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Why do MMO gamers have unrealistic expectations compared to other genres.
Macecard
Member UncommonPosts: 142
No we don't! I hear you cry after reading the title of my thread. But yes we do (I include myself in this).
I am going to explain how I came to this conclusion. But before I do I'd like to say; I am mostly likely not the first person to notice this trend and I am sure my opinion of whats happening doesnt extend to 100% of the mmo gaming community. That said I believe that the way in which mmo gamers approach mmos is the core reason for the excessive hype and disappointment cycle and the ongoing war on trolls/fanbois (they are the same thing viewed from different sides of a fence).
So why do mmo gamers have unrealistic expectations? well thats because, from what I gather from reading articles and threads here and on other websites, its clear to me that we as mmo gamers expect FAR more from mmos than games of other genres.
For example;
I personally like MMO's, RPGs, FPSs. These are my top 3 genres in the gaming industry. Now lets look at how I (and I believe most gamers) approach these genres. Ill start with the FPSs are this easily shows my point; I enjoy CoD (comment on this if you must trolls but its beyond my point here) and I also quite like Halo, however I do not like medal of honour or battlefield. My point here is that I never thought id like medal of honour or battlefield. I have always known I do not like the way the 'twitch' feels in medal of honour. I did not get swept up in the hype for either game and though I did read the odd article I never had any expectation of buying or liking either game. The same can be said for rpgs, I like dragon quest and I enjoyed the early FF's, although the new ones seems to be just terrible (in my opinion). When ff13 came out I was not going to buy it (I did in the end due to lack of games to play when bored) and I did not get super excited about its release. In both these cases (fps and rpgs) I never get the feeling of being super disappointed with the new games in the genre. I didnt feel wronged by the companies who made them for creating games in the genres I love and failing to please me.
So I ask you, why do mmo gamers seem to think that every triple A mmo to be released should be the next pinnacle of the genre and should become their new favourite game of all time? Why can't we accept (like we do in other genres) that not every game made in this genre is going to please us and that the subtle differences in each game aren't there to pisses us off or create a game that isn't as good as the last one but are there as the evolution of the genre.
I do not expect another rpg to surpass the fun and enjoyment I had playing FF7 and 8. but mmo gamers seem to think that with each new mmo release they are going to recieve a bigger and better game in every way from the last. This is unrealistic when compared to how the other genres in gaming have changed and evolved over time. There is no genre out there where a fan can say they have played and enjoyed every title created for it.
Do you agree? or am i talking nonsense?
If you continue to make sweeping statements like you know what everyone everywhere thinks about a certain topic then I am going to shout at you.
It easy to type 'I think this is the worst game ever'
Rather than the 'This is the worst game ever'
Comments
Anyone that has been playing MMOs since the begining knows that they have not progressed and advanced nearly as fast as other genres. Both in terms of graphics and features.
I started playing everquest on a pentium 150mmx, 32mb ram, voodoo 12mb accelerator. My current computer is exponentially more powerful and the current MMOs today still do not take FULL, proper, optimized advantage of these capabilities. They concentrate too much on being backwards compatible and not enough on pushing the genre forward.
Its the same with features. Devs and Producers are not taking enough risks and trying new things. We get games with more of the same plus one or two new features. "Its jsut like Game X, but with houses!" "Its just like game Y, but with mounts!" " just like that last game, but you can fly!" Noone has the guts to try a completely different approach and push the evolution of the genre.
Let me ask you, have you played a modern day FPS that you felt was heads and shoulders above one that was first release 10 years ago? I'm going to guess the answer might be yes and if so, ask yourself why you thought so. Probably because the new title was heads and shoulders an improvement in the genre and really amazed you.
MMO's didn't go the same way for me. I cut my teeth on Lineage 1/2, DAOC and Shadowbane. At their core they were all PVP centric castle siegers, with heavy PVE and virtual world elements thrown in.
They just don't make them like this anymore. They haven't for years. Closest I've found since 2006 is EVE, (another 8+year old title) and as such it holds the title for longest played MMORPG, closing in on 4 years played soon.
Most modern day MMO's have really evolved away from the core principals and mechancis that I enjoyed, have stripped away most forms of interdependency, socialization mechanics, downtime and even reasonable travel times.
It's the era of fast travel, non-stop killing, solo play and dungeon finders, and I for one, am not happy. (and believe the genre can deliver better)
Apparently, the only thing unrealistic about my expectations is thinking there's enough of us who would also enjoy a title that revisted some of the mechanics of the past, or provided a deeper and more challenging gaming experience than the current crop of theme park MMO's.
We have the technology...... just not the will or imagination to use it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
One answer is because MMOs aren't a one and done type of game. You don't play an MMO to beat it and then move on to the next game. To win a customer over, that MMO has to be good enough to pull them away from their current MMO, and sadly that is rarely the case. The bar is set even higher because of the continous developmental cycles on older MMOs. 2004 WoW is a completely different beast than 2012 WoW, if you want to compete with a came with 10+ years of development time, we expect you to bring us something new and innovative, otherwise you're just pissing in the wind.
Another reason people are upset, is the production quality of MMOs is in the shitter. Look at how lame most the combat systems are. Look at how weak enemy AI is. Look at how weak the questing and storyline elements are. Look at how pathetic the graphics and animations are on most of them. When stripped of their online components, are absolutely shoddy platforms for delivering fun gaming. A big reason for that is their scope and technical limitations... but as a consumer you don't want to hear that. You want a game thats gameplay elements compete with other genres.
The problem is that MMO gamers are planning to invest a lot of time in a game. They dont want to play something for a month then move on. To them, that is a wasted month that they could have been playing something else more permanent.
The problem is that on these forums the sandbox fans have nothing better to do than troll every new themepark game that comes out, so all you see is constant whinging and trolling, rather than interesting discussions like there used to be.
I agree that MMORPG's have de-evolved over the years and only gotten more "dumbed-down".
The biggest issue for me is that many MMORPG's have strayed from RPG type combat mechanics and preperation and traded it in for a more FPS type mentality (not exactly FPS, but the twitch mentality behind it). If I wanted to play and FPS there are plenty out there...why should MMORPG's be dumbing down combat in order to "attract a new crowd".
Then as far as content and accessability goes, you have Developers of MMORPG's trying to cater to uber-casual players that just want a "free ride" and don't really want to be challenged. So, now you have dumbed down combat and a cheap, linear and hand-holding map to explore too.
The last issue would have to be that developers spend too much time trying to make the next-gen in graphics and forget they had a game to make. MMORPG's need open worlds, large, vast continents to explore and more freedom than MMORPG's grant today. Although I do like decent graphics, they do not have to be state of the art....in history, MMORPG's (and even RPG's) have always been a few steps behind in graphics compared to other games because they focus more on content than how pretty the girl toon looks.
Just a few complaints...I do have more, but that's enough for now
Propably because mmorpgs are huge and supposed to be huge commitments, at least theoretically, or should I say 'at least within the boundaries of common sense' - so these games draw in a lot of high grade escapists.
These folks do not expect the next game to be a new game, but instead a new world. Sometimes it feels like some people get angry on mmorpg launch just because the game did not open a magic gateway which they can enter and start living the life of their avatar. They expect a new game to reflect their own unique version of the game that they made in their head. Every game will always fail when it's perceived like this.
More common are the people who simply expect something else from the next game. I think these people are fair and realistic, at least to some degree, but often fall to hype and also to wrong expectations. So many times I see people whining after the launch that the game did not match their expectations even when everything was revealed about the game before it launched.
Then there are those who know what's up, they know already that they will only play for "the free month" and then move on. Mmorpg vets who know how the title is going to be like, mainly not for them but since there's nothing else to play might aswell try out the game for a few weeks. I've found my self doing this many times, nothing else to play so might aswell try out the next game, effectively adding to the locust swarm that warrants making poor clones just for the initial sales burst.
Edit: I just realized that I simply said in 3 different ways that the games suck
Thanks,
Mike
Working on Social Strategy MMORTS (now Launched!) http://www.worldalpha.com
Go to gaming forums that are not focused on mmo and read them.
Amount of hype and hate and discussions are as heated as here.
CoD has also fanbos and haters. Single player RPG's too - have I have to remind DA2 or ME3 discussions?
Diablo3, LoL also get them.
Remember discussion after BF3 release and hate it got because it is much more casual and simplified / streamlined game than BF2 that was much more tactical and had steper learning curve?
What are you even talking about?
Besides mmorpg's have not only changed their combat mechanics and graphics over the years but whole game CONCEPT. That why they get so much flak.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
I suspect a lot of the problem is that those hanging out in forums are not representative of either their respective game communities or MMO gamers in general. In fact, they're very far from it. Most of the MMO playerbase doesn't know squat about the hype/flame cycle, they don't worry about launch dates all that much, they don't really care enough. They certainly aren't pining for the long lost halcion days of SWG (to put it mildly), nor arguing with their friends about how every game should be a sandbox (whatever the hell exactly that means) and anything else is fail. The overwhelming majority is playing whatever game interests them at the moment -- which, much to the displeasure of people here, mostly means WoW -- and if they're having fun they keep playing. If not, they move on. No real biggie.
Forums, both meta-, like this one, and game-specific, give an extremely distorted view of the playerbase, pretty much simple as that. A big part of that distorted view is that the playerbase is made up mostly of disgruntled players who work hard to never be pleased by anything, and white-knight fans whose self-worth is so tied up in their game of the moment that no percieved insult of their precious can stand.
Here is my 2 cents worth on it. Games get hyped up, and some of them way over hyped. We been promised the moon and stars and galaxy with some games, only to get a shell of a game.
When a game company tells me they are going to do a,b,c and only deliver F, then yes I have expectations of getting a,b,c. So no I don't think I have unrealistic expectations. I just expect game companies to deliver on their hype, and if they cant that is their fault.
Case in example: Swtor, we were told that hey we already have 2 years worth of content ready to be put in game, but just take a look at what they done. Then they told us the other lie we will have 10 years worth of content, 10 really I don't see it. We are going to have hudreds of planets, just take a look at the star map and tell me how they are really going to do that. We are going to have updates every 6 weeks, yea right keep on telling me lies.
You miss my point.
I know where are massive discussion about fps games with lots and lots of hating flying around, though this is different to how the hate flies on mmo forums. None of the cod fans in those arguements EVER thought they would like battlefield, they are attacking battlefield fans for the sole reason that they are battlefield fans and not cod fans. On the flip side, on an mmo forum people will argue over the hype of a game and the praise others are giving it. This is more of a disappoiinted/hype arguement. for example those 'trolls' attacking gw2 fans on here arent doing so just because they hate GW2 and love PW or SWTOR, they are most likely being the way they are because they are sorely disappointed with GW2 and expected much more from a triple A game, most would have played gw2 had it been better or better placed in their own opinions of mmos.
Im not sure I am getting my point across here very well. to put it basically
cod fans are not disapointed with the quality of battlefield, they just hate it for the stupid reason of it not being cod.
swtor fans or wow fans ARE disappointed with SWTOR or GW2 and are generating hate for this reason and not because they are fanbois of the older games they played.
If you continue to make sweeping statements like you know what everyone everywhere thinks about a certain topic then I am going to shout at you.
It easy to type 'I think this is the worst game ever'
Rather than the 'This is the worst game ever'
I respectfully disagree. I suspect many, like me, are here because we dont even have a game right now. Nothing that has come out in the last few years has been good enough to justify going "all in". Instead we are constantly revisiting old games for short stints and hoping something new and fresh comes out that can revitalize the genre. Are we the majority? Perhaps not, probably not. But we constitute a large enough community to have voices in all of those forums. And there are certainly enough of us to support the game we have all been asking for for so long.
When everquest came out not only was its $15 a month subscription unheard of but we had to buy a video card/accelerator to even play it. And you know what? We did it gladly and enjoyed the hell out of that game. That was nearly 15 years ago! Today $15 is a less significant amount of money to me, yet no game released in recent years is worth that to me. Even worse, everyone is complaining and clamouring for games to be F2P and B2P which will only force publishers to cut more corners and features to ensure a profit.
and since are millions of players, also are millions of different likes and dislikes.
So seeing some1 hating your loved game, doesnt make him bad person
What you are talking about is very real, and is something I've noticed & commented on quite a few times on these forums.
From what I've seen, this is a very complex issue. One that noone seems to have a definitive understanding of why. Only hypothesis & guesses. Personally, I think this problem stems from a number of factors:
- MMOs are largely viewed as virtual worlds. This isn't inherently a problem, except it reinforces the idea many gamers have, that MMOs should be a kind of pseudo-reality. Something close to a 2ndary reality, or a life simulation. The problem with this, is that no game can ever capture the complexities of life to the fullest. Not only do we not have the tech to do it, but we don't have the time, or money it would take to even attempt something like that in the way that many people seem to want. In this regard, there are too many gamers that are chasing something that doesn't exist, and can't exist with current technology. That may change in the future, but it doesn't exist now.
- MMOs are expensive, and take a long time to make. Because of this, and the amount of risk it entails to even attempt to create an MMO, 2 things always happen. 1) Newer MMOs are forced to generate interest, because without it it's nearly impossible to get enough funding to ever make the game happen. 2) Newer MMOs are forced to hold onto that interest for longer than most other genres. This creates an extended sense of suspense & expectation, and as a result people's expectations tend to inflate accordingly. When we are forced to wait longer for something that looks interesting to us, we generally start developing inflated expectations to justify the wait. In other genres, we usually don't hear about games sooner than a year before they are supposed to launch, and many times we only have to wait a few months between the time we hear about a new game & when it launches. Not true for MMOs. Furthermore other genres can be created much faster. They usually take 1-2years to make, as opposed to MMOs which take over twice as long.
- We've stopped viewing MMOs as games. This gets compounded by the number of games most people play as interactive movies. The problem with this should be pretty obvious. MMOs are, at the end of the day, video games. When you stop treating them as such, it's no surprise that your expectation will not meet the reality. It's a lot like people who go to movies & constantly complain when they 'aren't as good as the book', because the book 'had way more detail'. They're completely different mediums, and as such they bring different strengths & weaknesses. A book can paint a very vivid imagination in your mind, or a full world. A movie is more of an impression. A game is a series of systems that interact and revolve around specific goals. All of them can be used as tools to capture the same thing, but none of them are ever a good substitute for actual life. Furthermore each medium has certain things it does well, and certain things it does not.
- Skinnerbox models & the focus on vertical progression. We've been so trained by this, and many of us don't even realize it. It's been so engrained in our brains that this, & only this, is fun. Hell I'm playing Torchlight 2 atm, and having a blast trying to get new loot & lvling. It's a really good game, but it's also a fairly shallow one. What sucks about pointing this out, is that there are so few games now that don't have vertical progression, that it's becoming increasingly difficult to point to recent examples that people are familiar with. Probably the best examples I can think of (in recent years) of games that aren't focused on vertical progression; would be games like Zelda, Darksiders, Batman Arkham City, & Guild Wars 1. The problem with vertical progression is that it relies heavily on content, and the idea of consuming said content in a rapid race towards the finish line. This becomes exponentially more problematic each year, as gamers keep demanding such games, and spend less & less time 'beating' each one. 7 years ago, if you said people would be hitting endgame in MMOs last year within a month, you'd get laughed at. Last year, if you said people would be hitting endgame in MMOs today in a few days, you'd get laughed at. Yet here we are.
It's good to expect more from games, but a reality check is in order. What's happening now is that most gamers are at the same time demanding MMOs that are impossible to make, and yet still supporting & craving the same MMOs they are claiming they want to get away from. Part of this is because of how diverse the MMO community has become, but a lot of it is also hypocricy. In order to get better games, you need to understand what it takes to get there. You need to think about what you actually want, and whether or not your expectations match up to that. Most people don't. It's easy to just sit back & bitch about game after game, but that doesn't actually help anyone. It doesn't even give developers good feedback to learn from their mistakes. In order for anything to improve, it needs to have a clear understanding of what it's trying to improve, and how to get there. At this time with MMOs, most people don't seem to have either.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Actually PC has always been the most moddable and upgradable game engine out there. The "problem" lately has been the massive income gained by games produced by consoles. Those games then get ported to the PC with usually minimal adjustment to the strengths of that media.
The problem is that consoles are 7-8 years old, which mean that games on them will feature old generation graphics and requirements. Not to metion that when the port occurs, it's usually not that well optimised and it rather relies on the superior power of the PC to cover for the sloppiness.
Since most games lately are made with so low requirements, the incentive to upgrade machines in order to play new games better has diminished. Which is why most PC users lately are reluctant to improve their computer. The old generation engine games produced won't use the horsepower anyway.
I don't think we have this problem at all.
I spend half my internet time on a specific console gaming forum as well as here and the same hype and disappointment is apparent in other genres too, SOCOM series on the playstation would be a fine example.
The amount of original Counter Strike players that think CS: Source and Global Offensive are utter trash is through the roof, but if you go in now you'd probably play the most recent one and enjoy it too. There are thousands of people that prefer the original Team Fortress over the current TF2.
I cut my teeth online playing SOCOM 1 and 2 and have been a part of that community since around 2003, I have followed every game and watch the series get worse and worse, they even tried to make it more like call of duty. This is the same trend we see in MMO's too, the publisher is never happy, they want more, they push developers in certain directions to try and maximise profit.
I know now that I will never like any FPS or TPS as much as I did SOCOM 1 and 2, I know I won't like any Call Of Duty game as much as I liked COD4, I won't like any MMO as much as I liked Matrix Online and SWG.
Once people come to terms with the fact that there old game won't be created they can move on and enjoy other things. This happens all over the place not just in the mmorpg community.
The genre has gone backward to cater to idiots for increased profits. We do not like this.
/thread
It's not possible to answer that question without a great deal of well-deserved insult.
Honesty = ban. Someone should grab and shake them, the Drill-Sergeant Reality Check. But forum rules prohibit it.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I think it's more the case that a number of MMO gamers don't like the direction into which the mainstream of the genre has evolved to, nor do they care for the majority of feature changes and additions that came with it.In the '90s you had something like god games like Populous and Dungeon Keeper, and adventure games like Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest series and such. If I was one that hugely loved those types of games (which I did), I could say that for example gaming has deteriorated since then, when those genres faded away and other changes happened. In a way, I'd have been right if those specific games were the types I most enjoyed and loved. However, in other ways, in other areas, gaming grew and evolved, and offered great gaming. But maybe not to people if they only really loved those god games or that type of adventure games. Same with the MMO genre: the genre evolved, changed, offered other paths of great gaming - but probably not to those who only really love sandbox type of games or a very specific type of MMO gaming.
I think it's mostly a case of expectations. There's also a lot of heated bickering and emotions when it comes to singleplayer games, just check the whole ME3 ending debate, or the metacritic figures of Diablo 3 or the last 2 CoD/MW games (even if those sold like 10 million). But overall the expectations might be less than people do of an MMORPG. In contrast to singleplayer games, a number of MMO gamers expect and want 1 single MMO to be able to be their virtual world, their main hobby, maybe even their alternate or replacement life and lifestyle for many years and thousands upon thousands and thousands of hours to come. That's a large wish to fulfill in any case, regardless.
For such a large expectation and requirement that some MMO gamers want an MMO to fulfill in their life, disappointment will be equally magnanimous.I'm not sure it's fair to say that MMO players regard each new release as the new saviour of the genre. You only need to read these forums to see that. Even before games release you can see the love/hate posts starting. We're seeing it right now with GW2, just as we did with TOR, TSW, Rift, and the list goes on.
Once these games release we see even more of the fueding between fans and those that are not.
I personally wasn't at all thrilled by TSW leading up to it's release. I tried the open beta and wasn't impressed so I never bought it. I don't trash it at every opportunity, but I have posted my feelings that Funcom could have done a better job on the character models and animations.
I was excited when I first heard about TOR but as more information came out I was less and less interested in the game. GW2 kept my interest through it's development and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Is it perfect? No, but it's still a good game and I'm enjoying myself playing it.
I used to be a huge WoW fan but as the game has devolved with each expansion I've let that one go too, didn't even bother to pick up MoP.
So, no, I don't think everyone has unrealistic expectations. I do think that MMO's are expected to be a cut above FPS and SP-RPG's if only because they need to create a world that engages so many people at the same time, and the fact that most of the AAA's will still be looking for a sub fee. That £10 or $15 a month means you expect your money's worth from your current MMO, so it better be damned good.