Ive pretty much sworn off MMOs until Pantheon. They could announce the next open world epic 500 million dollar funded MMO of awesomeness tomorrow and I wouldnt raise an eyebrow (ok maybe one). Because its just going to be another souless gimmick and/or feature filled loot piñata aimed at making those $500 million back asap.
Play destiny.....it's awesome and fulfilled all I was missing from what most mmos couldn't give me nowadays. Plus Destiny 2 is coming out soon, it's going to be on all platforms plus PC, which is what a lot of mmoers Have been waiting for. You won't be sorry. See you in game guardians.
That's what has changed - the players - and MMOs have adapted to cater to their games being played in smaller chunks
This is a Hen or Egg question. What came first ?
Your argumentation states, players changed and therefore mmos changed with them.
You could also say, mmos changed and therefore attracted new kind of players.
There is no doubt WoW brought in a new kind of player to the genre, and that suggests the games changed first. You could claim WoW reacted to a trend and made the game for it; that is not what happened from my observations. But sure enough after WoW there were a new demographic who in numbers were enough to dictate how mmos were made - Why make mmos that pleased a minority when it was so much easier to make for the majority who were 10 times in numbers, and also easier to please. By then, yes the player demographic had changed and therefore also mmos
Which was first ? The hen or the egg ?
That is probably aquestion of when you started to observe and from which background you have.
You know, I finally decided to give LotRO a proper go, and I'm amazed that even now, that game still feels very community focused. I'm making friends and feeling like I'm a part of Middle-earth, and I can't really say the same for my personal bread and butter, WoW. I'm so glad that feeling still exists somewhere.
There are a lot of games that actually have a sense of community -- some easier to get into than others. WoW is probably the only one that doesn't, unless you're a part of a raiding guild in which case all they really care about is numbers (be it item level or dps). The reason being is that WoW just doesn't support the community anymore; they got rid of any meaningful guild progression beyond the raiding carrot on the stick (guild levels don't matter anymore), there are no real systems that encourage groups or communities within the game to interact... No guild housing, no housing, and no real economy -- the best way to make money has been automated follower quests, soloing old raid content and flipping. Etc. Though plenty of games have these -- such as LotRO -- even have systems that specifically encourage player cooperation such as player issues commendations, rewards, guild systems, player systems, player cooperation in nearly all aspects, trading, economies, crafting, etc. The main reason I lift LotRO and FFXIV are because they focus almost entirely on the community aspect in a lot of ways.
You're right. There is certainly a "lack of purpose" in modern MMOs. There is almost no social realm anymore. Devs need to make incentives so that players will actually make use of Taverns, INNs, Cantinas, etc. Social skills and features are a huge welcome...
Social interactivity and players making -- or having the ability to make -- something of their own -- or their guild's own -- is very important, in my opinion. I'd be playing GW2, ESO and Star Wars if they had simple things like sitting in chairs in taverns and the like. Even simple things like that help, but when even that isn't thought of, I have little hope for games in general when it comes to their focus on the community. While a game may have an emote that magically summons a chair to sit under, it kind of ruins the immersion that we can't interact with chairs in the room. It's like: Nope nothing to see year. Go raid or dungeon or something.
MMOs post WoW got too far away from the multiplayer aspects that brought people together in the older MMOs. Soloing to level cap (and quickly) linear designs, cross server groups, the over abundance of instancing and just the general lack of needing other players to do things pretty much sunk most games into feeling like a glorified single player RPG with a chat box.
Fast level and the like is, sadly, ingrained in quite a lot of people. Those who don't like it are in the minority. FFXIV kept on getting hated on due to its relatively slow leveling process / storyline taking its time, etc. People just wanted to get to the end game, to the next expansion, access the advanced level 50 classes right away, etc. It's all "now, now, now" for most. If a game without a strong brand name tried it, it would be doomed to be incredibly niche, sadly.
To me WoW/FFXIV and many others honestly have a lack of purpose. At each of those games core, all you're doing is chasing a gear number to use that number to increase it again. Not to mention that there's always going to be catch up mechanics and at the start of every expansion, that precious score you were chasing ultimately means nothing since everyone is the same at the new cap, only to do the same chase all over again.
I respected systems in games like EQ and FFXI because it was more than just the gear, even though the gear was important, but there were also systems in place that persisted through content, like the AA system in EQ and Merit system (later adding job point system) in FFXI. These systems made it feel like the time you put in was carrying over into new content and yes it did mean that veterans had a slight advantage over newer players until they were able to catch up. All today's content is just throw away content to keep business until the company finds a new way to milk more money (i.e. new expansions or in the case of FFXIV, monthly cash shop updates).
FFXI's merit system was essentially replaced with cross-class skills in that you could have a brand new level 1 pugilist versus a veteran level 1 pugilist and the veteran pugilist would have 2-10 additional abilities while leveling. Though I do think a new merit system of sorts would be interesting; they already have the veteran rewards system, but that's mainly aesthetics. Making a level 1 character look baddass versus the starting clothing.
FFXIV also focuses on a wide variety of things; you don't just have raiding / dungeon endgames, but rather crafting end-games, gathering endgames, side quest endgames, glamour, housing, guilds, etc. With each of those having multiple systems that support it, or outside systems that go back to it in some way. In fact, I have pretty much the worst gear possible on most of my characters and I don't have enough time in the day to do what I want to do. I don't dungeon, I don't do 24 or 8 main raiding, I don't do Primals... I do 50-200 Deep Dungeon statics which randomizes the room each time we play, along with random glamour rewards and decent weapons if you're into that sort of thing. I mainly do the crafting and gathering endgames. Enjoy the sidequests. Etc. But they do quite a bit to support the community, support good play, etc. They're not afraid to jump in and say "be nice to each other" like when they temporarily muted BGs for a time. And they don't typically abandon systems they implement -- even old 2.0 dungeons are frequently used for new rewards, new systems, etc. They create systems that support old systems with new rewards. Then again, I'm in a pretty good FC that absolutely loves all the features we have and community features set in place that help us out and even meet new people.
Their patches usually release a lot of content, story, new items, new mounts, etc. as well. With each holiday have new story in itself and things to do -- rewards to get. Those "monthly" updates usually have things from holidays of the last year that someone might have missed for just playing the game and can pick up so they didn't miss out. Or costumes that popular story characters have; it does not negate the big and frequent updates, and the two years expansion cycle that seems to be on track with Stormblood. Some time ago they said they used all cash shop purchases to support the game itself, and they also sell plush and lore books as well, which always seem to sell out. Though reading what you wrote, it seems like cash shops were a thing they made up out of the blue -- but they're not. They've been around for decades, and most aren't as clean as just releasing past holiday items and a few glamour outfits.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
To me WoW/FFXIV and many others honestly have a lack of purpose. At each of those games core, all you're doing is chasing a gear number to use that number to increase it again. All today's content is just throw away content to keep business until the company finds a new way to milk more money (i.e. new expansions or in the case of FFXIV, monthly cash shop updates).
If your problem is the lack of purpose in the level-gear-and-craft grind, then it won't be fixed just because your success makes you stronger than newbies for longer. There still is no purpose to all that if all you do with your lead is go through a dungeon easier than others. If that is what you wanted, you could play a single player browser game and boast on the leaderboard about your high score.
If you want your *success* in an MMORPG's *challenges* to have purpose for more substantially rewarding experiences than equipping stronger gear, you need to play PVP-oriented games.
Territory control, helping your realm/group members against other thinking enemies, outwitting enemies with large-scale or long-term strategies, letting your game-play reliably affect the community, instead of just the dungeon you are farming through. Those things are where purpose is at. If all your progress does is make you a more fomidable foe to *AI*, programmed to best you until you have progressed to a certain level, you are doing nothing besides follow the developer's instructions. That is not purpose, it is a hamster wheel.
Go PvP with territory control and maybe some sandbox elements. Be part of the development of the game world and community, not the reader of a pre-defined quest.
Modern mmo's lack the social aspect of the pre Wow mmo's. The reason is the devs don't focus on it anymore. Its all about me me me get the best gear or you suck today. If you never played those old mmo's in 2000 you will never know what i'm talking about. Sure some of those games are still around but the mentality of the player today is different then how we played back then.
I went back to ESO recently as I have been jumping between LoTRO and SWTOR since I left WoW in 2015. WoW was my go to since 2006, but they just kept dumbing it down and I just could not play it anymore. Maybe if they had not dumbed it down so much I would still be in it, but I could just not take the "faceroll for the win" mentality that has been adopted. What I miss in MMO's is the group facet and the challenge of actually having to level skills such as weapons. ESO has this to an extent, that is why I jumped back in a couple of months ago and resubbed.
WoW used to have a great system in place in that you actually had to learn how to use something to be effective with it and a person could have a sense of accomplishment of having leveled a weapon up. Same with pretty much everything else in the game, then Activision came along and made them strip all that was good out in the name of getting people in and paying. I will admit, it worked. And it still is working for people that don't care about depth in a game. For me though, I want to be able to do something besides quest and grind 24/7 and then have nothing to show or say about it except that I am at level cap. I actually miss WoW sometimes. Pre-BC (vanilla) it was great, and it was somewhat good up through RoTLK, but after that, it just became way to simplified just because pursuit of the almighty dollar.
I will have to say the aspect that really stands out the most for any game I play is uniqueness. When I first started playing wow, I had not known of forums, twitch, YouTube, gaming advertising websites such as mmorpg.com. I was literally playing a game in which I believed it was just me in a virtual world with many other people at a unique moment in time, with unique things happening to me. That's why I love sandbox and multiplayer still today. Now that twitch, YouTube, websites are out there, they sort of ruin the uniqueness for me in theme park games. I know folks will say, "well that's your fault for watching and reading" to that I will say if it's available, I will watch and read. In a game like wow I won't be subbing because I know what's going on without even playing, I'm not missing out. Now take a game like arma 3, gta v, planetside, even these battle royals type games, at any given moment in time I might be missing out on an epic experience that may never be reproduced yet can be spoken of in gaming history for years ahead.
I dunno....I find myself playing Co-op RPG's with my friends lately and not MMO's, we set up a Conan Exiles server made it PVE turned off most of the survival elements and we have a blast...it's more of a MMO than AoC was in many respects, We are looking forward to the Secret World legends launch and are pretty certain SWTOR is going to end up getting the same treatment. Play with your friends, don't have to deal with toxic tools
Pretty sure that is the future.
I pretty much favor the small dedicated servers as well.
Conan Exiles 7 Days to Die
are two of my favorites.
I like the the fact that you can tailor a server to the play-style of a group of players instead of having to deal with the whining of every snowflake who thinks the game should change to suit them.
Most of these games feel more like MMOs than actual MMOs.
Come try Rift, my friend. It's free to play, so no cost. Log in when you want, join a guild and create new friends. PVP, Raid, even Crafting, it's all there. And at 3am, log out knowing your life is fulfilled again. Then wake at 6am work, and log back in at 5pm, starting it all over again.
That's what has changed - the players - and MMOs have adapted to cater to their games being played in smaller chunks
This is a Hen or Egg question. What came first ?
Your argumentation states, players changed and therefore mmos changed with them.
You could also say, mmos changed and therefore attracted new kind of players.
There is no doubt WoW brought in a new kind of player to the genre, and that suggests the games changed first. You could claim WoW reacted to a trend and made the game for it; that is not what happened from my observations. But sure enough after WoW there were a new demographic who in numbers were enough to dictate how mmos were made - Why make mmos that pleased a minority when it was so much easier to make for the majority who were 10 times in numbers, and also easier to please. By then, yes the player demographic had changed and therefore also mmos
Which was first ? The hen or the egg ?
That is probably aquestion of when you started to observe and from which background you have.
I think it was after vanilla wow that developer's started to realize that devoting 7 days a week to raiding wasn't a good long term idea. To raid in vanilla unless you bought gold from a shady chinese farming site or slept with the guild leader you had to farm the rest of the week to raid one day otherwise you fell behind. Those elemental fires for fire pots and other stuff I no longer remember were needed to advance to end game and stay there otherwise you'd be replaced in your guild by others more than happy to take your place. It was kind of unhealthy and unsustainable so developer's started creating more casual friendly MMO's until we ended up with what we have today.
I just went back to EQ2. And its old school enough to make me happy. I found a great guild and made all kinds of new friends. What made all this happen is the community is now made up of older players in the late 30 or older range and these people love their game no matter what anyone has to say about it. Heck i bought the game at launch way back then. Played it off and on but Wow came out and i went there. All my characters got free lvl 90 boost and free items because my account was so old. Its crazy how many items i got for free including mounts. And it was updated to all but the latest expansion for free. My account is what they call a silver account which they don't do anymore but did for me because the account is from launch of the game.
I find that the larger the game is, the harder is it to feel part of the in-game community. For me the funnest guild experience was in the tiniest of games (MO). Everyone knew eachother and guilds had rivalries that lasted years...i find this almost impossible to replicate in a large community. Cross server and random group ques completly destroy communities even further.
Plenty of that going on in BDO's PvP community, especially among the big guilds, like Man Up, and the people leading them. (It helps that they make fun of each other in Youtube videos too lol)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
You're right. There is certainly a "lack of purpose" in modern MMOs. There is almost no social realm anymore. Devs need to make incentives so that players will actually make use of Taverns, INNs, Cantinas, etc. Social skills and features are a huge welcome, e.g., LoTROs playable instruments, SWG's dancing / musician / image designer type classes, etc.
Shroud of the Avatar was on the right track, but then they went a added player-owned towns after high-level backers started demanding them, realizing how much money they could make exploiting Garriott's name and the nostalgia of their fans.
Now all the whales built their own little gated communities and hide in them to role-play with each other while the rest of the world is a ghost town.
Giving people the ability to install utilities in their houses also discourages social activities. You should not have access to a banker in your house. Get off your ass and go to the fucking bank. Need a new sword? Go to the blacksmith and craft one.
Players kept demanding convenience and when devs started adding them, the social aspect tanked.
It's our own fault. Anyone on these forums using any mechanism in an MMO that discourages socializing has no right to complain about the lack of it in games.
And that is why these crowd funded games will never capture what the old games had. In galaxies, even though you could craft in your home, you could also set up shop in one so before the ability to have stuff delivered to a vendor, people had to go track down your store in BFE. Sometimes you would run into people and just chat, PvP, or go hunting or find yourself doing something unrelated to what you went on your journey for. Some of the NPC cities were dead, but that was because people hung out in the popular cities for various reasons, mostly because they were a main travel hub. Anyone could join a player city or had the potential to run one.
I miss that sometimes; but I doubt it will ever come back in the form we remember.
I miss that sometimes; but I doubt it will ever come back in the form we remember.
You're right, it won't. Too many players are willing to spend money to put on the appearance of accomplishment without actually working for it.
Unfortunatley it's not limited to games. We have a whole new generation who think they should be rewarded for being born and awarded for successfully mastering the act of breathing.
Comments
This is a Hen or Egg question. What came first ?
Your argumentation states, players changed and therefore mmos changed with them.
You could also say, mmos changed and therefore attracted new kind of players.
There is no doubt WoW brought in a new kind of player to the genre, and that suggests the games changed first. You could claim WoW reacted to a trend and made the game for it; that is not what happened from my observations. But sure enough after WoW there were a new demographic who in numbers were enough to dictate how mmos were made - Why make mmos that pleased a minority when it was so much easier to make for the majority who were 10 times in numbers, and also easier to please. By then, yes the player demographic had changed and therefore also mmos
Which was first ? The hen or the egg ?
That is probably aquestion of when you started to observe and from which background you have.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
There are a lot of games that actually have a sense of community -- some easier to get into than others. WoW is probably the only one that doesn't, unless you're a part of a raiding guild in which case all they really care about is numbers (be it item level or dps). The reason being is that WoW just doesn't support the community anymore; they got rid of any meaningful guild progression beyond the raiding carrot on the stick (guild levels don't matter anymore), there are no real systems that encourage groups or communities within the game to interact... No guild housing, no housing, and no real economy -- the best way to make money has been automated follower quests, soloing old raid content and flipping. Etc. Though plenty of games have these -- such as LotRO -- even have systems that specifically encourage player cooperation such as player issues commendations, rewards, guild systems, player systems, player cooperation in nearly all aspects, trading, economies, crafting, etc. The main reason I lift LotRO and FFXIV are because they focus almost entirely on the community aspect in a lot of ways.
Social interactivity and players making -- or having the ability to make -- something of their own -- or their guild's own -- is very important, in my opinion. I'd be playing GW2, ESO and Star Wars if they had simple things like sitting in chairs in taverns and the like. Even simple things like that help, but when even that isn't thought of, I have little hope for games in general when it comes to their focus on the community. While a game may have an emote that magically summons a chair to sit under, it kind of ruins the immersion that we can't interact with chairs in the room. It's like: Nope nothing to see year. Go raid or dungeon or something.
Fast level and the like is, sadly, ingrained in quite a lot of people. Those who don't like it are in the minority. FFXIV kept on getting hated on due to its relatively slow leveling process / storyline taking its time, etc. People just wanted to get to the end game, to the next expansion, access the advanced level 50 classes right away, etc. It's all "now, now, now" for most. If a game without a strong brand name tried it, it would be doomed to be incredibly niche, sadly.
FFXI's merit system was essentially replaced with cross-class skills in that you could have a brand new level 1 pugilist versus a veteran level 1 pugilist and the veteran pugilist would have 2-10 additional abilities while leveling. Though I do think a new merit system of sorts would be interesting; they already have the veteran rewards system, but that's mainly aesthetics. Making a level 1 character look baddass versus the starting clothing.
FFXIV also focuses on a wide variety of things; you don't just have raiding / dungeon endgames, but rather crafting end-games, gathering endgames, side quest endgames, glamour, housing, guilds, etc. With each of those having multiple systems that support it, or outside systems that go back to it in some way. In fact, I have pretty much the worst gear possible on most of my characters and I don't have enough time in the day to do what I want to do. I don't dungeon, I don't do 24 or 8 main raiding, I don't do Primals... I do 50-200 Deep Dungeon statics which randomizes the room each time we play, along with random glamour rewards and decent weapons if you're into that sort of thing. I mainly do the crafting and gathering endgames. Enjoy the sidequests. Etc. But they do quite a bit to support the community, support good play, etc. They're not afraid to jump in and say "be nice to each other" like when they temporarily muted BGs for a time. And they don't typically abandon systems they implement -- even old 2.0 dungeons are frequently used for new rewards, new systems, etc. They create systems that support old systems with new rewards. Then again, I'm in a pretty good FC that absolutely loves all the features we have and community features set in place that help us out and even meet new people.
Their patches usually release a lot of content, story, new items, new mounts, etc. as well. With each holiday have new story in itself and things to do -- rewards to get. Those "monthly" updates usually have things from holidays of the last year that someone might have missed for just playing the game and can pick up so they didn't miss out. Or costumes that popular story characters have; it does not negate the big and frequent updates, and the two years expansion cycle that seems to be on track with Stormblood. Some time ago they said they used all cash shop purchases to support the game itself, and they also sell plush and lore books as well, which always seem to sell out. Though reading what you wrote, it seems like cash shops were a thing they made up out of the blue -- but they're not. They've been around for decades, and most aren't as clean as just releasing past holiday items and a few glamour outfits.
If your problem is the lack of purpose in the level-gear-and-craft grind, then it won't be fixed just because your success makes you stronger than newbies for longer. There still is no purpose to all that if all you do with your lead is go through a dungeon easier than others. If that is what you wanted, you could play a single player browser game and boast on the leaderboard about your high score.
If you want your *success* in an MMORPG's *challenges* to have purpose for more substantially rewarding experiences than equipping stronger gear, you need to play PVP-oriented games.
Territory control, helping your realm/group members against other thinking enemies, outwitting enemies with large-scale or long-term strategies, letting your game-play reliably affect the community, instead of just the dungeon you are farming through. Those things are where purpose is at. If all your progress does is make you a more fomidable foe to *AI*, programmed to best you until you have progressed to a certain level, you are doing nothing besides follow the developer's instructions. That is not purpose, it is a hamster wheel.
Go PvP with territory control and maybe some sandbox elements. Be part of the development of the game world and community, not the reader of a pre-defined quest.
The thing I miss about MMO's? The ones canceled too soon.
WoW used to have a great system in place in that you actually had to learn how to use something to be effective with it and a person could have a sense of accomplishment of having leveled a weapon up. Same with pretty much everything else in the game, then Activision came along and made them strip all that was good out in the name of getting people in and paying. I will admit, it worked. And it still is working for people that don't care about depth in a game. For me though, I want to be able to do something besides quest and grind 24/7 and then have nothing to show or say about it except that I am at level cap. I actually miss WoW sometimes. Pre-BC (vanilla) it was great, and it was somewhat good up through RoTLK, but after that, it just became way to simplified just because pursuit of the almighty dollar.
I pretty much favor the small dedicated servers as well.
Conan Exiles
7 Days to Die
are two of my favorites.
I like the the fact that you can tailor a server to the play-style of a group of players instead of having to deal with the whining of every snowflake who thinks the game should change to suit them.
Most of these games feel more like MMOs than actual MMOs.
~~ postlarval ~~
I think it was after vanilla wow that developer's started to realize that devoting 7 days a week to raiding wasn't a good long term idea. To raid in vanilla unless you bought gold from a shady chinese farming site or slept with the guild leader you had to farm the rest of the week to raid one day otherwise you fell behind. Those elemental fires for fire pots and other stuff I no longer remember were needed to advance to end game and stay there otherwise you'd be replaced in your guild by others more than happy to take your place. It was kind of unhealthy and unsustainable so developer's started creating more casual friendly MMO's until we ended up with what we have today.
I remember EQ2 Starter Island...I played it so many times, just amazing...then WOW...first login and the first few month, just a beautiful experience.
is there anything on the market right now, that gave you guys the same feeling ?
Plenty of that going on in BDO's PvP community, especially among the big guilds, like Man Up, and the people leading them. (It helps that they make fun of each other in Youtube videos too lol)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Haha yep! Spot on
MAGA
And that is why these crowd funded games will never capture what the old games had. In galaxies, even though you could craft in your home, you could also set up shop in one so before the ability to have stuff delivered to a vendor, people had to go track down your store in BFE. Sometimes you would run into people and just chat, PvP, or go hunting or find yourself doing something unrelated to what you went on your journey for. Some of the NPC cities were dead, but that was because people hung out in the popular cities for various reasons, mostly because they were a main travel hub. Anyone could join a player city or had the potential to run one.
I miss that sometimes; but I doubt it will ever come back in the form we remember.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You're right, it won't. Too many players are willing to spend money to put on the appearance of accomplishment without actually working for it.
Unfortunatley it's not limited to games. We have a whole new generation who think they should be rewarded for being born and awarded for successfully mastering the act of breathing.
~~ postlarval ~~