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Longevity is all about community
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
If an mmo is made for years of play, it needs certain criteria. I would love to list them all, I may miss a couple, I could even be wrong on a few.
But one is a given, an absolute and that's COMMUNITY. Some can argue because they don't believe it. Some would argue against it because there solo players and want a solo game.
You may ask why I'm posting this here on the Pantheon Rise of the Fallen forums instead of General Discussion. Well, that's because I believe in this mmo. I lost faith in all else associated with the general MMO market and general posters here on this site. I think the majority are not true mmo players but people looking for free games and others slowly taken over the meaning of what an mmo is....The true mmo player is not gone for good but many are simply gone from this web site. For lack of better words hibernating and disgusted.
Recently I made a post here talking how spectacular Pantheon Rise of the Fallen could be if their promises are true. And I will say this is a fact....Many are looking for an mmorpg. It's been years and we only have the outdated classics. Most are not worth playing anymore because they are that out dated, and sold us out with F2P cash shops......Pentheon actually gets it !.....Brad McQuaid gets it !......The lost players would like to come back !.....Millions of others will follow !
So with all that I would like to talk about COMMUNITY :
Older mmos were great for community. EQ1, EQ2, FF11, Vanilla WoW and several others. Yes there out dated but they had community down path. In fact accidently. Modern tools were not in the games to screw up community. Technology did it !!!!!........." Shit, whats wrong with this guy, technology is always good ". No it isn't.........I'll explain.
Mega Servers - Mirror instanced copies. Antonica 1,2,3,4 The Commonlands 1,2,3,4 is a good example, and yes, Everquest 2 is now a mega server. Guild Wars 2 is a mega server, Final Fantasy 14 is a mega server, and the game that gave Mega Server its name, Elders Scrolls Online. There all Mega Servers.
Well, Mega Servers are killing off community. You do not make friends with players you will never see again.
Looking-for-dungeon tools - "We have cross realm technology " says the developers that are about to destroy the games community ! Do I really need to explain this again? This argument is so old here and it's always a fight between the true mmo players and the gamers that don't care about community. You know what Auto Dungeon Finders are ?....Fast fun, that's all. You do not make friends with players you will never see again.
Story Driven Theme Parks- This is solo stuff !.....Millions of gamers flock in. MMO players too, but given 30 days EVERYONE IS GONE.
a) Story is over, no replay value.
b) No time for community, " gotta get my story done or I don't get my prize "
c) Final Fantasy 14 has over 200 story line quest, ALL DONE SOLO.
Fast Leveling- This is killer !......Did you ever make a friend at level 24 played with him several hours, had a good time. Then sleep late, make a cup of coffee and log in to find him 10 levels ahead all because you slept to 10 am ?.....I have. Now this example is a little far fetched. But everyone is out leveling each other, why bother.
Why fast leveling anyway.......LESS CONTENT, that's why. Developers are getting away with two quest per level.
Free-to-play-cash-shops- No one likes to play seriously with gimped freebies. Free players are not COMMUNITY. This may sound bad but I'll say it anyway. Free players should have a big red banner next to their name plat saying " I don't contribute anything ".....Why are there free players anyway ?.....Marketing !
Dynamic Events- Just go ahead and play GuildWars 2. In the middle of a Dynamic Event ask someone "Hay would you like to be my friend". See what happens........Now I'm being silly 
......But seriously, Dynamic Events are auto friendship. Everyone will play by themselves. Nothing wrong with a few, but very few.
For an mmo to be successful, leave all the above technology out of it. Put technology into game play !!!!!!
For all the people complaining " I can't find anybody ". Developers NEED to give a social panel that works well and encourage players to use it. And for the players. Use the social panel....It's an mmo !
I'll leave you with this :
For anyone that says " Find your self a good guild ".......No......Developers make the COMMUNITY. They can make or break it !
Comments
On the Pub forums here on mmorpg.com there is practically one new post started every day with someone asking whats wrong or stating whats wrong with mmos today.
Some say everyone is burnt out on mmo's
Some say there stronger than ever
Some say the players themself are killing the games
Some ACTUALLY GET IT ( BUT VERY FEW )
Developers are in full control of how a game is played. Players think they are but not. All the refinement tools invented in the last few years such as mega servers, LFD tools, fast leveling, F2P, personal story lines and Dynamic Events are directly controlling the community. This is causing MMO's to be single player games and they only last 30 days !
Without a community, it's just another game. Learn the features, get board and quit.
As I see it, mega servers are good for any zone after the starter zones and before the endgame ones. 2 other people in a zone might be good when you learn to know people but it makes many things unplayable as well.
Just skip the mega servers for cities, noob zones and the high level stuff and things are peachy. And add other things that boost the community, like player or guild owned stores, market stands & taverns for example (preferably none instanced).
A good crafting system where mastercrafters set their mark on the items they made also helps. Not to mentioned gameplay where you actually need to work with other players instead of just running solo.
The community is one of the most important aspects of a MMO, good friends can make a so-so game fun and a bad community can make a good game toxic. It is not the only important thing for longeviety but it certainly help.
wow vanilla was a different beast ,since casters/healer needed to drink for a while after some pulls , and thats when ppl started chatting.
i played games that i dont enjoy it at the time , just because my friends / guild , playing a mmorpg solo even if its a fun game is the most boring thing to do ! , yeah at the beggining , u are discovering the game after that it gets boring , chatting , doing events/dungeons/ is what makes some game FUN
i remember just logging to FFXI just to chat and check AH , and i chatted for hours while LFP in jeuno...even with strangers .
Now we dont have time for that !$!$ anymore , we are in a rush all the time. no time to talk , or be part of the community.
It depends on how you define community, as well. If there is a good general community it makes finding a new guild that much easier. Communities with guilds that are open to taking on and helping out new players will thrive longer, I would imagine.
Where games are just about getting loot, the types of guilds that are "established" tend to be exclusive in their pursuits and the new blood can dry up.
If you think about the early days of WoW and EQ, there were very few choices of games and that bond the players into strong communities. In fact, this may be a reason why WoW has lasted so long, and is gradually fading due to folks finally breaking ties with old friends and guilds to play other games. Once that begins, it's a crapshoot of just bouncing from game to game looking for what you had, and should probably had never left.
I hope this game grasps a lot of players and keeps them, but from recent years it is evident that all games start out huge and then dwindle into a niche game. I'm afraid that the era of huge communities of players and guilds are gone.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
All the features and aspects you listed as "anti-social" didn't make it into MMO standard feature set for nothing, they are there because they proved to be successful and desired, leaving it out means you are cutting yourself off from large playerbase thus there will be no "millions flocking in".
Developers do not make communities, they can't force you to play their way. The only thing that makes players socialize, is players themselves.
There are plenty of great communities in MMOs today. Including MMOs with megaserver technology, LFD tools, fast travel.
Also there's great communities in multiplayer FPS, RTS, MOBA etc games.
Even single player games have great communities online.
Dynamic events are something that should be far more commonplace within open world PvE experiences. They can make the world feel more alive as things are happening, rather than a bunch of mobs sort of standing around waiting to be killed. I've made plenty of friends in GW2 and have found future guildmates running around the world participating in events. GW2 isn't the perfect event system, but it's far better than running from hub to hub completing all of the "!" quests.
Mega servers are also a good thing for mmos. They reduce dead zones, dead servers, etc. It can be somewhat problematic when a game is super popular and you're not running into the same people over and over as recognition can lead to friendships. However, during off-peak hours and when the game declines in the initial population rush, mega servers can prevent issues down the road.
LFG tools are also a good thing for the game. Standing around in a city spamming, LFTank for X dungeon, for hours is never a good thing for a game. It doesn't help build community overall, but it does a really good job of creating add frustration to a game. Having to spam chat to form a group can help forge individual relationships, but that's only relevant to the persons involved and doesn't create community overall.
There is also nothing wrong with having story driven quests. However, they shouldn't dominate the experience. Different people play games for different reasons. MMOs are a sort of crockpot of gaming, as you toss in numerous ingredients from gaming into a single pot and can make for a delicious experience (I probably shouldn't post when I am hungry). There needs to be numerous outlets for "progression" so that you have a better chance at creating a diverse playerbase. The diversity can help lead to better communities.
Couple of points I sort of agree with you.
The fast leveling thing really needs to be rethought. If leveling is going to be so fast, then why even have leveling in the first place? A downleveling system like in GW2 can help alleviate some of the issues with fast leveling, since any zone can be rewarding and present challenges. However, the bigger issue which created the byproduct of fast leveling is focus on endgame. The only reason why anyone rushes through content is to get to the endgame faster. If the leveling process presented numerous challenges and could be as rewarding as "endgame", you would probably have less people rushing through. Many of the old and great mmos weren't so focused on endgame as they were focused on the experience. Those games also had stronger communities.
I will also sort of agree that developers do create the community. The systems they develop and choose to place importance on is reflected in the playerbase. WoW, for example, has always had importance placed on raiding. Raiding is important to the playerbase because the devs have place so much importance on it.
Next, I will tell you to find a good guild. Having a good guild with people who share your interests in the game can enhance your gaming experience greatly. With a good guild, you are less impacted by the strengths and/or failings of the community at large, since you have your own community to focus on.
Finally, I will say that you are responsible for your own experience within any game. A community can only do so much for you, but ultimately, it's your personal decisions within the game that create the experience. You have this laundry list of things that you feel detract from the community experience, but the reality is that many of those systems are here to stay and will only become more prevalent as technology grows. It becomes an adapt or die situation.
Sooner or later will something new come and get more players then any other recent game, it might be Pantheon, Shards or something else. And the releases of new MMOs from the west have gone down lately anyways, we might very well be back to the number of active MMOs to 2004s level in a few years. FunCom isn't the only company who have difficulties and might close down games or even go under.
Most of the MMOs in development are kickstarter games now and I doubt all of them will release, and even if that is the case there were still more games in development 5 years ago then today.
We need some MMOs that stands out and offer something different, Pantheon, Shards and Crowfall are all trying that. Hopefully will at least one of them attract a rather large sum of players.
However, as we all know, Wow hopped onto the scene and they wanted as many folks playing their game as possible, so they took all the criticism's of the genre and moved to alleviate them or correct them in their game to draw as many people to it as possible. Enter the new and current majority of MMO players.
Solo-centric players with god complexes. This is the same group of folks that argue over what an MMO is and what the term stands for. The instant-gratification generation. Hell, the console generation, even though the previous generation started with all of the original consoles. Now it's all about every east egg and carrot on a stick they can get. Better not have anyone get in their way or have to rely on someone to progress, there will be a shit storm with that.
The genre changed and whether you think it's good or bad, there are a couple things you can say that are facts. There are more MMORPG's now than ever before (even though you can argue what that term means for days on end), there are more MMORPG players than ever before and the genre has grown larger than ever before.
Choose your fights. Find a game (which it seems you already have) and try and bring as many folks too it. It might not get the millions but no point arguing on some forum where you'll get flamed forever. The old guard is on the way out and it will be extremely popcorn worthy how the genre continues to change with this demographic. I mean hell, the f2p cash shop model was inducted for these folks and to watch ppl bitch is always hilarious.
I would love to Quote each response, but their all the same, so no need for that.....Very few people get it !
It's like everyone is under a spell for what we had been feed for about five years, Yet EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO CALL HOME.........Please help me to understand why most can't stick to one game ?
The classics had done many things right. The problem is they are old and dated, broken, warn out and played to death. Along with stale run of the mill fetch quest.
" Convenience tools " are the problem. Sounds very nice on paper, but there solo tools, lifeless solo stuff. Even if the player goes above and beyond to force a community, others around you are using the " convenience tools " just because they are there. It would be downright stupid not to take the soft road given by developers. I love community but I'll use the tools also because I have to......Developers indirectly force it because its the easier path.
What many are asking for is beginning to be Same-old, Same-old Auto play. Then complain that nothing new.
Real life
What kind of life would it be if you blink to the mall and the manager has your shopping done for you ?
You still failed to prove a resonable argument how those "convenient tools" are supposedly preventing you from talking to people and socializing.
Megaservers, group finders, dynamic events - they all help to put people together, it is solely their choice whether they want to talk to each other, make friends and socialize after the event is over.
Of course megaservers and such have their advantages too, which game design provides the best game would depend on what kind of game one wants...
I will hope that sooner or later something would come along, but we have been saying that for many years, and it's always the same thing. The flavor of the month is Pantheon, prior to that GW2, and the list continues back until the WoW and EQ days. Nothing has come close since to holding such robust communities.
I love the genre, I always will, but imho one single game will not change much of anything.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
If you're saying that I haven't defeated your argument or proved you wrong or something like then I'm sorry that that came across as my intention in the first place.
Yes, technology affects how we communicate same way as in-game mechanics but that isn't the determining factor. You cannot "design" how will people communicate.
If the technology or in-game tool isn't fitting how people want to communicate/use it, they simply won't use it.
Dungeon finders didn't become popular because devs designed them to be popular but they were considered convenient and useful by players.
There must be a will from player side to do what you want them to do in the first place and current market does not seem to imply there is much demand for interaction OP is asking for...
Devs only follow the players, that is only way to have players play your game and subsequently make profit.
I agree on the rest though, like people enjoy these convenience/modern/whatever features so much that it is "worth it" to have them. All I'm saying is, I think they also affect some aspects of the game negatively (for some people). They are not all good (but probably the good outweighs the bad from the devs' and most players' points of view).
It does not work the other way round tho. People will just leave the game...in fact that is how products fail, lack of demand.
I think you know that it is more of your wishful thinking than anything else ;-)
And I think that eventually will a new game come around that changes everything but waiting for a new Wow, Half-life, Diablo, Heroes of might & magic, Super Mario bros or similar is rather pointless, now and then a game comes around and changes everything for it's genre, I think Minecraft was the last game doing this and eventually will there be a MMORPG doing the same again, of that I am certain.
And genres go up and down, people assume they soon will die but then a game or a few comes out and the genre becomes popular again. Just look on turned based strategy games, 5 years ago many people thought it was the end of it but then first CIV V and after it Age of wonders 3 came out and Steam have loads of games in that genre now.
But that might be 20 years from now, games like that can't come around very often. And trying to figure out how one of those games will be before it is launched is close to impossible.
Until we have to play the cards we are dealt or make our own game if we can find the funds to do so. Pantheon at least have a lot of potential, and so does Shards and Crowfall. I don't think any of them will be a new Wow though but I am happy if just one of them are really fun to play.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.