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Remember when End Game was a bad thing?
khanstruct
Member UncommonPosts: 756
I've been reading posts that talk about how people aren't concerned with the bulk of an MMO, rather, they are only interested in how good the "end game" is. This is incredibly depressing.
When MMOs were originally conceived, the idea of End Game was a bane that developers worked to eliminate. This is what gave rise to increasingly difficult progression, skill-based systems that prevented characters from ever "maxing out", and a whole pile of other features that have been lost in modern MMOs.
If a player reached the end of the game, it meant that they were playing faster than the devs could create content. The whole idea of MMOs were that they were ongoing worlds in which you lived and carried out your adventures. You didn't reach the end, because there wasn't supposed to be one!
MMOs were the only break from the otherwise repetitious gameplay found in other games (enter map, kill everything, get points, rinse, repeat).
I think its time that the online gaming community split into 2 groups; the MMO-Sports, where players simply enter combat and compete with one another, and MMO-Worlds, where players create rich characters and live out exciting lives in an ongoing, interesting world.
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I agree; but I fear we're increasingly in the minority these days.
I completely agree with you word for word. End game wasn't much discussed in the past. However, today, there isn't a day that goes buy without a fierce debate or discussion on the matter.
Just as you mentioned, I believe that our current generation of MMOs is focused on the race to the end. I would much rather see an MMO that embraced the concept of creating uniquely rich characters in a continuously evolving world.
Games Played: World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2 and Star Wars Galaxies.
I dont remember it the same, not sure why, maybe youre older than me?
Anyways i just know i never liked the "grind" for levels, camping the same exact mob killing it repeatedly for hours and weeks and months and years, same boring crap, same mob but hey my xp bar moved.
"End game" doesnt actually come to and end does it? I mean you get new content patches, new expansions, whatever.
What im saying is you dont need to take out exploration and leveling and a world just to have an end game, and end game can be infinite.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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End game shouldnt be at the end, why stick it at the end? why not as you go.
The big raids could be 20 levels apart, full sandbox on crafting, classes will skill trees super deep, stat system and no restriction on what weps classes can use, just so you could make a battle mage and such.
PvP split up into 10 level ranges with exp gain to avoid twinking.
Guild wars and map controll, normal quest based system but with mob spawns like the old school grinders, give the user the option of how to level not force it upon them!
Why its always the old or the new, not the old style we all love with the new eliment added just so the devs can slap a "next Gen" tag on it.
There was and still is no true end game because in reality you never stop at the end of the game. Only time you stop is when you turn off the game.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
They still do exactly this, but now they call it "End Game" which is completely false. They should probably have called it "Slow Game" or "Grind Game" or "Raid Game" or most appropriately "Alternate Progression Game". I guess they were worried that people might forget that it happens at the end rather than the start of the game's progress.
True, but why slap a cap on level and build progression. Yes it so they can "ballence" and slack with content, but lets face it we are playing RPG based games for progression at the end of the day, gear is just the last 10% off this but all we are left with.
See, monstermmo, originally, MMOs weren't supposed to be about the grind. Just like playing old-school PnP games, it was really cool when a stat increased, but that's not what the game was about. On that note, when you talked about your high level characters in a PnP game, the fact that they were high level was impressive itself, and they always had the best stories attached to them.
Now, the issue I have with reaching end game, then all of the content updates is this: You've been playing Game X for a month and you've reached level cap. You finally convince me to check out the game. Then an "expansion" comes out. You have all kinds of new stuff to do... I don't cuz I'm not at "end game" yet so I find it boring and don't play with you. By the time I get to end game, you've already seen and done everything I'm doing, so you find it boring and now I'm playing alone. Eventually, new players are coming in and just say "what's the point" it's an endless game of catch up, when I'd rather just be playing the game to have fun.
Now some may find that the challenging part; to level as quickly as possible so you can brag about it. But you haven't really accomplished anything. That's not challenging, its just time consuming. That's what the grind is all about; repeating actions over and over again to reach some end goal. Then, people complain about the grind! Its ridiculous.
Expansions should grow the game outward, not upward. The world should become larger and deeper for everyone, not just the people who were grinding their way to the finish line.
Yeah. I'd really like to see a theme-parked sandbox. All the features of a theme-park mmorpg also with all the features of a sandbox. Is that not possible? Doesnt seem like it should be very hard.I miss my levels mattering too, but id much rather enjoy the leveling process than not.
Im hopin a game will come out that can balance that out.
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+5 to OP. i fully agree MMOs need to expand horizontally instead of vertically. however for the shake of healthy discussion, I believe the larger populus of MMO players are 1. WoW desensitized, and 2. they mostly refer to level cap. What is there to do at level cap. Which is neither bad or good. Good because MMO were falling into the grind being the game and it is but you have players who say the long grind to cap is training for cap. the bad is the cap has to be raised and the previous statement is void.
developers need to stop looking at the $$$ and start going back to original ideas like back in the day. it wasn't about coping it was about doing something different. we've lost that a long time ago and we all know the problem, money rules the world and since the world shows interest into one game, the entire industry wants to do it to and do it the same as previously cause they fear originality. however it's are fault as the players too, we as players don't stand for unpolished buggy games thus if it isn't something we've seen before and doesn't make u go holy sh*t! this is awesome we all say f*ck this trash and leave the game to die and bad mouth it. Thus making an MMO fail because the larger population doesn't like waiting, everything must be now now now.
Hello
The real question developers need to ask themselves is why the put any effort into anything but the end game. When people are getting to the max level in a game in the matter of weeks or months, is it really worth all of the time, effort or money into producing a game with 50 levels. Players today seem much more interested in gridning gear then in grinding levels. This is not necessarily bad, but the games should be built around it. Coincidently when a game is built around a shallow leveling curve and instanced encounters, something that for all intensive purposes most MMO’s are today, people scream that it is not an MMO.
@ OP
I am not sure that you will ever see games built upon the same ideas that you remember, however there is a possibility that what constitutes most end game at the moment will change. Instead of instanced gear grinds you may see a move towards more exploration and community involvement witch at the heart of it was what made the old MMO’s special.
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for sure, endgame seems to be the primary concern for all gamers now. Thanks to WoW they just rush through the game as fast as possible.
Your first mistake is using the past tense in your title. Present tense is more appropriate.
A long and excruciatingly slow grind is not an improvement over reaching the end and then having nothing to do. Indeed, I'd argue that it's worse. And it's part of the endgame already.
And no, most players are not primarily concerned with the endgame. People who post on forums like this tend to be far more hardcore than most gamers, and more interested in endgame.
I think you may be mixing semantics here, I don't think "End Game" as it is referred to means literally the end of the game.
The problem with the MMORPG formula of it's genesis from traditional MUD and D&D games is that it has evolved to involved "stat" or "attribute" point assignment systems as a means of progression: as you level, your character gains more health and more strength / magic to do more damage, and thereby defines your potency. Monsters previously difficult to you now are easy because you have a larger health pool to mitigate their damage, and in turn you can deal more damage to their static health pool to kill them faster. This determines your feeling of "powerfulness" as a character.
The problem with this is that in a persistent game world, how are you supposed to organise encounters? If you are level 20, are you going to bring a level 4 with you? who is going to contribute limited damage, and soak up more healing resources because they will lose health faster and more likely to die? The answer is: of course, no. And so then breeds this idea of a level cap, where developers can stop you at say level 20, and say that from then on, all progressive content developed will be for level 20's. Because the problem is that without a level cap, the developers will have a hard time developing balanced content for play they could potentially be simultaneously be trying to cater for someone level 256 all the way down to level 97.
This then generate a new problem: if all content is therefore level based, especially "pre-Endgame", then you obviously can't have a level 1 wielding a very powerful weapon obtainable through high level raids, which then will allow them to "1 shot kill" all the lower level mobs and other players. So then you assign item level requirements: "you must be level 20 to use this item".
This then leads to the classification of an "End Game", where almost everything you do up to the point of reaching level 20 is essentially meaningless, and are all just place holders until you get to level 20 when you can start participating in the really cool stuff.
Which then generates another problem, which is that developers put all this effort into creating a "themepark" virtual world which mostly becomes empty and meaningless, and is simply a byproduct of this "grind" to reach the endgame.
At least that is my observation. And my opinion is that the way to solve this is partially through re-implementing sandboxing, but really it will be a lot trickier than that. One thing I have suggested in the past is to do away with leveling. Period. This would work because all players will be level 0. Your character will improve through itemization statistics. There will be no appearance slot. There will be base armour slots, for clothing / armour bought from vendors or drops which have no stats on them. You can buy an armour set which appeals to you aesthetically by virtual of your lore perspective or your personal taste. You will then enhance your character through improving these base items: adding stats to them, dyes, emboiders, gems.
The important improvements of adding stats like health or strength or magic to your items will then boost the overall power of your character. And you get the ability to add stats by town vendors who can increase these stats by using materials you gain from completing content: it can start with adding wolf hide from lower level mobs, to adding infused dragon blood from dungeons.
The balance will come from the fact that a high level group may take you along to a high level dungeon, but that doesn't mean you will get a purple item drop to make you overpowered or up-itemize you quickly, it just means the dragons blood you get will let you add +10 to you stats instead of +2 from the wolf hide. So the high level character will get a strength increase from 200 to 210, and you get a strength increase from 2 to 12. This doesn't mean they are inclined to take you on the next dungeon run, because you are still essentially a useless addition to the group. What this means however, is that a higher level can help you run lower level dungeons, because they still get reagents useful for improving their stats. ** DISCLAIMER: the numbers I've generated are only for arguments sake, obviously real implementation will require some downscaling to prevent geared people from repeatedly steamrolling through easier content just to earn stat points**
In essence this will allow developers to keep creating more difficult content in a more horizontal or "diagonal" fashion, rather than this verticle rise to an "end game".
Yes I remember, unfortunetly it will probably never see a online world again.
Hmm is Lineage 2 like that ?
I dont know, except for a high xp freeshard, I never managed to reach maxlevel in that game.
In a similar sense what it really boils down to for me is that you typically have a mixed group of player types on one world or server that tries too hard to please the wide disparity between game experience desires. Sure, it is easy to say "why not simply seek out another game?" but I think many here would agree that the fundamental differences between most of these offerings is superficial.
Providing content for those who rush to the level cap in 2 days as well as those who want to fully explore that crevice behind the spider cave (and expect to see something there) is problematic at best. There is a mindset that says 'I must max out my potential in order to be worthy/noticed and then my character is ready to meet the world' and those who enjoy living (adventuring) in the created world. Many would say it is the responsibility of the game to provide various avenues for growth but I just don't see them rising to the complexity so many truly want any time soon.
It would be interesting to have a Neverwinter Nights style of game worlds/shards/portals that your character could transfer between where like minded players could form a particular brand of adventure using the network and graphical power of the MMO but again that would come down to the players involved.
It's as easy as making a good chicken marsala jello cake but slightly harder than having Michael Bay create a Twilight movie that still appeals to the same audience.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
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I think one of the OPs points is that the slow grind doesn't have to be excruciating. What if the game was fun enough that the long slow grind was not even noticable? As an example, when I'm playing Fallout 3 (or New Vegas) I couldn't care less about my level. I'm having fun making my way in the world. I'm slowly getting more powerful, but I don't really notice it or care about it. I just want to see what's around the next corner or what I can get away with.
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I do now and have always thought this whole idea of "endgame" is basically bad in a MMO. Go back to one of the original foundation games "EverQuest", it's called ever for a reason, there's not supposed to be a "end". It breaks the basic workings of a MMO to have a "end".
Excellent post, I agree completely! Long live the Worlds! Give me sandbox!
I think I'll just leave this here. I believe it's appropriate.
Or maybe... and this may sound crazy... an MMO where the goal is more than just playing whack-a-mole in order to increase some numerical ePeen in the upper left corner of the screen.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think one of the OPs points is that the slow grind doesn't have to be excruciating. What if the game was fun enough that the long slow grind was not even noticable? As an example, when I'm playing Fallout 3 (or New Vegas) I couldn't care less about my level. I'm having fun making my way in the world. I'm slowly getting more powerful, but I don't really notice it or care about it. I just want to see what's around the next corner or what I can get away with.
Or maybe... and this may sound crazy... an MMO where the goal is more than just playing whack-a-mole in order to increase some numerical ePeen in the upper left corner of the screen.
Shhh. That's crazy talk.
They'll brand you as a heretic and burn you at the stake.
Now go get in line to pay for your unicorn mount and keep your yap shut.
That's because the main thrust of the game wasn't about the "main thrust" of what people were doing. Which was grinding.
The game was about the player interaction. The grinding was just the back drop for the pvp, clan dealings, alliance issues, economy, getting players together to overcome difficult activities, etc.
The "end game" was always present as the "end game" (and I really hate that term and what it has gone to stand for) was what players were doing since lvl 1.
It is a far better game because of it.
For the record I never hit lvl cap either. My character is semi-retired at about a third or os away from 79.
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