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Is there anything that is not ruining MMO's?
VengeSunsoar
Member EpicPosts: 6,601
Is there anything that is not ruining MMO’s
We have competition ruining MMO’s
Casuals
Hardocre
Raiders
Open ffapvp
Zones/instances
Grouping
Soloing
Pve
F2p
P2p
Themepark
Sandbox
People
Devs
...
You get the idea. It seems like everything ruins MMO’s.
And on top of this we expect high polish, AAA quality big budget, flight, housing, excellent graphics, customization, flight, ships, economy and lots of people to play with. All of which increase the cost of development significantly. And when a game can’t deliver all of this we whine, complain, threaten. The end result is that games cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars and must target a broad group or be doomed to insignificance.
Let me tell you something has to give somewhere. Either gamers start accepting a game that is lacking something in the hope it can get it later, or technology must leap forward and there be a way to give these things cheaper.
No wonder Dev companies don’t listen to us. Sheesh we are whiners. Personally I think any developer that actually listened to forums like this would be crazy and doomed.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
While you have a pretty good list of what People express dislike about in general.
There is a caveat in there. because not every single player dislikes all of the items in the list.
Someone may not like Casuals but someone lse minds not, this means that in a game with Casuals there will be non Casuals playing also.
It is normal to have many elements expressed because we are all different individuals with different tastes and preferences, and that melting pot makes it so that it works.
But at the same time, this melting pot is what the Devs fail to realise, and make games that are single minded in their Gameplay, it is obvious that these will not appeal to everyone.
I find it ironic that it is said games are made for a wide audiance when the games that are made show box all of their gameplay to a single Standard.
How are games made for the masses when they will only appeal to a single segment of the player population?
*scratches head*
And how can you expect not hearing complaints when games are made to target only a single segment of the population?
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Blame spam.
You come to forum to complain or you are trying to sell something. We aren't allowed to say what we are looking forward to it's seen as marketing.
Well casuals hate hardcores and hardcores hate casuals, the trick is not to make a game everyone likes but to make a game for smaller demographics.
Make a raiding based game, a crafting game, a casual game, a pro game and so forth.
So, on one part of the pendulum, I can understand. Because it is REALLY hard to find a certain game that people like and don't hate eachother other. But on the other end of it, I think technology needs to have a leap forward in order to find a viable answer, because no matter what. However someone asks and whatnot. NO ONE WILL EVER ENJOY A GAME THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! Just get's really irritating to hear people whine and b**** over a game that isn't "perfect" You want perfect go watch a rainbow or some crap. Just leave the devs and such alone and deal with it.
The problem with this, as Venge says, is COST just making an MMO to suit a particuilar crowd still costs an awful lot of money and when investors commit big money to project they want to minimise risk as much as they can. MMO's are complicated beasts and thats why they have developed along the lines they have rather than the way early MMO players imagined. I'm afraid that pragamatism and practicalities have taken the genre in this direction because of the nature of this complexity. You do not commit large sums of money to projects that have high risk and making certain kinds of MMO's are such a big risk you don't see the big guys trying them, no-one wants to lose money. It is pretty simple stuff when you think objectively and put yourself in the shoes of the developers and investors until someone can reduce costs radically you will only see big risk taking games from the Indie dev's
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
If it were all the same people expressing discontent about all of those issues, it would be incredibly schizophrenic. I think there's some people in each 'camp' on what's wrong with the mmorpg market (and all the new mmorpg). Every time something comes up that rings a bell for one of those people, they pipe up.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I absolutely understand this. But the question was about what is ruining MMOs and how no matter what you do you get complaints. Well I explained how to avoid these complaints. If you want to label all these proximate causes as the result of a prior cause, that its too risky to innovate, fine. but they are not at the same step in the causation so telling me about that step is silly.
What is ruining MMORPGs is greed that makes bland WoW Clones that are trying to copy WoW's McDonaldsness.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
.. or the devs get to work and start putting at least a little effort in, instead of going down the path of least resistance to their monthly paycheck. Sorry but the technology is sufficiently developped to deliver a great MMO already, and we the gamers are the paying ones so we are the boss in the house. End of discussion.
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570
so you took a dozen or so threads/columns/articles from different people and threw em all together for this thread? you know what this proves? people have different opinions ....
bravo.
Yup, MMO's might be fubar'd but outside was runied by skin cancer.
I jest. Interesting post. The common theme is change... we don't like change.
I disagree Cuathon,
If you make a crafting game it will appeal to crafters, but what about, the warrior players part of a group of friends trying to find a game to play together? They will not like that game and in the end the crafter will quit it too because they would prefer playing with their friends in a game that offers both combat and crafting.
MMO's are first and foremost social environments and it doe snot matter how much some games try to make the genre as Single Player as possible, the people will just move on and spend their money in another one.
This has nothing to do with casuals and hardcores, my guild contains both but above all they both prefer to play the same game together even if the casuals play 2 times a week, they knwo that their friends are there, and even if the hardcores play every day, they know that their casual friends will be there sometime during the week. Then all will get some time playing together and exchange experiences and knowledge and talk about the environment that they both share nevertheless indepedently of the frequency.
WoW may have introduced the "Underwear Guilds" in to the genre but, there are still many guilds (groupings of Friends) that play MMO's only together and Join or Quit MMO's together, because the bonds that they share as friends come first.
And real guilds are diverse entities, not made of players who share the same style of play but rather a mix of styles and preferences, the common aspect shared is the friendship bonds.
As such, I think we need more MMO's that cater to a wider variety of styles of play, such an MMO would be able to attract many groupings of friends that will have more fun for a longer period of time playing together since each individual would be having fun within their area of interest.
I am very curious to see what will happen with SWTOR and if it will grow or fail in its first 6-10 months. Because I think WoW is not only unique in its success but also in its population, it appeals mainly to the same segment of players sharing same style and culture. Whether TOR will get success by migrating players from WoW or whether TOR will be able to pull the same feat WoW did when it launched on its own right will determine the validity of this thought.
If TOR attracts as many MMO first timers as WoW did when it launched we will be in a dire situation we will have twice the number of players with the same mentality to deal with and since both games are the same system and same game mechanically. LOL!
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
True statement. People don't like change. But you'd be suprised how many people STILL play WoW after TBC.. Then Wrath.. Then Cata.. Still playing the damn game. It's quite staggering.
If it was possible to actually tell what a game was like before playing it, that might take the edge off some of the complaints. But these days, getting in-game footage, or accurate descriptions of the combat engine, are like pulling teeth. Add to that the features that are thrown in at the last moment just to give the marketing teams more ammunition, but are never implemented in a fashion worth having...
I think quite a few of us have experienced the joy and wonder of downloading, installing, registering, only to find that the game completely misrepresented itself. When that sort of thing happens often enough, it's no wonder you get bitter about the state of MMO's these days.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
If you try to cater to all parties you will have a problem. Giving crafters importance always screws over people looting, but if you give the best loot to raids crafters get screwed. I have not seen a single game which solves this problem. They just pick different spots on the crafter/raider continuum.
Hardcore, Competition and Raiders is pretty much the same category. It's the feeling that an MMO shouldn't be built around an online E-Sport of statistics.
You also use the opposite of everything, casual is the opposite of hardcore, themepark is the opposite of sandbox.
If you combine those 3 above, and don't use dual categories you're down to like 4 or 5 points, which do make sense.
You know what else is ruining MMOs? This thread.
More seriously, different people like different things in games. A game that does exactly what one person wants will be ruining everything for another.
Yes. There is one thing, and that is me, because I am currently not playing one. I can't ruin what I am not playing!
Honestly, the only thing 'ruining' MMO's right now are oversatuation of poor games from these garbage F2P companies, who pump out an MMO on a bi-weekly basis AND greed. Times were so different when UO and EQ came around. It was more about making a game world for us to enjoy then making a quick buck. I see very few games come out anymore that play like someone actually cared about making this game fun, and not about liberating my money from my pocket.
Eh just my opinion
How about this? They aren't fun any more.
Why pvp? So I can brag ladder rankings and rush through 10 minute instanced flag captures? I'm an adult FFS.
Why pve? So I can grind predictable boring pixels in a world where if I don't quest I get hardly any exp so I am literally forced to click as fast as I can on each text line from each boring npc with each boring story?
It's not fun. I came from Dark Age of Camelot - I loved it. I loved Shadowbane, had a blast in Asheron's call 1 AND 2....Vanguard Saga of Heroes had a 2 faction server - man that was fun.
Today it's F2P anime's and boring mmorpgs in general. or a pay monthly grind fest with a terrible community...Rift, WoW, it doesn't matter. The communities are so bad nowadays that I might as well be soloing in an RPG.
Not fun.
I think my favorite things that technology has added in the realm of MMOs compared to "the good ol days" are:
1. Seamless worlds. It's easy to take them for granted now, but not zoning when moving about in WoW and a few other games was a godsend.
2. Community tools, calendars in game, pages, social sites and what have you. Making guilds something more than a chat channel has been impressive to see.
There's other small things I like and pondered listing them. But I think those two are really the only things I'd care to see continue on to the next generation of MMORPG.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
The only thing truly ruining MMO's is nostalgia. Yes, everyone gets it, you loved some game you played a long time ago, and these new games aren't that game. Sorry, here's a tissue.
The thing is that attacking people for nostalgia inevitably makes you a huge fudging hypocrit. Guess what, its going to happen to you, just as soon as you've played games a few years. Maybe you are a casual and so you take 10x as many years to get to that point, well, you probably whine like a little girl over steroid scandals or the fall of good TV or how all your friends moved away, or the better job market. Same thing, still a huge hypocrit.
Shockingly, many people find a new game that is awesome and play it. If some one has the balls to take a risk, do some innovation and make a game that isnt coring cookie cutter shit.
Problem is, MMO's don't have a real standard. Just like humanity, thousands of different races. Since the industry doesn't have a clear standard, (suprisingly not WoW) anything and everything 'ruins' the non-existant genre.
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2
All players have their theories, some are to a certain degree true while others are just silly or personal.
Blaming casuals, hardcore players, PvE:ers, PvPers, crafters, explorers or anyone not playing the same way as you are just stupid.
Devs, publishers and financers do have at least make some sense though. Forcing a game to release too early, making bad copies of other games instead of trying some new things, misjudging what the players actually want, making a huge project with a far too small budget and similar things are not good for the games.
The general rule is that greed or simple stupidity can ruin a game, and if every publishing house decides to do the same thing it can ruin the genre.
But the power is really the players, if we don't play bad games they will go away so it is ultimately our fault if the genre go bad, not anyone else.
The answer to the question is, Nothing is ruining MMOs.
It's all about perception.
Some of us OLD people already went through this feeling years ago.