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Are some MMOs held up to unfairly higher standards?
Poison_Adele
Member CommonPosts: 287
Or, to phrase the question another way: do some MMOs get away scot-free?
It seems that whenever new MMOs come out, a significant portion of the complaints are that the game doesn't meet standards that don't exist in the industry. Take for example:
- A game features body type choices ranging from small-breasted skinny women to small-breasted beefy-ish women to traditional beauties. The game also features traditionally beautiful faces as well as one or two "middle aged woman" and "kind of ugly" faces. Facial features can be tweaked, some races can have more tweaks (horns, fur patterns, etc). Players complain: "This game doesn't have enough character creation variety", "this game is so sexist, there aren't enough options for less than pretty women". Yet the industry standard right now is features far less variety.
- A game features unique leveling systems which make the grind more of a game and less of a job. Very little grind is ever required, and the player can always do PVP, crafting, etc, in order to progress. Players complain that the game is a grind, when the industry standard is a higher level of grind.
- A game features the most extensive gear customization in the industry, and players complain that it is not enough and that everyone looks the same.
Etc etc...
Sometimes F2P games actually surpass "the industry standard" in some of the bullet points here, but fall far short in other departments. For the purposes of this discussion I am only talking about B2P and P2P games, not P2W.
MMO players constantly compare every game to some nonexistant ideal--we/they are consistently making their "dream MMO" less and less possible by tearing down any game that doesn't quite meet that ideal.
Comments
I think the industry standard is just abysmally low.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Just because everyone else does something badly doesn't mean that people will be happy with a new game aiming for those same low standards.
Also, remember that what constitutes, "enough variety," or, "very little grind," and so on are purely subjective.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
MMOs are not held to high enough of a standard. Release after release, the customer is inundated with games lacking a fluid interface, rich character design, or an intuitive combat system. It doesn't matter if a game has endgame, when the fundamental systems of games are being ignored or poorly implemented. There is no room for poor translations, poorly named systems (ArcheAge), poor customer support or nickel-and-diming practices (Turbine, I am looking at you). I hope the results of SWTOR serve as a good lesson - though I doubt the businessmen and businesswomen driving the industry have the insight to really understand what they are doing wrong. Games like Mortal Online, Darkfall, LoTRO, SWTOR, and a decent portion of the f2p offerings need to be wiped off the map. Start from scratch and take your time.
But if you read my post, my examples given were of situations where the game performed well above the industry standard. While there's certainly a lot of subjectiveness involved, I think there's a point at which things stop being "purely subjective" and it's more a question of bias and expectations.
Well above industry standard is not synonymous with, "good."
Bias and expectations are part of the, "purely subjective," nature of what we are discussing here. If the product is not acceptable, or doesnt meet target customer expectations, it doesnt matter if other companies' products are just as unacceptable.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
I agree that some MMOs are up for excessively high standards. There are gamers who will try to push for their ideal MMO even if it's impossible to do so. As such, even if there are only minor issues or minor aspects where the game failed to surpass the standard, then it's easy for them to escalate it and point it as bad. That's just the way it is. There are really players who think that developing a game is so easy and that a game should be tailorfitted to their likes and their likes alone.
Guess I'd like to add that I think there's another issue involved here. When people enjoy a game, it can fail to live up to all sorts of expectations, and it doesn't matter - as long as it does what it does well enough, people will tend to forget their expectations enough to just enjoy the game the way it is.
When people nitpick all these things they find wrong with an MMO, I think the real issue goes deeper than any sort of idealized list of what's wanted out of an MMO. It's really more about the game just not being a very good game.
Of course that's relatively subjective too, but I think it's a mistake to think that the individual deficiencies people complain about are the whole picture. I think people often just focus on the most obvious things they don't like about a game, even when the real problem with it is more pervasive.
It's like there's something wrong with the games industry these days, where devs are forgetting what gaming is all about, and making some fundamentally terrible design decisions. Like going for mass appeal at the expense of gamer appeal, when in the long run, its gamers that make a game popular, not the masses who'll mostly just stick to watching TV, no matter how much you try to make your game more like watching TV.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
What you consider negative may not be so for somebidy else. Also, a certain feature can be discounted from one players perpective but not from another. That feature alone can be enough to account for other flaws the game may have.
MMORPG has very difficult to make and cost lots of money. You can't please everyone.
Let me put it this way, it's not so much some are unfairly held to a standard. It's big-budget, big-brand MMOs are often NOT held to the same standard. But that is pervasive across all gaming.
Simply put, big studios with big budgets get better reviews than their games warrant because they can, and do, use those budgets as a weapon against people and organizations in the trade. It is no secret that reviewers have been fired. It is no secret that reviewers have quit. It is no secret that 'tough reviewers' get pushed aside (even when not fired) to second-and-third tier games while complete fanboys with no self-respect, skepticism or sense get the AAA titles.
It is, sadly, the way it has become. In the old days, there were a lot more studios and a lot fewer review sites. You didn't have a lot of choice, as a game company, where to advertise. Further, as a reviewer, there were a lot of game companies out there. Companies who might producte a game a year and didn't have gigantic advertising budgets like EA's $847 MILLION budget.
In the 1990s the power was in the hands of the reviewer. Now the power is in the hands of the developer and they weild it.
Reviewers are now fanboys who will stick up for/gloss-over any stupid game that isn't a bug-ridden mess. When Spore gets a 90+ rating, when DA2 gets a 90+ rating, when SWTOR gets '2012 Game of the Year' in the MMO catagory BEFORE RELEASE in November 2011...
You know it's broken...
You sound almost as bitter as I am. Spore? That game would still have a huge following to this day, if EA hadn't jumped in their mid-development to homogenize it for mass appeal the way they did. Yet because good reviews are so easy for them to secure, they still sell lots of boxes, and probably don't even realize they could be making great games that practically sell themselves, if only they stop getting in their devs' way.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
People barrack for games like they do football teams
GO GO my game
BOO BOO your game
I think so.
In other genres like RPG or even FPS we don't expect a game to be better than the most popular game.
You don't see, Metro 2033 sucks because its not as good as Bioshock or Divinity 2 is lame because Skyrim was better.
People just play and stfu. Sure you have bored fans and haters on forums like this who debate that stuff but overall people take games for what they are. If its good, its good no matter what came before it.
You expect the game to be fun not to have this feature or evolve this mechanic.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
No. The current standards for MMO's are incredibly low...