Themeparks are unsustainable because any content that you create only becomes obsolete within a few months.Developers need to create content that lasts for the lifetime of the product and stop creating fast food content.
I disagree that they are unsustainable they just need enough non-combat activities to keep players interested and involved between content updates, so while Devs should be adding more content as you say that lasts the lifetime of the product I think there is certainly room as well for the fast-food content.
Case in point, the post directly above yours. Adding things like the music system, housing, and tradeskills that allow you to craft things for your house (the latter two also being done in EQ2- and better imo) are ways to keep people playing and having fun even if they have conquered the current top tier in combat-centered content. Add in more things for the ADHD generation such as twitchy mini-games and you've reached players with and without patience.
Rolling alts being the only available option for those that aren't interested in hamster-wheel endgames just isn't good enough anymore for a substantial (and growing!) amount of players.
It isn't that they were better per-say, but even in all that grinding, it seemed better. You grouped up with people, and had a blast, and that "grind" didn't seem like anything. Grouping with others was fun, and it was something people looked forward to. It wasn't like grouping with people today. You weren't insulted for not having the best gear, or for not understanding a boss the first time through a dungeon. You weren't insulted if you caused a wipe. I could go on about this, but I imagine you get the point.
I have plenty of memories over the years of being lost for 8-12 hours at a time, completely captured in what i was doing in a game. It was a challenge. It generally was hard. But that challenge was worth the reward, and after playing, you felt like you did something. I again, don't feel that way anymore.
I agree with you though, that any game could stand to be changed a bit. Even the older games that I fondly remember could of used a few changes here and there. I guess the point I'm trying to make is even though there was a ton more grind, it somehow felt more fulfilling, and overall a better game. I'm guessing in today's world, people can't be allowed that freedom to go do what they want, we need to be guided, or we might get lost.
I completely understand where you're coming from, but you have to understand that there has been a huge shift in the design goals (can't think of exactly what I want to call them) seen in the MMORPG genre since back then- in fact there were several good posts in another thread regarding this, so i'll try to recap:
The pre-WoW era themepark MMORPGs were terrible at being games (I'm looking mostly from my experiences in EQ1 and CoH), the content was repetitive, grindy, and oftentimes bland. What made these games memorable was the social interactions the devs set up with player interdependence and hardship. The actual content was just the background for how it was used in a social setting to keep giving players more goals to achieve. Today's MMORPGs are far better at being games than the older ones, but that's all they bring to the table anymore.
The structure for the social metagame just isn't a priority anymore- it's difficult to set up and requires inconveniences that the majority of today's MMORPG players are likely not used to and may not be willing to accept. The risk of that is why we're stuck with shallow, lifeless copypasta clones.
I understand what you're saying. But I completely disagree about BioWare being good devs. In fact, I think they are border-line Cryptic material - especially that cocky and arrogant Daniel Erikson.
They had the financial backing to make the first MMO that appealed to the masses. Instead, they focused on CGI, hype, simpler than simple pvp, and massive box sales. The "we'll fix it after the launch" attitude doesn't work.
I'm inclined to agree. Especially the guys that made/are making important descions. A lot of the problems they are having can be blamed on the state ofthe Hero platform when they licsenced it. The launch has been more AoC than Rift.
Stop obsessing over one solitary thing that stops (leveling) and realize that you're still constantly in a journey for as long as the game keeps tossing new things at you.
People are so hyper-fixated over leveling that even when a game has months and months and months of gameplay at endgame, they think that somehow the game has stopped.
It hasn't.
Be that as it may, going through the same thing day in and day out doesn't feel like a journey. It feels like a drive to work and back home again. Yes, it is a journey, but it is a boring one you do everyday.
As long as we're not trying to pretend earlier MMORPGs were somehow better, I totally agree with that statement.
Early MMORPGs were a drive to work with endless mob-grinding long before you reached endgame. Despite newer MMORPGs being way better than that, they could obviously stand to be changed in ways that make them interesting for longer. The same could be said of any game, really.
It isn't that they were better per-say, but even in all that grinding, it seemed better. You grouped up with people, and had a blast, and that "grind" didn't seem like anything. Grouping with others was fun, and it was something people looked forward to. It wasn't like grouping with people today. You weren't insulted for not having the best gear, or for not understanding a boss the first time through a dungeon. You weren't insulted if you caused a wipe. I could go on about this, but I imagine you get the point.
I have plenty of memories over the years of being lost for 8-12 hours at a time, completely captured in what i was doing in a game. It was a challenge. It generally was hard. But that challenge was worth the reward, and after playing, you felt like you did something. I again, don't feel that way anymore.
I agree with you though, that any game could stand to be changed a bit. Even the older games that I fondly remember could of used a few changes here and there. I guess the point I'm trying to make is even though there was a ton more grind, it somehow felt more fulfilling, and overall a better game. I'm guessing in today's world, people can't be allowed that freedom to go do what they want, we need to be guided, or we might get lost.
If Grouping made the feeling of Grinding go away, than why do you people complain so much about "RAID GRINDING"? thats both large group as well as a grind. The people here contradict their own complains all the time. Now you see why you people aren't happy about any MMO that comes out
If Grouping made the feeling of Grinding go away, than why do you people complain so much about "RAID GRINDING"? thats both large group as well as a grind. The people here contradict their own complains all the time. Now you see why you people aren't happy about any MMO that comes out
Did you just say grouping = raid grinding therefore grouping sucks?
Stop obsessing over one solitary thing that stops (leveling) and realize that you're still constantly in a journey for as long as the game keeps tossing new things at you.
People are so hyper-fixated over leveling that even when a game has months and months and months of gameplay at endgame, they think that somehow the game has stopped.
It hasn't.
Be that as it may, going through the same thing day in and day out doesn't feel like a journey. It feels like a drive to work and back home again. Yes, it is a journey, but it is a boring one you do everyday.
As long as we're not trying to pretend earlier MMORPGs were somehow better, I totally agree with that statement.
Early MMORPGs were a drive to work with endless mob-grinding long before you reached endgame. Despite newer MMORPGs being way better than that, they could obviously stand to be changed in ways that make them interesting for longer. The same could be said of any game, really.
It isn't that they were better per-say, but even in all that grinding, it seemed better. You grouped up with people, and had a blast, and that "grind" didn't seem like anything. Grouping with others was fun, and it was something people looked forward to. It wasn't like grouping with people today. You weren't insulted for not having the best gear, or for not understanding a boss the first time through a dungeon. You weren't insulted if you caused a wipe. I could go on about this, but I imagine you get the point.
I have plenty of memories over the years of being lost for 8-12 hours at a time, completely captured in what i was doing in a game. It was a challenge. It generally was hard. But that challenge was worth the reward, and after playing, you felt like you did something. I again, don't feel that way anymore.
I agree with you though, that any game could stand to be changed a bit. Even the older games that I fondly remember could of used a few changes here and there. I guess the point I'm trying to make is even though there was a ton more grind, it somehow felt more fulfilling, and overall a better game. I'm guessing in today's world, people can't be allowed that freedom to go do what they want, we need to be guided, or we might get lost.
If Grouping made the feeling of Grinding go away, than why do you people complain so much about "RAID GRINDING"? thats both large group as well as a grind. The people here contradict their own complains all the time. Now you see why you people aren't happy about any MMO that comes out
People complain because it is the same actions, everytime. There is also the fact that most raids are instanced, so you have no real varibles at play of something being different. In the bit of raiding I've personally done, it normally is a matter of learning what to do, and having enough stats to produce the damage to kill it. That's it. Once you learn the fight, it is easy, and when you get better geared, you then can steamroll it, making it even easier.
Take a non-instanced version of say a cave, or dungeon you and a group of people are exploring and killing for xp. Your in there, 10-15 minutes, and someone might come in. They may or may not be capable of handling themselves. That adds a few varibles. Generally speaking, stuff respawns after a bit, so you need to keep track of where you rest up at, and where you are, or else you could be in trouble. The "trash mobs" actually give you a run for your money, instead of bending over and dying. There is plenty more of these varibles that occur playing but I will assume you get the point.
This is what keeps you from being bored, this is what keeps you from feeling the grind. Not to mention, the social interactions, and making friends in the process. As I stated in another post, people don't act the way they used to either, and I personally feel that is part of the problem as well. Also having the content laid out to you in a nice neat package is part of why folks feel it is grindy, which is also a problem. There really isn't any freedom to do it another way, and once you learn it, it becomes boring. Freedom is honestly the biggest problem in most games nowadays, we just label it different things.
This is exactly why I've given up on the genre for now. I like the journey more than the destination... always have. In new games it seems the journey 9 times out of 10 is a very narrow corridor funneling all players toward the end game. I couldn't give a rats ass about 'end game'.
I agree. Endgame for me is literally the end of the game.
The biggest problem I had with SWTOR was they did a lot of things, but few of them were better than the competition. It's like they didn't know their audience. I think this is why WoW and Rift get a lot of slack... because they do a few things very well and cater specifically to their audience.
Bioware didn't know their audience. You could tell they were going for box sales since they were making promises to every person with a computer and 60 bucks. They said the game was for Star Wars fans, Bioware fans, MMORPG gamers, casual players and hardcore players, PvP'ers, end-game raiders and single player gamers... the list just doesn't end.
As a gamer, I don't care if I'm not in the target audience for a game. But at least HAVE a target audience so those players who do subscribe can enjoy it for a long time. "Everyone" is not a sustainable audience. It's a box sales grab.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
People complain because it is the same actions, everytime. There is also the fact that most raids are instanced, so you have no real varibles at play of something being different. In the bit of raiding I've personally done, it normally is a matter of learning what to do, and having enough stats to produce the damage to kill it. That's it. Once you learn the fight, it is easy, and when you get better geared, you then can steamroll it, making it even easier.
Take a non-instanced version of say a cave, or dungeon you and a group of people are exploring and killing for xp. Your in there, 10-15 minutes, and someone might come in. They may or may not be capable of handling themselves. That adds a few varibles. Generally speaking, stuff respawns after a bit, so you need to keep track of where you rest up at, and where you are, or else you could be in trouble. The "trash mobs" actually give you a run for your money, instead of bending over and dying. There is plenty more of these varibles that occur playing but I will assume you get the point.
This is what keeps you from being bored, this is what keeps you from feeling the grind. Not to mention, the social interactions, and making friends in the process. As I stated in another post, people don't act the way they used to either, and I personally feel that is part of the problem as well. Also having the content laid out to you in a nice neat package is part of why folks feel it is grindy, which is also a problem. There really isn't any freedom to do it another way, and once you learn it, it becomes boring. Freedom is honestly the biggest problem in most games nowadays, we just label it different things.
Wow, you're really trying to claim that endless mob-grinding had more variety than raid fights where you have to learn each boss' unique mechanic?
You realize that's rather ridiculous, right?
(As a complete aside, kudos to the mods for not automatically knee-jerking this thread into the TOR forums. That's always been the worst and most unnecessary type of moderation that happens around here.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
People complain because it is the same actions, everytime. There is also the fact that most raids are instanced, so you have no real varibles at play of something being different. In the bit of raiding I've personally done, it normally is a matter of learning what to do, and having enough stats to produce the damage to kill it. That's it. Once you learn the fight, it is easy, and when you get better geared, you then can steamroll it, making it even easier.
Take a non-instanced version of say a cave, or dungeon you and a group of people are exploring and killing for xp. Your in there, 10-15 minutes, and someone might come in. They may or may not be capable of handling themselves. That adds a few varibles. Generally speaking, stuff respawns after a bit, so you need to keep track of where you rest up at, and where you are, or else you could be in trouble. The "trash mobs" actually give you a run for your money, instead of bending over and dying. There is plenty more of these varibles that occur playing but I will assume you get the point.
This is what keeps you from being bored, this is what keeps you from feeling the grind. Not to mention, the social interactions, and making friends in the process. As I stated in another post, people don't act the way they used to either, and I personally feel that is part of the problem as well. Also having the content laid out to you in a nice neat package is part of why folks feel it is grindy, which is also a problem. There really isn't any freedom to do it another way, and once you learn it, it becomes boring. Freedom is honestly the biggest problem in most games nowadays, we just label it different things.
Wow, you're really trying to claim that endless mob-grinding had more variety than raid fights where you have to learn each boss' unique mechanic?
You realize that's rather ridiculous, right?
(As a complete aside, kudos to the mods for not automatically knee-jerking this thread into the TOR forums. That's always been the worst and most unnecessary type of moderation that happens around here.)
Is endless mob grinding anything less than endless daily grinding, endless token grinding, endless instance grinding..
Its a treadmill either way. As far as unique mechanics? When there really isn't much to lose from failing that mechanic it encourages people to play poorly. That or they grind lower level instances to improve their gear to mask their poor playskill. At least in EQ you learned many of the same mechanics you would use in raiding while you leveled (as in grouping) so you at least had some skill if you managed to make it to a higher level.
4 days played is roughly 100 hours. If you play 2 hours a day, that is 50 days ... a month and 2/3.
Now, this guide assumes you don't read anything, don't level up professions, don't explore, and just follow the MOST efficient path which they worked out.
It can easily take 2x as much if you don't play the game instead of rushing it though. In that case, we are talking about 200 hours .. and 3 month time if you average play 2-3 hours a day.
3 months is quite a reasonable time when most single player games last only 1-2 weeks. Plus, this is for a SINGLE character while MOST players have multiple toons. If you factor in the different starting areas, and faction areas, the actual leveling content last way more than 3 months.
And also remember most of the leveling content (i.e. quests) are single play-through (for ONE toon) and not repeatable. Thus, this is quite unlike dailies that you need to repeat and repeat.
I won't complain about a few month worth of single play through content.
People complain because it is the same actions, everytime. There is also the fact that most raids are instanced, so you have no real varibles at play of something being different. In the bit of raiding I've personally done, it normally is a matter of learning what to do, and having enough stats to produce the damage to kill it. That's it. Once you learn the fight, it is easy, and when you get better geared, you then can steamroll it, making it even easier.
Take a non-instanced version of say a cave, or dungeon you and a group of people are exploring and killing for xp. Your in there, 10-15 minutes, and someone might come in. They may or may not be capable of handling themselves. That adds a few varibles. Generally speaking, stuff respawns after a bit, so you need to keep track of where you rest up at, and where you are, or else you could be in trouble. The "trash mobs" actually give you a run for your money, instead of bending over and dying. There is plenty more of these varibles that occur playing but I will assume you get the point.
This is what keeps you from being bored, this is what keeps you from feeling the grind. Not to mention, the social interactions, and making friends in the process. As I stated in another post, people don't act the way they used to either, and I personally feel that is part of the problem as well. Also having the content laid out to you in a nice neat package is part of why folks feel it is grindy, which is also a problem. There really isn't any freedom to do it another way, and once you learn it, it becomes boring. Freedom is honestly the biggest problem in most games nowadays, we just label it different things.
Wow, you're really trying to claim that endless mob-grinding had more variety than raid fights where you have to learn each boss' unique mechanic?
You realize that's rather ridiculous, right?
(As a complete aside, kudos to the mods for not automatically knee-jerking this thread into the TOR forums. That's always been the worst and most unnecessary type of moderation that happens around here.)
Is endless mob grinding anything less than endless daily grinding, endless token grinding, endless instance grinding..
Its a treadmill either way. As far as unique mechanics? When there really isn't much to lose from failing that mechanic it encourages people to play poorly. That or they grind lower level instances to improve their gear to mask their poor playskill. At least in EQ you learned many of the same mechanics you would use in raiding while you leveled (as in grouping) so you at least had some skill if you managed to make it to a higher level.
This is exactly my point. It is all the same grinding at the end of the day, and there is really no difference. At least mob-grinding, and generally exploring the massive worlds we had available gave us something to do. Right now in SWTOR, Ilum is very small, maybe 10-12 types of mobs at most, and half the map is friendly to either side with the mobs. The PVP area is a joke, doesn't work right half the time, and no one is in there the other 1/2.
I'd much rather the open-ness and freedom of grind mobs for hours with a group of people, who respect you as a person, then doing raids all day with idiots and assholes. I feel raids are very limited, and you are piegonholed into doing it one way or else, and never felt that restriction with mob grinding.
I think about it this way, Trion has so far made Rift and that is there first game. Blizzard and Bioware are veterans. Trion is kicking there ass with Customer Service and fast patches and content.
Rift has a bunch of post-game content that you can do by yourself. Why does the journey ONLY have to be while your lvling? Trion has done post 50 lvling with Planar Attunement. Solo content like Chronicles and the Epic Questline and the Cult Saga. There is a bunch of stuff to do at 50 that drives the story more for you. Raiding and grinding isnt the only thing.
Is endless mob grinding anything less than endless daily grinding, endless token grinding, endless instance grinding..
Its a treadmill either way. As far as unique mechanics? When there really isn't much to lose from failing that mechanic it encourages people to play poorly. That or they grind lower level instances to improve their gear to mask their poor playskill. At least in EQ you learned many of the same mechanics you would use in raiding while you leveled (as in grouping) so you at least had some skill if you managed to make it to a higher level.
Well we're talking about variety here, and you've clearly cited three "endless" activities in modern raiding vs. one in classic mob-grinding. So even at a high level there's more variety.
But at a mid level there's also more variety. Certainly the variety to gameplay that I experienced in early mob-grind games was nowhere near what I experienced in modern dungeon/raid gameplay.
After all someone already mentioned it in this thread: you have to learn those fights. You didn't have to learn anything when it came to endless mob-grinding because they were basically all the same (at least until CoX, which admittedly was an endless mob-grinder with some variety to it.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
SWTOR disgusts me because of their poor use of research and resources.
They didn't even bother to look at the horrible track record of Pure Theme Parks, e.g., Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Star Trek Online, Aion, etc.
BioWare did a fantastic job with the questing. They probably created the most entertaining grind to max level within the entire genre. However, there is no "me" in SWTOR. I have no identity; I have very little freedom. This is one of the smoking gun complaints in the games listed above.
No end-game, boring and redundant instanced PvP, typecasted classes to the point where it's cheesy, shockingly poor performance for being an underwhelming graphical game, a blatant lack of social skills, the lack-luster console space shooter, and the complete and total single-player co'op epedemic are just some of the features that paint this terrible game a target.
What pisses people off the most is their poor use of resources. They had the financial backing to make this game appealing to everyone. This includes socializers, explorers, adventurers, combat players, roleplayers, instanced pvp players, world pvp players, etc. There is nothing to explore. Follow the path and move along.
This game, as far as I'm concerned, is the new laughing stock of the genre.
This was so well put that I have to quote it. Thank you.
Is endless mob grinding anything less than endless daily grinding, endless token grinding, endless instance grinding..
Its a treadmill either way. As far as unique mechanics? When there really isn't much to lose from failing that mechanic it encourages people to play poorly. That or they grind lower level instances to improve their gear to mask their poor playskill. At least in EQ you learned many of the same mechanics you would use in raiding while you leveled (as in grouping) so you at least had some skill if you managed to make it to a higher level.
Well we're talking about variety here, and you've clearly cited three "endless" activities in modern raiding vs. one in classic mob-grinding. So even at a high level there's more variety.
But at a mid level there's also more variety. Certainly the variety to gameplay that I experienced in early mob-grind games was nowhere near what I experienced in modern dungeon/raid gameplay.
After all someone already mentioned it in this thread: you have to learn those fights. You didn't have to learn anything when it came to endless mob-grinding because they were basically all the same (at least until CoX, which admittedly was an endless mob-grinder with some variety to it.)
You know the irony, I can remember more details about EQ dungeons than i can in any of the instances in the current MMO's. It wasn't just blast your way through the dugeons spells blazing, you had to be careful not to pull strays, watch out for roamers and adds, all while managing your resources such as mana (you could quickly burn down a mob but then you had downtime and couldn't get out of combat to drink a drink and be back to full in 10 seconds).
You talk about variety in gameplay, almost every dungeon that has come out lately in current MMO's is a straight path from start to end. No winding coredors that can get you lost, no secrets, no incentive to explore in essence they really arent dungeons they would be more aptly named "Guantlets" (not to be confused with the old school game) where you run from one end to another and hope to survive to the end to get a prize.
In the newer MMO's you are just shuttled from one area to another with quests most people don't even look around them they just run towards where there arrow is pointing them. Also whats the point in quests if all you do (or rather what most people do) is just look at the objective without even caring about the lore. No incentive to break the mold just one quest area to another.
I dunno i call that less variety in gameplay than I used to get from games like EQ.
SWTOR is the primary, most high profile whipping boy for what's wrong with the MMORPG genre. The answers are blatantly easy.
1. Despite BioWare being one of the most popular developers in any game genre around, for all their reputation, they fear straying away from all the things WoW has done. So... another WoW Clone, in a sea of WoW Clones.
2. Limited PvP: Heavily instanced based. See my complaints about instanced vs old school open world PvP in one of my earlier posts. The developers by design relegated PvP into a tiny, empty shoebox and stuffed it under the bed to be forgotten about.
3. Excessive Single Player Focus: Come on, NPCs that can fill out your party and craft gear for you too? SWTOR continues the trend of destroying completely community interdependency and cohesiveness. I say again, SWTOR is a SPRPG that requires an internet connection, nothing more.
4. Lack of things to do outside combat. Very plain and simple.
5. Lastly, despite the time and outrageous amount of money SWTOR received for development, the only thing that positively stands out with the game is... voiceovers. Yes, voiceovers, and lots of them. Seriously?!? After all that time and money, the only thing that stands out is voiceovers? Instead of text telling you to skin 10 Jawas, a voice actor tells you to skin 10 Jawas?
How can SWTOR not be the poster child for what's wrong with MMORPGs? You have developers with the name "BioWare," have ample time, and have the cash that 99% of other developers can only dream of getting, have the fabled "Star Wars" IP, and the end result is... SWTOR.
This. This. This.
Another thing that is annoying about SWTOR is the extreme typecasting.
Example: Every Smuggler must look and act just like Han Solo. It's just cheesy ;/
I would like to add that once the story ends there is little in the way of keeping me. Due to feeling like the game is over. In fact I never want to see story in an MMORPG again. Not as a main focus. I should be able to make my own story. THE PLAYERS SHOULD HAVE THE FREEDOM in an MMO to make thier own stories. Well in any game I want to pay a sub for...
Plus reasons 1, 2, and 4 lead to nothing wanting me to retain a subscription.
Agree with this is. SWTOR should be MISTER WHIPPING BOY.
That's why I like how Lotro and FFXI do story. It's an important part of the game but not the major focus. You can literally play those 2 games and never do the story aspects. Now you may gimp yourself in certain ways, items, money, xp etc. but it is possible.
I suppose it's possible in SWTOR but you would literally have to choose to not quest from the get go. Interesting.
You know the irony, I can remember more details about EQ dungeons than i can in any of the instances in the current MMO's. It wasn't just blast your way through the dugeons spells blazing, you had to be careful not to pull strays, watch out for roamers and adds, all while managing your resources such as mana (you could quickly burn down a mob but then you had downtime and couldn't get out of combat to drink a drink and be back to full in 10 seconds).
You talk about variety in gameplay, almost every dungeon that has come out lately in current MMO's is a straight path from start to end. No winding coredors that can get you lost, no secrets, no incentive to explore in essence they really arent dungeons they would be more aptly named "Guantlets" (not to be confused with the old school game) where you run from one end to another and hope to survive to the end to get a prize.
In the newer MMO's you are just shuttled from one area to another with quests most people don't even look around them they just run towards where there arrow is pointing them. Also whats the point in quests if all you do (or rather what most people do) is just look at the objective without even caring about the lore. No incentive to break the mold just one quest area to another.
I dunno i call that less variety in gameplay than I used to get from games like EQ.
This is exactly what my point is. Now if you want to call that endless mob grinding so be it, but it had far more thought, risk, and freedom, then anything that has been released today. I suppose though it doesn't really matter though, as there are those of us who see it this way, and think that this is the way it should be done, and then their are those who love being shuttled and hand-holded. I personally still feel SWTOR limits these freedoms, and basically forces you down a path that you really can't escape or leave.
You know the irony, I can remember more details about EQ dungeons than i can in any of the instances in the current MMO's. It wasn't just blast your way through the dugeons spells blazing, you had to be careful not to pull strays, watch out for roamers and adds, all while managing your resources such as mana (you could quickly burn down a mob but then you had downtime and couldn't get out of combat to drink a drink and be back to full in 10 seconds).
You talk about variety in gameplay, almost every dungeon that has come out lately in current MMO's is a straight path from start to end. No winding coredors that can get you lost, no secrets, no incentive to explore in essence they really arent dungeons they would be more aptly named "Guantlets" (not to be confused with the old school game) where you run from one end to another and hope to survive to the end to get a prize.
In the newer MMO's you are just shuttled from one area to another with quests most people don't even look around them they just run towards where there arrow is pointing them. Also whats the point in quests if all you do (or rather what most people do) is just look at the objective without even caring about the lore. No incentive to break the mold just one quest area to another.
I dunno i call that less variety in gameplay than I used to get from games like EQ.
Um, but you have to be careful not to pull strays and watch for roamers/adds in modern dungeon/raids too.
So that leaves mazelike dungeons and attrition-based gameplay as the two factors you've brought up.
Mazelike dungeons in AO, DAOC, and AC1 didn't vary gameplay in my experience. You still fought the same bland strategy-less mobs around each bend, but now you did it in a maze. Meanwhile in the linear dungeons of WOW the fights themselves are varied due to boss abilities (and in some cases trash abilities.) So actual variety, not just non-variety masquerading inside a maze.
Attrition-based gameplay is actually part of why that's true. In attrition-based gameplay, each fight wears down your resources little by little. This means each fight tends to be flat and shallow (because they're not tightly-balanced to put you near-death each fight, only to safely widdle you down.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I can imagine a scenario where a game about 'the journey' is released, and the boards light up with 'xp is slow to hide thin content' -or- 'xp is slow so they can milk your sub for as long as possible to hit max'.
I remember these complaints from EQ anyway, and I'd imagine history would repeat itself.
In addition, I'm not sure devs consciously are trying to push you to an endgame they don't really have at release. If devs really thought all we wanted was end game, they'd focus on developing endgame and thin out the journey.
Honestly, I think they simply have miscalculated. It doesn't make sense to have a fast xp curve in these recently released games whenthere is no end game. I can't discribe it as anything other than an out and out mistake.
Of course, to hit the perfect balance between lengthening the levelling process while not making it seem that the game is full of timesinks toward that aim, well.....let's just say it hasn't happened often in mmo history, and the ones that did have it, only held it temporarily (EQ/WoW for ex.).
I think all in all, SWTOR is a decently paced game, and it seems that there is enough to explore and do to tied me over until the content is ahead of me, and if not, there are plenty of fun mmo's out there right now I can choose from.
Which, in the end is still a better option to have than the old days. Now, at least when we are waiting for new content, there is something else to play.
It is really simple... There has to be enough content to consume at the current XP rate where you don't run out when leveling and there are paths you did not take which you can take with an alt.
I mean its basic stuff. Even as the OP said WoW at release was faster than eq/eq2 at release but not that much faster.. Compared to today ? Its rediculous what these companies are doing..
Something keeps telling me that designs went this way to appease some stastistic where more poeple quit in the first X levels or something... so idea being get them past those levels and they will stay longer...
I don't of course know this for fact.. it is only a hunch and i hear developers talk about "quitting before level X" quite often.
That said, I have never seen an industry where nore companies tend to make really poor and obvious design decisions in games and truly do hurt their numbers over time...
Here's why SWTOR is getting the whip OP: It was Bioware, with EA's money, and it created such a crazy hype machine through target marketing and gameplay snipips, using word like "The most epic feeling MMO to date" and "The game will change how people view MMO's".
They destroyed themselves. You hype the game up that much through marketing and key words, you better be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions. They are only reaping what they sowed man.
As for blaming Trion, a startup company who invested all their cash ($50 mill I believe) into their game and advertised their RIFTing events and mutliple soul classes (which they delivered very well on both), gets praised. Yes they recieved critisism, but they constatnly communicate with the forum community and push out fixes and updates unlike any other MMO company to date. They didn't have he IP, they didn't have the previous gamer types (Diablo 2 for Blizz, KoToR for Bio), and they had no reputation.
This is what separates the two companies, and why blame is placed on one more than the other even though they follow similiar design decisions.
Here's why SWTOR is getting the whip OP: It was Bioware, with EA's money, and it created such a crazy hype machine through target marketing and gameplay snipips, using word like "The most epic feeling MMO to date" and "The game will change how people view MMO's".
They destroyed themselves. You hype the game up that much through marketing and key words, you better be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions. They are only reaping what they sowed man.
As for blaming Trion, a startup company who invested all their cash ($50 mill I believe) into their game and advertised their RIFTing events and mutliple soul classes (which they delivered very well on both), gets praised. Yes they recieved critisism, but they constatnly communicate with the forum community and push out fixes and updates unlike any other MMO company to date. They didn't have he IP, they didn't have the previous gamer types (Diablo 2 for Blizz, KoToR for Bio), and they had no reputation.
This is what separates the two companies, and why blame is placed on one more than the other even though they follow similiar design decisions.
Comments
I disagree that they are unsustainable they just need enough non-combat activities to keep players interested and involved between content updates, so while Devs should be adding more content as you say that lasts the lifetime of the product I think there is certainly room as well for the fast-food content.
Case in point, the post directly above yours. Adding things like the music system, housing, and tradeskills that allow you to craft things for your house (the latter two also being done in EQ2- and better imo) are ways to keep people playing and having fun even if they have conquered the current top tier in combat-centered content. Add in more things for the ADHD generation such as twitchy mini-games and you've reached players with and without patience.
Rolling alts being the only available option for those that aren't interested in hamster-wheel endgames just isn't good enough anymore for a substantial (and growing!) amount of players.
*edit* fixed repetition
I completely understand where you're coming from, but you have to understand that there has been a huge shift in the design goals (can't think of exactly what I want to call them) seen in the MMORPG genre since back then- in fact there were several good posts in another thread regarding this, so i'll try to recap:
The pre-WoW era themepark MMORPGs were terrible at being games (I'm looking mostly from my experiences in EQ1 and CoH), the content was repetitive, grindy, and oftentimes bland. What made these games memorable was the social interactions the devs set up with player interdependence and hardship. The actual content was just the background for how it was used in a social setting to keep giving players more goals to achieve. Today's MMORPGs are far better at being games than the older ones, but that's all they bring to the table anymore.
The structure for the social metagame just isn't a priority anymore- it's difficult to set up and requires inconveniences that the majority of today's MMORPG players are likely not used to and may not be willing to accept. The risk of that is why we're stuck with shallow, lifeless copypasta clones.
I'm inclined to agree. Especially the guys that made/are making important descions. A lot of the problems they are having can be blamed on the state ofthe Hero platform when they licsenced it. The launch has been more AoC than Rift.
Be that as it may, going through the same thing day in and day out doesn't feel like a journey. It feels like a drive to work and back home again. Yes, it is a journey, but it is a boring one you do everyday.
As long as we're not trying to pretend earlier MMORPGs were somehow better, I totally agree with that statement.
Early MMORPGs were a drive to work with endless mob-grinding long before you reached endgame. Despite newer MMORPGs being way better than that, they could obviously stand to be changed in ways that make them interesting for longer. The same could be said of any game, really.
It isn't that they were better per-say, but even in all that grinding, it seemed better. You grouped up with people, and had a blast, and that "grind" didn't seem like anything. Grouping with others was fun, and it was something people looked forward to. It wasn't like grouping with people today. You weren't insulted for not having the best gear, or for not understanding a boss the first time through a dungeon. You weren't insulted if you caused a wipe. I could go on about this, but I imagine you get the point.
I have plenty of memories over the years of being lost for 8-12 hours at a time, completely captured in what i was doing in a game. It was a challenge. It generally was hard. But that challenge was worth the reward, and after playing, you felt like you did something. I again, don't feel that way anymore.
I agree with you though, that any game could stand to be changed a bit. Even the older games that I fondly remember could of used a few changes here and there. I guess the point I'm trying to make is even though there was a ton more grind, it somehow felt more fulfilling, and overall a better game. I'm guessing in today's world, people can't be allowed that freedom to go do what they want, we need to be guided, or we might get lost.
If Grouping made the feeling of Grinding go away, than why do you people complain so much about "RAID GRINDING"? thats both large group as well as a grind. The people here contradict their own complains all the time. Now you see why you people aren't happy about any MMO that comes outPhilosophy of MMO Game Design
Did you just say grouping = raid grinding therefore grouping sucks?
People complain because it is the same actions, everytime. There is also the fact that most raids are instanced, so you have no real varibles at play of something being different. In the bit of raiding I've personally done, it normally is a matter of learning what to do, and having enough stats to produce the damage to kill it. That's it. Once you learn the fight, it is easy, and when you get better geared, you then can steamroll it, making it even easier.
Take a non-instanced version of say a cave, or dungeon you and a group of people are exploring and killing for xp. Your in there, 10-15 minutes, and someone might come in. They may or may not be capable of handling themselves. That adds a few varibles. Generally speaking, stuff respawns after a bit, so you need to keep track of where you rest up at, and where you are, or else you could be in trouble. The "trash mobs" actually give you a run for your money, instead of bending over and dying. There is plenty more of these varibles that occur playing but I will assume you get the point.
This is what keeps you from being bored, this is what keeps you from feeling the grind. Not to mention, the social interactions, and making friends in the process. As I stated in another post, people don't act the way they used to either, and I personally feel that is part of the problem as well. Also having the content laid out to you in a nice neat package is part of why folks feel it is grindy, which is also a problem. There really isn't any freedom to do it another way, and once you learn it, it becomes boring. Freedom is honestly the biggest problem in most games nowadays, we just label it different things.
I agree. Endgame for me is literally the end of the game.
We will see after mid march when the 3 month subs run out if it failed or not.
The biggest problem I had with SWTOR was they did a lot of things, but few of them were better than the competition. It's like they didn't know their audience. I think this is why WoW and Rift get a lot of slack... because they do a few things very well and cater specifically to their audience.
Bioware didn't know their audience. You could tell they were going for box sales since they were making promises to every person with a computer and 60 bucks. They said the game was for Star Wars fans, Bioware fans, MMORPG gamers, casual players and hardcore players, PvP'ers, end-game raiders and single player gamers... the list just doesn't end.
As a gamer, I don't care if I'm not in the target audience for a game. But at least HAVE a target audience so those players who do subscribe can enjoy it for a long time. "Everyone" is not a sustainable audience. It's a box sales grab.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Wow, you're really trying to claim that endless mob-grinding had more variety than raid fights where you have to learn each boss' unique mechanic?
You realize that's rather ridiculous, right?
(As a complete aside, kudos to the mods for not automatically knee-jerking this thread into the TOR forums. That's always been the worst and most unnecessary type of moderation that happens around here.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Is endless mob grinding anything less than endless daily grinding, endless token grinding, endless instance grinding..
Its a treadmill either way. As far as unique mechanics? When there really isn't much to lose from failing that mechanic it encourages people to play poorly. That or they grind lower level instances to improve their gear to mask their poor playskill. At least in EQ you learned many of the same mechanics you would use in raiding while you leveled (as in grouping) so you at least had some skill if you managed to make it to a higher level.
Let's actually have some information before everyone is shouting "the journey is too short".
This website boasted a leveling guide that can level a wow char from 1-85 in 4 day played.
http://www.zygorguides.com/
4 days played is roughly 100 hours. If you play 2 hours a day, that is 50 days ... a month and 2/3.
Now, this guide assumes you don't read anything, don't level up professions, don't explore, and just follow the MOST efficient path which they worked out.
It can easily take 2x as much if you don't play the game instead of rushing it though. In that case, we are talking about 200 hours .. and 3 month time if you average play 2-3 hours a day.
3 months is quite a reasonable time when most single player games last only 1-2 weeks. Plus, this is for a SINGLE character while MOST players have multiple toons. If you factor in the different starting areas, and faction areas, the actual leveling content last way more than 3 months.
And also remember most of the leveling content (i.e. quests) are single play-through (for ONE toon) and not repeatable. Thus, this is quite unlike dailies that you need to repeat and repeat.
I won't complain about a few month worth of single play through content.
This is exactly my point. It is all the same grinding at the end of the day, and there is really no difference. At least mob-grinding, and generally exploring the massive worlds we had available gave us something to do. Right now in SWTOR, Ilum is very small, maybe 10-12 types of mobs at most, and half the map is friendly to either side with the mobs. The PVP area is a joke, doesn't work right half the time, and no one is in there the other 1/2.
I'd much rather the open-ness and freedom of grind mobs for hours with a group of people, who respect you as a person, then doing raids all day with idiots and assholes. I feel raids are very limited, and you are piegonholed into doing it one way or else, and never felt that restriction with mob grinding.
I think about it this way, Trion has so far made Rift and that is there first game. Blizzard and Bioware are veterans. Trion is kicking there ass with Customer Service and fast patches and content.
Rift has a bunch of post-game content that you can do by yourself. Why does the journey ONLY have to be while your lvling? Trion has done post 50 lvling with Planar Attunement. Solo content like Chronicles and the Epic Questline and the Cult Saga. There is a bunch of stuff to do at 50 that drives the story more for you. Raiding and grinding isnt the only thing.
Well we're talking about variety here, and you've clearly cited three "endless" activities in modern raiding vs. one in classic mob-grinding. So even at a high level there's more variety.
But at a mid level there's also more variety. Certainly the variety to gameplay that I experienced in early mob-grind games was nowhere near what I experienced in modern dungeon/raid gameplay.
After all someone already mentioned it in this thread: you have to learn those fights. You didn't have to learn anything when it came to endless mob-grinding because they were basically all the same (at least until CoX, which admittedly was an endless mob-grinder with some variety to it.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This was so well put that I have to quote it. Thank you.
I like to have a whole selection of boys to whip, if you catch my drift.
You know the irony, I can remember more details about EQ dungeons than i can in any of the instances in the current MMO's. It wasn't just blast your way through the dugeons spells blazing, you had to be careful not to pull strays, watch out for roamers and adds, all while managing your resources such as mana (you could quickly burn down a mob but then you had downtime and couldn't get out of combat to drink a drink and be back to full in 10 seconds).
You talk about variety in gameplay, almost every dungeon that has come out lately in current MMO's is a straight path from start to end. No winding coredors that can get you lost, no secrets, no incentive to explore in essence they really arent dungeons they would be more aptly named "Guantlets" (not to be confused with the old school game) where you run from one end to another and hope to survive to the end to get a prize.
In the newer MMO's you are just shuttled from one area to another with quests most people don't even look around them they just run towards where there arrow is pointing them. Also whats the point in quests if all you do (or rather what most people do) is just look at the objective without even caring about the lore. No incentive to break the mold just one quest area to another.
I dunno i call that less variety in gameplay than I used to get from games like EQ.
That's why I like how Lotro and FFXI do story. It's an important part of the game but not the major focus. You can literally play those 2 games and never do the story aspects. Now you may gimp yourself in certain ways, items, money, xp etc. but it is possible.
I suppose it's possible in SWTOR but you would literally have to choose to not quest from the get go. Interesting.
This is exactly what my point is. Now if you want to call that endless mob grinding so be it, but it had far more thought, risk, and freedom, then anything that has been released today. I suppose though it doesn't really matter though, as there are those of us who see it this way, and think that this is the way it should be done, and then their are those who love being shuttled and hand-holded. I personally still feel SWTOR limits these freedoms, and basically forces you down a path that you really can't escape or leave.
Um, but you have to be careful not to pull strays and watch for roamers/adds in modern dungeon/raids too.
So that leaves mazelike dungeons and attrition-based gameplay as the two factors you've brought up.
Mazelike dungeons in AO, DAOC, and AC1 didn't vary gameplay in my experience. You still fought the same bland strategy-less mobs around each bend, but now you did it in a maze. Meanwhile in the linear dungeons of WOW the fights themselves are varied due to boss abilities (and in some cases trash abilities.) So actual variety, not just non-variety masquerading inside a maze.
Attrition-based gameplay is actually part of why that's true. In attrition-based gameplay, each fight wears down your resources little by little. This means each fight tends to be flat and shallow (because they're not tightly-balanced to put you near-death each fight, only to safely widdle you down.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It is really simple... There has to be enough content to consume at the current XP rate where you don't run out when leveling and there are paths you did not take which you can take with an alt.
I mean its basic stuff. Even as the OP said WoW at release was faster than eq/eq2 at release but not that much faster.. Compared to today ? Its rediculous what these companies are doing..
Something keeps telling me that designs went this way to appease some stastistic where more poeple quit in the first X levels or something... so idea being get them past those levels and they will stay longer...
I don't of course know this for fact.. it is only a hunch and i hear developers talk about "quitting before level X" quite often.
That said, I have never seen an industry where nore companies tend to make really poor and obvious design decisions in games and truly do hurt their numbers over time...
Here's why SWTOR is getting the whip OP: It was Bioware, with EA's money, and it created such a crazy hype machine through target marketing and gameplay snipips, using word like "The most epic feeling MMO to date" and "The game will change how people view MMO's".
They destroyed themselves. You hype the game up that much through marketing and key words, you better be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions. They are only reaping what they sowed man.
As for blaming Trion, a startup company who invested all their cash ($50 mill I believe) into their game and advertised their RIFTing events and mutliple soul classes (which they delivered very well on both), gets praised. Yes they recieved critisism, but they constatnly communicate with the forum community and push out fixes and updates unlike any other MMO company to date. They didn't have he IP, they didn't have the previous gamer types (Diablo 2 for Blizz, KoToR for Bio), and they had no reputation.
This is what separates the two companies, and why blame is placed on one more than the other even though they follow similiar design decisions.
+1 Well said