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Let's accept it and move forward
SnarlingWolf
Member Posts: 2,697
The MMORPG genre is evolving in order to stay relevant as well as to attract some gamers who used to avoid the genre.
- Solo play will be king. Grouping will not be required to get the things you need or to level.
- Leveling will continue to get faster until eventually companies start experimenting with no levels at all. The endgame is the focus that isn't going away.
- Forced Open World PvP is simply not going to be the way major titles are developed. It chases away too much of the market. A PvP server or a small indie game are what you will have.
- Instanced dungeons are not going away.
- The trinity is going away. People want to have fun with their class and play with who they want to.
- 30 skills in multiple skill bars is going away. Action combat with a few skills will be the focus from now on.
- Auto grouping public quests are going to become more and more common.
- Quick travel/little to no down time will be the norm.
- Quick changing of class (or multiple trees that can be swapped between) will stay as people want to do different things without rolling up all new characters.
- Etc. etc. etc.
Instead of making threads every day (and for every new game that gets announced) asking why they aren't doing trinity, why they have instances, why they have action combat, etc etc. can't we all accept that is where the genre is going? Instead people should be discussing the other parts of the game and ways those could be improved instead of beating the dead horse while being resistant to where the genre and market are going.
I started off with The Realm, then UO, then EQ, then AC, then DAoC, WoW, and on and on. I played almost all of the early titles and many more in the years that followed. There are things I like that aren't coming back either because they simply aren't mainstream enough to be profitable. But you can't sit there and demand they go back to the old school. You can't demand they make yet another WoW clone that will fail instantly simply because you like that style of game (yet refuse to play the game that is exactly like WoW, it is called WoW).
It would be like stomping your feet when Duke Nukem 3D and other shooters allowed the camera to move up and down because you liked Doom so much. Or complaining that Mario switched from a side scroller to 3D worlds. Genres advance, adapt, and change to keep up with both technology and the shifting consumers. You can't unwind that so let's just move forward and actually talk about new things once in a while instead of having the 100th thread on the trinity or the 300th thread on how EQNext is doing it wrong because you want EQ1 with a better graphics engine. Time to move forward and adapt with the genre.
Comments
Do you have a suggestion?
I think OP is referring to the general content of threads here and on other gaming sites.
My question would be about business models, like will F2P continue or will we see a regression to Subscription?
My god i can't begin to tell you how much i hope subscription based games will make a comeback.
Sure It's really nice to have games that only sell cosmetics, but It's still an immersion breaker for me, and I'd gladly drop 15$ a month to just have the ENTIRE game available to me, rather then having anything stripped off of it.
I only feel like this with MMO's though, take your average MOBA like Dota, or League of legends, and immersion isn't really a problem factor in any way.
Why should we support flawed MMO.
They have no community and no staying power, they're dying all over the place and there is a new MMO every month.
All the action F2P MMO without trinity, without community, without strategy, plain suck.
Don't get me started on the public quests / rallying calls, you might as well be grouped with an AI bot.
Yea I think F2P models are going to be a thing of the past, at least for MMOs. With MOBAs it's not that big of a deal as long as it doesn't correlate to P2W.
I refuse to accept mediocrity in a genre that USED to have respect for itself and its customers.
If we just "accept it" then that's all we'll ever get, and that is NOT acceptable.
No OP, this isn't something to accept and just move on with.
My problem with modern MMOs is something completely different: Difficulty. And I blame the players for that. GW2 was epic at the first 2 beta weekends but whiners got the difficulty down so much that most of the game is incredible simple.
It might just be a turning trend that started around year 2000, all games suddenly become easier and easier but it might also be because many average Joes started gaming then. I hope they all move to Angry birds and similar mobile games instead so we can get our difficulty back.
Nice post. I agree with you. I also find the obsessive posting by the same people with the same issues in all the active forums just boring noise. Interesting new features in upcoming MMOs can't be discussed without the constant derailing of those threads by those wanting to once again tell us why the fact that the game retains "bad feature X" invalidates the developer's attempt to do one or two things differently.
Apparently, incremental progress just doesn't cut it: you either tick every box that a particular poster thinks is vital or you can forget about it--never mind the fact that they won't agree on the full list of "must" features: No FFA OWPVP? it sucks... instancing? it sucks... has levels? it sucks... it's not a universally acknowledge, certified sandbox? it sucks... so much repetitive noise.
But don't be surprised if this thread turns into a showcase for exactly those types of posts... you're throwing down the gauntlet and it will get picked up by all the cool MMO hipsters well known to all of us.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Flawed for you .. fun for many.
And no one asks you to "support" games you don't like. The OP ask you to "accept" that it is the state of the market, instead of ranting non-stop about the same thing again and again.
I know you like flogging a dead horse, but don't you find it a bit sad to complain non-stop instead of moving on.
Never say Never, there's one thing you should learn as you get older, and that is that things have a habit of coming back. Look at all the browser, mobile, Indie and tablet games that sport isometric 2D, 2.5D, side scrolling platform games, single screen platformers, building games, point and click adventures etc... the list goes on so why shouldn't games drift back towards forced grouping, (MOBA's are forced grouping online games) interdependency, fully open world, tab targeting strategic combat. In Central London at the moment I see the fashionable ladies and gents wearing loafers, drainpipe trousers, studded leather jackets, blouson jackets, peroxite sculpted haircuts and many people said the 80's was the decade that taste forgot and would never come back.
Ultimately if a feature is done well it is valid whether its in a small indie title or a AAA big budget game. This seems to be the natural cycle of modern life and I'll roll with the punches so long as the games are good. To deny something can make a comeback is folly and if you do not like debates about certain things well do not click on those threads its a simple as that.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Because "quality" is in the eye of the beholder. You mistake is to believe that there is one quality, and that is decided by you.
There is an understanding of the term "connoisseur" for a reason.
And there is a reason why there is no video games "connoisseur".
I think the word you really are looking for is "elitist"
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
So are you saying the art of video game development should be held to absolutely no standards?
Of course there are connoisseurs in any form of art. Maybe you're more comfortable with the term 'afficionado'. Whether you opt to respect educated opinions or otherwise, you must agree there exist learned, authoritative opinions.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
You need to read a little more carefully.
"accept" is not like. He wants you to acknowledge that what you do NOT like is popular. There is a huge difference.
I've had this discussion recently. Calling some concept elitist is only an attempt to discredit or otherwise dismiss it with no other evidence to the contrary than your opinion or hurt feeling.
If I am good at something, like baseball, and I can demonstrate that I am good at baseball in general, and if I tell you, 'you are not good at baseball', you can dismiss me, calling me elitist at your own peril. You're nullifying your own potential to grow from my potential to teach you aspects of baseball. You're not changing the fact that I am good at baseball.
I'm certainly not surprised there are a lot of opinions on my topic.
Here is another example. I grew up enjoying turn based strategy games. You know the ones like XCOM where you had a squad of guys and you took turns moving each one and the computer (or other player) took turns moving theirs. Eventually RTS games came out and for a while they coexisted, but eventually RTS won out because it was faster and more exciting. Yes, they finally made a new XCOM game, but at the same time no one should be surprised that most major companies avoid turn based strategy because the audience is just so small there is no room for more to be made.
The same is happening to MMOs. I grew up on the took forever to level, took a group to get things done, plenty of down time, no hand holding, etc. And I enjoyed those games immensely. In order for the genre to grow they had to first add quest finding (marks over NPCs heads) and speed up the process. As they continued to refine, they got to where they are now. You may see a small indie company here and there go back and try the old school method, but there isn't enough of an audience there for major companies to put their focus on it.
It simply isn't about what us old timers want. It is what the mass market wants. Gamers as a whole want faster, want more action, want more soloable, want to be told where to go, etc..Fighting that will lead to hundreds of repetitive threads with the old arguing against the new and no change or further progress in said discussion than any other time. Accepting it and moving forward could lead to actually productive things or at least newer discussions that haven't been had 15 times this week alone.
Sometimes you do just have to accept change.
Like you say yourself, they're gamers, many games on here aren't MMO, nor are they being played by MMO players.
We went from MMORPG, to MMO, now to solo Action games with artificial grouping.
They're different demographics, there's no reason why I should accept to play single-player action games, if that was the case I would have never gotten interested in MMORPG games.
I play MMORPG for their community, not to play a pogo stick with combos.
You don't have to play anything you don't want to play.
However, saying every new game that comes out is stupid, wrong, whatever terms you wish and saying the whole industry is wrong is missing out on what consumers as a whole want and are asking for.
The market for something like Vanilla WoW or Original EQ1 at launch is tiny now a days. No major company is going to develop for it because it would cost just as much to make as something which could target the mass audience. One of those becomes a clear business choice when you as a company want to make a profit.
Well, if it's a clear business choice they should be honest about it.
When EQNext says that EQ fans are going to love it and then they remove trinity, add-in Disney graphics and turn it into GW2, do you expect people to be excited?
When MMO keep calling their artificial grouping mechanics another thing, Fates, Public quests, Dynamic Quests, Rallying Calls, Rifts...when they're all the same thing...you're deceiving people into believing it's something it's not.
Don't blame us when the industry calls every single player action fest an MMORPG.
It's completely their choice to call non-MMORPG MMORPG. If it's a solo action fest with artificial grouping, don't call it an MMORPG and you won't get complaints.
stop stating your opinions as a fact
things i agree with
things i disagree with
things i agree with to a point
Things i want to see dissapear :
restricted Class system Leveling system Trinity Themepark mentality
playing the UI mentality Zoneing (Zoning?) End game Forced questing (questing the only in game activity)
Global chat (only available as a premium) tab targeting Humor that breaks the 4th wall
to list a few.
if the goal is fully functioning virtual world stop catering to PvE and PvP players separately and start experimenting NOW before its too late
Group play should be always encouraged and solo possible for those who enjoy a challenge. if Solo play is easy there is no point grouping up
Instanced dungeons with LOADING SCREEENS will go away
Focus on end game has to go away when developers abandon the leveling system, THINK! when does the end game start when there is no indicator that says "you have reached the end of your character progression NOW RAID YOU MONKEY"?
if traveling in the game is a chore the game is bad, there is nothing wrong with travelling if its done well