The dumming down of mmo's.

mastersomrat

We can all see (over the many years), mmo's have taken a path which frankly, has many wondering if the era is dieing or dead.  In the day (wayyyy back it seems), one had to deal with things like ammo, health, wieght, energy, food, drink, etc.  Folks had many things do (just to be able to complete).  There were many actions one could take with many actions (strikes, buffs, debuffs, heals, cc's, etc).

It seems (to me at least), many of the newer mmos (released just within the past three years) have really made it a point to have as little to do as possible.  Games such a Tera, TSW, etc have vary little to do.  Even things such as thier action skills have been dwindled down to 5-7 action keys (TSW goes even one further by showing how little it has by allowing you to display your passives).

Game like WoW, EQ2 and the like had many skills and/or action, so many in fact you could fill action bars two/three deep, top/side.  While I have played all these games and like/liked them at one point, I want to make clear, I'm am not a fanboy of any as my time has pasted for these older games.

Anyone else have this feeling?  Are people ability to handle more than one thing at a time really that limited or are Dev trying to market to children?

I know there are some (vary few) complex games out on the market (EVE and WURM to name a couple).  These game also seem to employ a level of bordum a select few are able to deel with. imo.

Lostar

Mixed feelings.

I remember my 500 page, self printed and organized EverQuest bible.  Within its tomes was a wealth of knowledge with maps that I scribbled notes to spawn points and places of interests, recipes with even more scribblings and my own Legend that only I was able to understand, Quest information and more scribblings...it was all very personalized and brought the game into the real world...almost too much.

Today's MMO's are compact and you are finding it less and less necessary to even alt tab out to look up boss strats.  I think they'll always be room for forums that do theory crafting but it's going to end up being a more min/maxing thing.

Is this a good or bad thing?  Does the added convenience take away from some of the experience?  Is it what makes  the difference from reading a story  off of a tablet to reading one from a book that has its personalized folded corners to show where you left off?

Royalkin

Modern design philosophy is really based around the path of least resistance, and I don't think you can blame developers for this. People are lazy, and especially the influx of mmo gamers over the last ten years. Developers build games based on trends, and for quite some time, the incredibly linear, stupidly simple, instant gratification treadmill style of games have held sway.

Why? Because, ff a developer dares (if they can find the investors to do so) to step out of line to produce something original, and something that would exist outside of conventional thinking, they are shuned. Not only by investors, but by other developers, and especially people. So, we get shallow games, which investors think people like. Investors in turn provide developers with money, so they dictate the design philosophy. If investors think unicorns and raindbows are what people like, we get unicorns and rainbows, and fifty gazillion copies of it in different colors, styles, sizes, and etc, but its still rainbows and unicorns.

QuicklyScott

You know, I think it all mixes in with the times and the hell we are living through. This decadant age of nihilism and stupidity which is being pushed by major media outlets and huge coporations, seem to be fermenting through all crevices of western culture, the MMO scene is not immune.

 

A couple of years ago I thought it couldn't get much worse, since then it has.  Who knows how deep the rabbit hole goes.  Maybe in another five years, all MMOs will be accessed by and intergrated into social networking, where people will go to shoot fireballs at stout green looking gentlemen while they shout and troll each other, spouting off the latest memes.

pierth

OP, you might check the following two threads for similar discussions that have already come and gone:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/431/view/forums/thread/356148/page/1

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5064082/Usability-and-the-perceived-dumbing-down.html#5064082

I personally don't mind having fewer abilities at a time so long as those abilities are useful, and unique to my class/build. The problem I have with newer MMOs when it comes to abilities is how many of them are analogous- in Rift and TSW most recently I had the choice of many different abilities depending on my build but so many of them were similar to each other that it was really, really dull.

In older MMOs than you described classes really were unique and brought completely different benefits to a group- the problem as I see it is that in most MMO PvP if you can't make some kind of mid-high DPS build with some measure of survive-ability then that class will be labelled underpowered and the vocal minority will be flinging feces everywhere.

Onomas

MMO's are meant to be life like, an alternate living experience. Crafting, exploring, using your brain, problem solving, fighting, adventure, lounging around, doing what you want when you want.

Over the course of the past few years, even longer actualy, they have changed into console style rpg games, single player, too easy, linear traveling, no exploration, nothing.

 

Everyone makes excuses why sandbox style games shouldnt be the norm. But they do nothing but complaiun about the crappy themepark rpg games with tons of eye candy. Honestly none of these newer games offer even a tenth of what older games had to offer.

I dont like pvp, i dont like crafting, i dont like player housing, i dont like exploration, i blah blah blah...... Thats the beauty of sandbox games. Only do what you want to do. Not be led around on a leash and rush to max level. Gamers need to wake up.

 

I would rather have a full epic mmo with all the features so i can chose which i want to take part in, instead of not having them all and being limited in every aspect of a mmo.

 

I for one am sick of the eye candy console rpg games they expect us to pay a monthly fee. Sad thing is majority of you gamers like that garbage and it realy hurts the experience and fun levels.