I was there when EverQuest released. I was there when guilds locked down content, denying anyone access to raid and dungeon loot drops. I was there when the black lists were thrown around against anyone who didn't agree with the establishment. Guild politics and loot whores and raiding elitists. All the same crap that exists today, despite your obvious hatred towards solo content as the root of all evil. It's when people get together with the mob mentality that bad behavior becomes the norm. It's not casuals who create these socio-political dyanamics, it's the hardcores who form their elite guilds wtih their "holier than thou" attitudes that always lead to server strife and creating a bonifide caste system. Games like WoW don't even hold a candle to the crap that went on in EverQuest, crap that was sanctioned by the developers themselves who would be part of the leadership of some of the top guilds, giving out perks and ensuring their dominance. (Fires of Heaven anyone?)
You can thank Blizzard for mainstreaming MMO's with their easy-mode mechanics and mass advertisement. I liked it much better when MMO's were a niche genre.
If that were the case then MMOs would have been extinct years ago. There just aren't enough hardcore players to keep more than one or two games going, and probably not even that. There were just as many asshats back in the niche days, it's only gotten larger as the populations have grown. I don't think the percentages are any worse today than the ever were.
I have to chuckle at seeing this. It's fairly close to my view as well. I'll pass along a brief story that pretty well sums up my most recent experience:
I play a F2P that's fairly popular. I usually play it late at night, and most of my experiences with hit have been good.
I logged in this past Saturday in the middle of the afternoon. Trade chat was polluted with trash talk.
"Stop harassing my friends or I'll report you"... then that person went off on harassing someone else in trade channel who was only trying to sell some gear.
"You GD MF... stay the he** out my area when I'm grinding. You KNOW this is MY grinding spot".
Then in local chat was some Romeo who got ditched by an online GF... "You are my life and love, and blah blah blah" ... "I can't stand feeling this way, it's time for me to take the gun" ... "Oh my darling, my love and my life" ... Well you get the picture.
This was my last straw. I'm sorry, but until I can find a decent community I'm turning chat off.
I learned to turn everything but guild chat off long ago, it's all a bunch of illiterate morons screaming at each other. I just get sick of the kind of idiots that run around in MMOs these days.
I used to spend some time just sitting in public crafting for anyone who came by, free of charge. Usually I'd be chatting with friends in the background and I figured I'd be nice and help lower level characters. However, most people were positively rude, acting like I somehow OWED them anything they wanted, including providing materials they needed free of charge. They'd be positively rude about it and cuss me out when I didn't do what they wanted, when they wanted. Other times, when I was playing and not crafting for people, I'd have people demand I dropped everything I was doing and go help them right now because I owed it to them.
I ended up saying the hell with it, it just isn't worth trying to be nice to these self-important assholes.
I have to chuckle at seeing this. It's fairly close to my view as well. I'll pass along a brief story that pretty well sums up my most recent experience:
I play a F2P that's fairly popular. I usually play it late at night, and most of my experiences with hit have been good.
I logged in this past Saturday in the middle of the afternoon. Trade chat was polluted with trash talk.
"Stop harassing my friends or I'll report you"... then that person went off on harassing someone else in trade channel who was only trying to sell some gear.
"You GD MF... stay the he** out my area when I'm grinding. You KNOW this is MY grinding spot".
Then in local chat was some Romeo who got ditched by an online GF... "You are my life and love, and blah blah blah" ... "I can't stand feeling this way, it's time for me to take the gun" ... "Oh my darling, my love and my life" ... Well you get the picture.
This was my last straw. I'm sorry, but until I can find a decent community I'm turning chat off.
I learned to turn everything but guild chat off long ago, it's all a bunch of illiterate morons screaming at each other. I just get sick of the kind of idiots that run around in MMOs these days.
I used to spend some time just sitting in public crafting for anyone who came by, free of charge. Usually I'd be chatting with friends in the background and I figured I'd be nice and help lower level characters. However, most people were positively rude, acting like I somehow OWED them anything they wanted, including providing materials they needed free of charge. They'd be positively rude about it and cuss me out when I didn't do what they wanted, when they wanted. Other times, when I was playing and not crafting for people, I'd have people demand I dropped everything I was doing and go help them right now because I owed it to them.
I ended up saying the hell with it, it just isn't worth trying to be nice to these self-important assholes.
Yeah I liked helping people too, but when they started to get rude and demanding you get turned off from helping anyone. It just seems nowadays almost everyone has become self-centered, "me me me" ...
I remember the good days of Meridian 59 where I'd stand in the Bar and mend people's items for just the mats or whatever they feel like giving or just using my own, you had a good feeling after helping them. Even though I was apparently undercutting other menders by not requiring as much or any payment for helping (one whisper and saying I'd be sorry If i kept it up... weirdos).
Everquest where social interaction was more common when you were fighting in areas and groups were almost necessary to make it. So many good times grouping with people and joking around, shame to lose half of them and never see them again.
Now it's just solo, solo and general chat trolling.
I think the op must have had some terrible luck in lotro . I've been playing for years now and still have yet to put one person on ignore . Generally speaking I would agree with his sentiment though. The majority of mmo players I've met in other games and immature ,anti-social and just plain stupid . On the flipside I've also met some great people in mmos and theres always the ignore button. I gave up WoW a while back because the community is got so awful but in a way I'm glad its there because it means other less popular games don't have as many players with a bad attitude .
I know this may be an unpopular thing to say but a lot of its down to the way children are brought up these days .I have a friend whos just gone into teaching and she says that the way children act in schools these days is appalling as well so she ism't suprised that it would spill over into mmos . Its all down to a lack of respect ,lack of disapline and a lack of effective punishments to deter them . Also I'm not suprised to see that there also a lack of wanting to do well in these games because the way they are taught in school these days rewards faliure rather than success . Its proberbly why Blizzard have made WoW so easy .A case of the virtual world echoing the values of the real world . With luck things will change here in the UK after the riots we are taking a long hard look at the way children are being brought up . There is an old saying spare the rod spoil the child while I don't agree with corporal punishment I do agree with its sentiments in a broader manner .
Its not all kids though I've been in guilds with children who have been in thier early teens and they've been polite and friendly .But on the flipside I've known adults in these games who really need some help because if they act like they do in games in real life its very difficult to see how they function in society .
Still its the nice normal people that make these games worth playing at the end of the day . In Rift I'm in an American guild playing on an EU server and they are great people. Really enjoy playing with them they are great bunch . I guess its like in life . Like attracts like . I approach people in the game in the same way I would in life . I'm friendly and sociable so I tend to make friends with the same sort of people .
You can thank Blizzard for mainstreaming MMO's with their easy-mode mechanics and mass advertisement. I liked it much better when MMO's were a niche genre.
If that were the case then MMOs would have been extinct years ago. There just aren't enough hardcore players to keep more than one or two games going, and probably not even that. There were just as many asshats back in the niche days, it's only gotten larger as the populations have grown. I don't think the percentages are any worse today than the ever were.
SERIOUSLY beg to differ. Only on servers where PvP was more popular (Which were few in EQ's days) was there near as many as there seems to be today. Hell, I play now in EQ...the server is not near dead, and so far in he near month I have been playing, I only saw 1 whiner. People have given me plat and gear to start, and have shwon me new areas that didn't exist when I played without even asking.
Not saying there weren't any then, but at least even when there were...they got dealt with quick by the COMMUNITY to act right or they got blacklisted and eventually conformed to noy acting like an idiot, or left for another server. Now tons of players egg on ignorant behavior. It's like paying for virtual daycare now.
Most likely the percentage of a$$hats hasn't changed since the UO days, just the population in MMO's has grown. If 1% of players are always sociopaths, then UO at its peak had 2500 bad apples. But 1% of WoW's 10 million players would be 100 000 jerks.
And the obnoxious types usually shine much brighter than a 100 civil players. It just takes 2 or 3 DB's to fill up global chat with drivel for hours on end.
*snip* Another thing definitely is that soloism also made people arrogant. In the past, say in Everquest, you KNEW you were always dependent on others... *snip*
This right here is the backbone of current mmorpg design; studios have their mmorpg design plan and mechanics centered around soloism, personal selfishness, instanced cooperative play and independence as opposed to community cooperativeness and reliance.
Many know that not only hasn't this changed in the last several years, but it's to become more prevalent and will not change with labeled mmorpg's coming out this year or next.
Now that doesn't mean that I wont buy an entertaining game 'labeled' as a mmorpg, but which is clearly a corpg, it just means that I probably wont pay $15/month to play the same exact solo-play or cooperative content repeatedly, for an extended period, at $15/month.
Yeah, I remember one kid we had in our guild on AO who was incredibly demanding and whiny. The game was too hard, it was taking too long, everyone had to drop what they were doing and help him right now! Everyone hated his guts and eventually, he gave up and left the game when everyone wouldn't constantly kiss his ass and give him things.
That's the kind of player that's far too common and I refuse to be around.
people in general have changed in the last 5 or 6 years, we are now even bigger consumer whores than before. greed is common place in society and everyone hates each other..just what the powers that be want.
Thats actually what the morons demonstrating up on Wall Street want you to believe, in all actuallity it is the same now as it ever was. The issue is that MMO's have gone mainstream and there are more gamers trying to play them as a single player game isntead of a massively multiplayer game, all because the developers have created this idiotic themepark experience instead of relying on more traditional sandbox elements that drew the MMO vets to the genre in the first place.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Well, I've read enough, some good much of it not so good.
but I still say that many players are going to want to play the races they want to play. Just because fantasy fiction has it that races don't trust each other doesn't mean that all players are going to want to adopt this idea.
Some players chose specific races to min/max stats nomatter how much they dislike their character's style or look.
Yeah, I remember one kid we had in our guild on AO who was incredibly demanding and whiny. The game was too hard, it was taking too long, everyone had to drop what they were doing and help him right now! Everyone hated his guts and eventually, he gave up and left the game when everyone wouldn't constantly kiss his ass and give him things.
That's the kind of player that's far too common and I refuse to be around.
Yeah I meet those kinds of players as well.
I remember certain player I randomly helped with a quest. Then he added me to friend list and would bug me ALL the time, demanding help whenever I was online , using me as a in-game google, demanding me to come and help him all the time.
I was polite at first trying to learn him how can he could figure out things for himself , but he just refused to and had attitue "come do it for me" or /and "I don't have to learn anything , I will just ask you about totally everything , always".
I am all for helping people , even random ones and I frequently do , but this player was so demanding , like I would be his personal servant and adviser. I just stopped respoding after few days of this
Another similar situation is sometimes in guild , when new player join and shortly after , start to make constant flood of requests and demands. Sure helping fellow guild mate is something I rather enjoy , but some people just join only to leech as much as they can and leave if whole guild not cater to him / her constantly.
I have to say to people who do not like the community of their big games: try smaller MMOs. The smaller a MMO, the more likely it consists of older people who play the game for having fun, not in order to "win" it.
I have sometimes met people like that on Isle of Dawn, the Vanguard trial island.
One particular guy failed to buff the group (he was a shaman, which get great buffs early) and really was awful at playing his class. I didnt minded that too much. People may be new to the genre and in need of learning. Also I had a good solist class (Dread Knight) in full equipment and could have soloed everything if I wanted to. But to my surprise I found out it was an EQ2 vet ... now that really made me wonder about the level of difficulty EQ2 offers in the first place. He was also very demanding "Help me with this, help me with that, NOW" personality, and he ragequit when he found out that, on a trial account, he couldnt play more than the trial island. Err ... ?
Well, I've read enough, some good much of it not so good.
but I still say that many players are going to want to play the races they want to play. Just because fantasy fiction has it that races don't trust each other doesn't mean that all players are going to want to adopt this idea.
Some players chose specific races to min/max stats nomatter how much they dislike their character's style or look.
fixed that for you.
A vast majority, not some.
Hu ?
Not really. For example, I myself always play darkelf whenever I can. Ok, unless I'm bored with darkelf, which has happened more often more recently.
Also, a well designed race system will not give you clear advantages for choosing a race. You will always have a trade of advantages and disadvantages. You will have a D&D Elf who gets +2 Dex, but also -2 Con. Or a D&D Gold Dwarf who gets it the other way around.
An example for a bad advantage of a race would be the AD&D bonus for Elves using Bows. This just made the race superior when ranged and was thus a bad move.
Comments
I was there when EverQuest released. I was there when guilds locked down content, denying anyone access to raid and dungeon loot drops. I was there when the black lists were thrown around against anyone who didn't agree with the establishment. Guild politics and loot whores and raiding elitists. All the same crap that exists today, despite your obvious hatred towards solo content as the root of all evil. It's when people get together with the mob mentality that bad behavior becomes the norm. It's not casuals who create these socio-political dyanamics, it's the hardcores who form their elite guilds wtih their "holier than thou" attitudes that always lead to server strife and creating a bonifide caste system. Games like WoW don't even hold a candle to the crap that went on in EverQuest, crap that was sanctioned by the developers themselves who would be part of the leadership of some of the top guilds, giving out perks and ensuring their dominance. (Fires of Heaven anyone?)
Your assertions are disengenuous at best.
If that were the case then MMOs would have been extinct years ago. There just aren't enough hardcore players to keep more than one or two games going, and probably not even that. There were just as many asshats back in the niche days, it's only gotten larger as the populations have grown. I don't think the percentages are any worse today than the ever were.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I learned to turn everything but guild chat off long ago, it's all a bunch of illiterate morons screaming at each other. I just get sick of the kind of idiots that run around in MMOs these days.
I used to spend some time just sitting in public crafting for anyone who came by, free of charge. Usually I'd be chatting with friends in the background and I figured I'd be nice and help lower level characters. However, most people were positively rude, acting like I somehow OWED them anything they wanted, including providing materials they needed free of charge. They'd be positively rude about it and cuss me out when I didn't do what they wanted, when they wanted. Other times, when I was playing and not crafting for people, I'd have people demand I dropped everything I was doing and go help them right now because I owed it to them.
I ended up saying the hell with it, it just isn't worth trying to be nice to these self-important assholes.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Yeah I liked helping people too, but when they started to get rude and demanding you get turned off from helping anyone. It just seems nowadays almost everyone has become self-centered, "me me me" ...
I remember the good days of Meridian 59 where I'd stand in the Bar and mend people's items for just the mats or whatever they feel like giving or just using my own, you had a good feeling after helping them. Even though I was apparently undercutting other menders by not requiring as much or any payment for helping (one whisper and saying I'd be sorry If i kept it up... weirdos).
Everquest where social interaction was more common when you were fighting in areas and groups were almost necessary to make it. So many good times grouping with people and joking around, shame to lose half of them and never see them again.
Now it's just solo, solo and general chat trolling.
I blame Gen Y!
(*heads back under bridge.)
Seriously though... it's the entitlement generation growing up... or sideways.
I think the op must have had some terrible luck in lotro . I've been playing for years now and still have yet to put one person on ignore . Generally speaking I would agree with his sentiment though. The majority of mmo players I've met in other games and immature ,anti-social and just plain stupid . On the flipside I've also met some great people in mmos and theres always the ignore button. I gave up WoW a while back because the community is got so awful but in a way I'm glad its there because it means other less popular games don't have as many players with a bad attitude .
I know this may be an unpopular thing to say but a lot of its down to the way children are brought up these days .I have a friend whos just gone into teaching and she says that the way children act in schools these days is appalling as well so she ism't suprised that it would spill over into mmos . Its all down to a lack of respect ,lack of disapline and a lack of effective punishments to deter them . Also I'm not suprised to see that there also a lack of wanting to do well in these games because the way they are taught in school these days rewards faliure rather than success . Its proberbly why Blizzard have made WoW so easy .A case of the virtual world echoing the values of the real world . With luck things will change here in the UK after the riots we are taking a long hard look at the way children are being brought up . There is an old saying spare the rod spoil the child while I don't agree with corporal punishment I do agree with its sentiments in a broader manner .
Its not all kids though I've been in guilds with children who have been in thier early teens and they've been polite and friendly .But on the flipside I've known adults in these games who really need some help because if they act like they do in games in real life its very difficult to see how they function in society .
Still its the nice normal people that make these games worth playing at the end of the day . In Rift I'm in an American guild playing on an EU server and they are great people. Really enjoy playing with them they are great bunch . I guess its like in life . Like attracts like . I approach people in the game in the same way I would in life . I'm friendly and sociable so I tend to make friends with the same sort of people .
SERIOUSLY beg to differ. Only on servers where PvP was more popular (Which were few in EQ's days) was there near as many as there seems to be today. Hell, I play now in EQ...the server is not near dead, and so far in he near month I have been playing, I only saw 1 whiner. People have given me plat and gear to start, and have shwon me new areas that didn't exist when I played without even asking.
Not saying there weren't any then, but at least even when there were...they got dealt with quick by the COMMUNITY to act right or they got blacklisted and eventually conformed to noy acting like an idiot, or left for another server. Now tons of players egg on ignorant behavior. It's like paying for virtual daycare now.
Most likely the percentage of a$$hats hasn't changed since the UO days, just the population in MMO's has grown. If 1% of players are always sociopaths, then UO at its peak had 2500 bad apples. But 1% of WoW's 10 million players would be 100 000 jerks.
And the obnoxious types usually shine much brighter than a 100 civil players. It just takes 2 or 3 DB's to fill up global chat with drivel for hours on end.
This right here is the backbone of current mmorpg design; studios have their mmorpg design plan and mechanics centered around soloism, personal selfishness, instanced cooperative play and independence as opposed to community cooperativeness and reliance.
Many know that not only hasn't this changed in the last several years, but it's to become more prevalent and will not change with labeled mmorpg's coming out this year or next.
Now that doesn't mean that I wont buy an entertaining game 'labeled' as a mmorpg, but which is clearly a corpg, it just means that I probably wont pay $15/month to play the same exact solo-play or cooperative content repeatedly, for an extended period, at $15/month.
Yeah, I remember one kid we had in our guild on AO who was incredibly demanding and whiny. The game was too hard, it was taking too long, everyone had to drop what they were doing and help him right now! Everyone hated his guts and eventually, he gave up and left the game when everyone wouldn't constantly kiss his ass and give him things.
That's the kind of player that's far too common and I refuse to be around.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Thats actually what the morons demonstrating up on Wall Street want you to believe, in all actuallity it is the same now as it ever was. The issue is that MMO's have gone mainstream and there are more gamers trying to play them as a single player game isntead of a massively multiplayer game, all because the developers have created this idiotic themepark experience instead of relying on more traditional sandbox elements that drew the MMO vets to the genre in the first place.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
A vast majority, not some.
Yeah I meet those kinds of players as well.
I remember certain player I randomly helped with a quest. Then he added me to friend list and would bug me ALL the time, demanding help whenever I was online , using me as a in-game google, demanding me to come and help him all the time.
I was polite at first trying to learn him how can he could figure out things for himself , but he just refused to and had attitue "come do it for me" or /and "I don't have to learn anything , I will just ask you about totally everything , always".
I am all for helping people , even random ones and I frequently do , but this player was so demanding , like I would be his personal servant and adviser. I just stopped respoding after few days of this
Another similar situation is sometimes in guild , when new player join and shortly after , start to make constant flood of requests and demands. Sure helping fellow guild mate is something I rather enjoy , but some people just join only to leech as much as they can and leave if whole guild not cater to him / her constantly.
Seriosuly , I am amazed at people sometimes
I have to say to people who do not like the community of their big games: try smaller MMOs. The smaller a MMO, the more likely it consists of older people who play the game for having fun, not in order to "win" it.
I have sometimes met people like that on Isle of Dawn, the Vanguard trial island.
One particular guy failed to buff the group (he was a shaman, which get great buffs early) and really was awful at playing his class. I didnt minded that too much. People may be new to the genre and in need of learning. Also I had a good solist class (Dread Knight) in full equipment and could have soloed everything if I wanted to. But to my surprise I found out it was an EQ2 vet ... now that really made me wonder about the level of difficulty EQ2 offers in the first place. He was also very demanding "Help me with this, help me with that, NOW" personality, and he ragequit when he found out that, on a trial account, he couldnt play more than the trial island. Err ... ?
Hu ?
Not really. For example, I myself always play darkelf whenever I can. Ok, unless I'm bored with darkelf, which has happened more often more recently.
Also, a well designed race system will not give you clear advantages for choosing a race. You will always have a trade of advantages and disadvantages. You will have a D&D Elf who gets +2 Dex, but also -2 Con. Or a D&D Gold Dwarf who gets it the other way around.
An example for a bad advantage of a race would be the AD&D bonus for Elves using Bows. This just made the race superior when ranged and was thus a bad move.