, it was actually rather quick, minus the Jedi grind. I could get a full combat build in a week give or take a day or two. That's not slow progression. The key to SWG was in it's social functions that added worth to communal play.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If a game could keep me entertained 5 years, that would be terriffic. I think the average right now is about 4 months. I stop playing the average quest tour at about level 18-20 when I realize I just need to autopath and click rocks for x more weeks and I'll be all finished up. Additionally, I can see all the people who zerged to max level (sometimes in about 72 hours) complaining about the end game content.
So I'm thinking to myself, when I finish autopathing all these quests and slaying all these fig newtons, I'm going to be "maxed out" and my goal will then be to switch from a leveling and development process to a grouping and gearing process. If I wanted a grouping and gearing game I'd go play Planetside.
If a publisher has a game that keeps it's player base entertained for 5 years, that's saying a LOT, we haven't seen a game like that...... since about 2003........... The reason being is because every game has been more focused on emulating or developing on the success of WoW and failing, rather than making a game for the traditional MMORPG player market. In fact, the WoW market and success was so big, that developers mistakenly identified it as some sort of "new mmorpg player market".
There's hundreds of games targeting those people, and every new game, every new kickstarter is trying to get a few more of those people to drop out and come play their game... However, come next WoW patch, they'll be right back in WoW.
For me personally, the reason I don't like WoW, is that it gives me a false sense of character development, I spend an amazingly long amount of time developing and building my character, and that part feels great. You run dungeons with friends over and over and farm for gear, which I like. What kills it..... that new patch... where they scale everything. They go out of their way to reset the game for you and put everyone back on the same level. At level 61, when those greens from hellfire were better than your NAXX raiding gear, it nullified every second I had spent playing the endgame content, and sucked the life out of the game for me. I had lost months of my life with nothing to show for it except some useless gear in my bank that I couldn't convince myself to delete.
This is perfectly OK for some people, and they're playing WoW right now. For a lot of people though it is heart breaking. The entire concept of 'endgame' is doomed as either a waste of time, or the end of the game I realized. If vanilla wow had been 300 levels with all these dungeons and difficulty levels in between, I'd probably still be playing it, maybe I'd only be level 110 and there's some guy that's at 279 right now... That's ok.
This concept of.... race to the end, then play 'endgame content'.. that's not for a lot of us. Every game uses that as it's schematic now. "We've got over 60 levels of action packed experience for you" Immediately tells me there's already some level 60 people who quit the game and are back on WoW already.
Anyway, I don't hate those games, and I don't want you not to play them, they're just not for me or people like me. Believe it or not, there's a lot of people like me, and basically 0 games for people like me since WoW came out. All of these (or maybe just 1 of these) desperate and failing MMORPG publishers needs to just for once make a game that targets the pre-WOW mmorpg audience. I don't want an everquest clone, or a lineage clone... I want a new game that follows the same schematic of an endless character development.
Thanks
WoW you just realized how ALL MMOs are pointless.
What exactly do you have to show from < insert MMO you played for 5 years>
not even a t-shirt, you just lost 5 years of your life
and, you do realize that what you want is UNSUSTAINABLE in the long run.
MMOs (yeah, even old school ones) implemented "catch up" mechanisms, not because of someones whim, but out of NECESSITY. Go play L2 today for instance, or any "old school" game that has more than handful of players.
All of the dick swinging arguments aside. MMO's were originally made to be fun games that the devs wanted to play, as well as the playerbase. They were passion projects that people put all of their ideas and hearts into. Like UO, EQ1, AC, DAoC, and even WoW in the beginning.
You could see their passion in little parts of each game. Like EQ1's silly quests, you had to read and respond, that took me all over the world and busted my ass for a sword that I thought was incredible but actually sucked ass. Or the actual sea travel while fishing, or exploring an island the ship stops at to instantly get eaten by Cyclopes. Or drinking so much mead that it becomes impossible to move or talk and you fall into water and drown.
Now those tiny things that made the game fun and funny to play are gone. MMO's are stripped down to a few basic core features, combat (PvE), combat (PvP), and crafting. And then there is a awful quest grind to link each of them together. You go from hub to hub to hub to hub, etc, etc. Doing mindless grindy tasks for people you won't even remember 5 minutes later. And if you get bored of it there is nothing else to do. And that is if the game is even remotely finished at launch.
I wouldn't mind playing current generation mmo's if they weren't so fuckin boring. Archeage had me pretty interested, but then Trion shit all over me during their "hey look, we are banning people" phase.
Give me a game with EQ1's alcohol tolerance mechanics and I will be a happy camper. I would play EQ1 but SOE.. I mean Daybreak ruined it long long ago.
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.
I do miss the old days of MMOs where you could sink your teeth into a game abd play it for years. I also miss that feeling of community where you really got to know your friends and guildmates. Folks were in it for the long haul. Ascheron's Call was my game of choice and remains my favorite game. Never was tempted to play EQ because frankly some of the things I heard scared me away. Losing a level if you died or brutal corpse runs? No thanks, not my cup of tea. I stopped playing EQ2 right after launch for the exact reasons I didn't touch EQ. Group died, had several unsuccessful corpse recovery attempts, it was going on 2am and I had to work the next day. Terrible experince for me. I eventually returned when they added more solo content and took some sting out of the game. I'm far from being an ADD kid but some of the older MMOs had some very undesirable elements to them. At least for me.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Not even sure if a hardcore game is what players really want. I spent some time in ArcheAge and can tell you that the grind didn't appeal to many players including some nostalgic EQ players. Of course AA had numerous other problems but recall spending hours grinding for the Hasla weapons. While grind doesn't bother me that much, it sure bothered other folks. Would people be amenable to grinding fairies in EQ for 6 weeks now? I don't think so. Tastes do evolve.
On the other hand, I'm playing WoW again for the 3rd time. A previous poster is right. There is huge impatience if a dungeon run takes a few minutes extra. Woe to a person like me if it is their first time and they watch a cinematic. I'm having a blast but it is such a solitary experience. It is also a lightening fast experence. I started afresh on a new server and after 4? months have several level 100s and others high level. Suppose I need to find a good RP guild at some point to find other immersive elements to the game.
I agree with pretty much everything posted here.. There used to be a time when people didn't fly through levels faster then politician spends tax dollars.. If you looted something good, it stayed with you for levels, which also meant weeks.. I remember crafting my own reinforced leather (which was an upgrade) and it lasting for months.. Hell, why even bother crafting anything today, because tomorrow you will out level it..
Then you look at how one experiences a zone.. The zones used to be fun and exciting.. You had the option to either GO FIND the action, or set up and camp.. Some mobs were static, however most of the mobs were roaming the zone.. To me this made things more dynamic.. It's why I loved EQ, and vanilla WoW.. Always had to watch out for Stitches.. lol or that damn Fel Reaver, just like the EQ Sand Giants.. Zones need to have surprises or the unexpected, it's what keeps you on your toes..
As for the dungeon thing.. OMG.. same thing there about how fast people consume the content.. GO GO GO.. and if you take more then 1 try and 15 minutes to clear a dungeon, the insults started to fly.. Heaven forbid you actually had to go AFK to answer the phone.. LOL
This^ If you are looking for longevity then sandbox is the way to go.
- Few grind spots means there's always a group (or more groups) there - you played with people from the moment you got to the spot; you could play for as much as you wanted to; if someone left, there was always a replacement
- Everyone was nice - this was a must, as you needed the others for grouping, leveling in a spot took weeks, likely to meet the same people for days in a row
-In the games I've played, a small difference in levels was not a 300% difference in power, like it is now, so if you were a few levels behind you could still be useful
- Good gear was rare, so when you got something, it was an achievement.
For me it's simple - too much options and too much gear made the above obsolete, while opening other paths.
It did last a long time for leveling but now leveling doesn't take a long time. The first character to hit cap in Everquest took 9 months. How long would it take someone to reach cap with a brand new character in wow?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
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."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I don't think things have really changed that much. I remember dancer exploit in SWG, a macro that allowed players to level to max in about an hour. I remember players racing to level to max spending lots of hours on their computer playing the game without break. I remember thousands of players being banned for using L2 walker cause they set it to relog if they went offline, the company had to take the servers down for some reason and saw thousands of players repeatedly trying to login, so they determined it was a bot and banned them. So even back then there were gold farmers, bots, exploits, players addicted to MMO's, players racing to mac level.
Today I hear of players saying they want to take their time to enjoy content and not rush through. And players sticking with their games from start or until their game is closed. As to what the majority of players are doing or have done must be pretty subjective as how can anyone really know without a complete set of hard numbers and not just limited counts from companies that pick and choose which games they compare.
Maybe one day 20 years from now players will be talking about how great we have it now.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I think the keyword in the title of this thread is 'seemed'.
I played AC in 1999, my first MMO, and I was instantly hooked.
"What!? A huge, interactive game world filled with other real people?! A story that involves the players and continues to evolve through monthly updates?! An enormous landmass to explore (and die in repeatedly)? A deep character development system?! Take all of my money now!"
I was transfixed, hypnotized you might say. No matter how far I ran there was always more. No matter what I did there was always something more to do. It was like everything I wanted from Final Fantasy or Diablo but it kept on going. No end boss, no final level. Best of all, I can do all those things with real friends from all over the world.
And then I grew up, rather suddenly, and was unable to play AC again for many years. When I was finally in a position financially and socially to put time into video games again I went back to Asheron's Call with vigor and intention. I wanted to see all this world had to offer, I wanted to develop a masterful character, I wanted to leave a mark on this virtual world. But somehow the mystique had worn off. I accomplished the things I set out to, but the more I did, the more I realized it was all the same. Been to the end of one dungeon, been to the end of them all. It became a chain of rushed accomplishments for the sake of the next accomplishment.
Still, there was no beating that first time feeling and i kept looking for it in other MMOs to no avail. This taught me that I wasn't looking for a game to play, no extent of pattern-mastery or challenges bested would give me what I wanted. What I was looking for was an immersive world that I could get lost in, a surrogate life as it were. For me, that's why AC seemed to go on forever; I was trying to replace my real life with an illusion. Put enough time into any game; oldschool, new, sandbox, or themepark; and you will find the limits that you've convinced yourself aren't there. But surrogate worlds never go on forever, there just aren't enough dev hours in any studio or GBs on a HDD.
TL;DR Suspension of disbelief.
Yes, it's like, it's completely gone.
You grew up and saw through the illusion. The only way to get ypour "first time" back would be memory erase or something completely new where you could be noob again.
New gameplay was forced on us as gaming companies chased a player base outside of MMO players. First solo gamers, then console gamers, now those who play app games.
So design has changed totally to suit solo easymode gamers.