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Is today's sentiment of the MMO industry a reflection of contemporary society?
UknownAspect
Member Posts: 277
I beleive so.
We have droves of players, both old and new, who are disatisfied with the current offerings of the MMO industry. And by and large, the biggest complaints boil down to the permeating feeling of isolation, douchebagginess, and lack of creativity.
Every new MMO to come out boasts amazing gameplay, but people are quick to jump out and claim that the gameplay is nothing new, is boring, and lacks immersion. Then that feeling spreads quickly and all of a sudden the community is at arms with one another over who has the righ idea on how to fix the game. Shortly after that, outsiders who ask players how the game is, get an answer like this:
"The game is fun, but the community sucks"
So it becomes the widespread belief and people start dropping like flies until the community is comprised of people willing to tolerate each other to the point of making it a niche game.
This is almost exactly the kind of behavior we are seeing in today's internet age. The internet is no longer a place of solace among the gaming elite. Everyone and their mother has access to the internet, and moreso, access to the podium of expressing their ideas at the same time as refusing to give into someone else's ideas. Disagreement turns into conflict, conflict turns into disillusionment, and we are all left with the same feeling of:
"I like the system, but I hate all these other people, and there is nothing I can do about it."
For gamers, MMOs were a place to find solace from the hatred, conflict, and oppressiveness of the real world. With the increased popularity of MMOs, the real world has seaped into MMOs. There is no longer room for imagination. Room to escape drama, room to free yourself from the pressures of daily life.
If you are waiting for MMOs to become what the once were, don't hold your breath. MMOs exist as social games simply to increase revenue from subs or market purchases. True virtual worlds that you desire will not be found in popular space. A sense of community is lost in mass appeal games. Good luck gamers.
MMOs played: Horizons, Auto Assault, Ryzom, EVE, WAR, WoW, EQ2, LotRO, GW, DAoC, Aion, Requiem, Atlantica, DDO, Allods, Earth Eternal, Fallen Earth, Rift
Willing to try anything new
Comments
And yet enough players pre-order every game that comes out the pipe, giving the developers their money back and then some. Why would they try to create great games when the players won't stay for longer than a month or two anyway?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
There's always been a more intellectual and/or sophisticated group of individuals who lament the 'erosion of society', and really the complaints about the degredation of MMOs isn't all that different.
I think it's moreso a reflection of the Internet becoming more mainstream. When the masses flood their way into anything, it tends to get dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.
hit the nail on the head there..
just visit any kind of mainstream website, and read the comments.. you will see the avg IQ is probably around 70-80
We take and accept what's offered. That's what changes how things are, look at cars, their build quality has dropped over the years and we continue to buy them.
I think this is only part of the problem.
IMO the other part is the level of education that is prevalent in a society. Just so happends that as the internet becomes more prevalent, our quality of education is also decreasing.
My opinion is that as more information becomes readily availablem the greater fear governments have of their population becoming more informed and thus governments fear losing control.
The current shift in the USA, for example, of degrading education and less wealth distribution is a way the powers that be are trying to offset that loss of control.
Remember, if you study history, you will find conspiracies and no one living during that time would have believed that conspiracy was actually happening.
Time will tell.
of course it is.
BUT so are today's mmos.
so we should also ask: is today's lameness of the mmo genre a reflection of contemporary society?
Yes. When MMORPGs transitioned from nerd nightclubs to general populous social events, there was no way they could avoid change. It's not the game itself that makes the game good or bad. It's the people.
This is a great, and I mean it, great post. I've typed this out in a crude form before, but never posted the thread because I was so enraged and baffled my words were all over the place.
"MMOs were escapes from real life, but now real life has entered MMOs"
It explains it all, my friend.
Good luck to us all indeed.
YouTube ALONE will demonstrate that, let alone other game forums, although I do think that guessing at 70-80 on average IQ is being terribly generous.
EDIT: I'm just being snarky. In retrospect, 70 is probably about right. Perhaps they don't teach spelling or logic in schools now. You're not far off with your estimation I bet.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I really think it is. I haven't listened to so little (new) music or watched so little TV in my entire life. It used to bother me how TV I used to watch. It's been that way for me since the early 2000's.
I maintain that too many doctors in the mid to late nineties were doling out way too many SSRI's to people who really just needed to straighten themselves up and actually take their problems head on. It was however, a quick and very lucrative "solution". That's not even getting into the Ritalin that was being dealt out to school kids like it was halloween year round.
I think we have more than a few lightly brain damaged folks running amok in the entertainment industry, daydreaming of the blissful sound of pills tinkering around in a small plastic container
I could be wrong, but I'm usually not
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
You have two solutions:
If you want a "better community", seek it. Find a guild of like-minded players and ignore the others (because they're funding your entertainment.)
If you want a "better community", seek it. Find a shitty game that mainstream players won't like, but the "gaming elite" will. Realize it will be a buggy, under-funded indie project and never amount to more than that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
@OP
According to your sig you haven't tried SWG - best community of any MMO.
A bit off topic. But the average IQ is by definition 100.
Venge
I'll have you know that having a smug sense of self-superiority automatically deducts 30 IQ from all other people you see.
...
.... actually, I think the problem is that peple dont' want to admit that Youtube chatter is representative of 100 IQ, especially when most people (including the people don't want to admit it) test... hey surprise... surprisingly close to that number. 'Those people aren't like ME. Those are... OTHER people... who are much, much less intelligent... not in my league at all...'
I actually did try it briefly, didn't really dig the style. And honestly, the community probably is good, that's what happens when your game isn't mainstream, the only people that are left are the die hard fans of the game. Do you really think they complain all the time if they like playing it?
For thoe that are trying to offer solutions to the problem, it's impossible. Because for each person the solution lies in themselves. The game is what we make of it.
For example, right now I am playing Rift. And I am enjoying it even though it is a carbon copy, point and click, hotkey macrofest of bitchy, whiney, entitled players. I am enjoying it because I'm playing the game at my own pace, immersing myself into the lore, having fun playing with the classes and associating with like-minded people.
These games will always be what you make of it. All I am saying is the landscape has shifted, and it's time gamers recognize this fact. MMOs are not the sanctuary they used to be. Either deal with what you get, or choose to do something else. Because constant bitching and moaning doesn't solve a single problem.
If you want something done right, DO IT YOURSELF.
MMOs played: Horizons, Auto Assault, Ryzom, EVE, WAR, WoW, EQ2, LotRO, GW, DAoC, Aion, Requiem, Atlantica, DDO, Allods, Earth Eternal, Fallen Earth, Rift
Willing to try anything new
Quite astute of you. And I agree. Life is but an endless stream of self justification. I feel smarter than those people, so I MUST be smarter than them. Real insight comes from realizing when you are merely acting like a sheep in the herd.
MMOs played: Horizons, Auto Assault, Ryzom, EVE, WAR, WoW, EQ2, LotRO, GW, DAoC, Aion, Requiem, Atlantica, DDO, Allods, Earth Eternal, Fallen Earth, Rift
Willing to try anything new
The "Pop" culture will always infect everything....look what it did to rock music, punk rock and rap...
but I play Age of Conan and I really don't have that problem. Typically if there is a noob out there that is very immature and doesn't work well with others, every guild will know and most people on the server (Wicanna) will /ignore them. End game brings with it a TON of group oriented stuff from 6 mans to raids so you never feel isolated unless you are farming nodes :P
games like WoW, Rift and other pop MMO's will always be littered with the people you try to escape from when you turn the game on...
Well OK. I was just curious if you had even tried it. I'm not arguing your point about the outside world creeping in to the virtual world. I've accepted that already and actually don't really care since I never used the playing of a MMO as an escape from reality... it has always been just a game to me. The main reasons I like SWG though is for the community, the sandbox style, and all the other things to do besides combat. The crafting is by far the best, most complicated of any MMO. And the creativity available such as with being an Entertainer, writing song/dance routines... or being able to decorate a house/building with any object in the game, which is amazing compared to other MMOs. Those are the things that keep me playing.
So, as you say, it is what you make of it. I do realize that the things I mentioned that I enjoy about the game are not for everyone. I also believe that the complexity of SWG keeps the little ADHD brats to a minimum lol.
This is probably true
However, the IQ test doesn't provide a basis for measuring intelligence of what our species should actually be learning and focusing on. In my opinion
Your right it doesn't. It only measures one aspect of intelligence, not creative, or emotional, bodily, kinesthetic.... So there is an awful lot of debate as to wheter an IQ test is even meaningfull at all.
Especially as more and more research is showing that a persons emotional intelligence (their ability to empathize, understand and communicate with people) is far more indicitive of their success in life.
Interesting isn't it.
Venge