'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I have to disagree with you. For instance I went back and played Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Legend of Zelda for Nintendo recently and still enjoyed all of those games. In fact I'd say they were better than many of the games today that have much better graphics.
You say EQ didn't have much to do, but I disagree. It's crafting system was more complex than most you see today. The Zones were setup with no clear path so exploring was a lot of fun. There were underwater dungeons, dungeons with lava, dungeons of slippery ice. Many of them were far more complex than anything you see today.
The main problem I see with MMOs now are they are very shallow single player experiences. You can get the same experience from a single player game like Skyrim, but it's a lot better. Even in Single player games the dialogue/story gets dull after a while. Do you really need more than a few GM directed events in a MMO to have fun? Can't you create you own stories that are better than whatever the devs are likely to come up with? I know when I was exploring the early MMOs I usually had an idea in my head of what was going on and what I was trying to roleplay. I didn't need a developer to tell me a story, show me where to go, or tell me what to do. IMO it was a lot better that way.
It's extremely difficult to judge games you actually played when they first came out. It's impossible to know what you would think of them without the benefit of the nostalgia attached to your memories of when you first played them. I would play the original Zelda before almost any of the sequels, but if I had never played any Zelda game at all, and started playing it in 2013, I doubt I would last half an hour.
I am actually in the minority who would disagree with you about Skyrim. I don't think MMOs are trying to be an online Skyrim, I think Skyrim was trying to be an offline MMO. If you are paying attention to the narrative, you see that there is essentially no connection between any of the quest chains. Every quest line in that game could have been written by a different team that had zero knowledge of the work being done by any of the other teams. It's not one singleplayer game that takes a couple hundred hours to finish, it's a collection of different single player games using the same engine, no one of which takes any longer than twenty hours to finish, most of them far, far less than that. There are also what, two choices that actually branch the narrative at all, in the entire game? As an RPG, it's a sad joke. Even if a couple of the quest chains have fun stories.
Mini-rant over, but my point is that, in my opinion, the best stories are ones where the content is professionally developed, but the player has enough choice to *feel* like his actions are driving the narrative, even if they aren't. The problem with the narrative in most Bethesda games, and most MMOs, is that the player is nothing but a collection of stats slashing his/her way through NPCs to earn the next chunk of canned narrative that can only play out one way. Kill kill kill, cutscene (or text box). Rinse, repeat. Nary a choice in sight.
On the other hand, there are two problems with "player created" narrative. One is that the presentation quality just isn't there. A narrative which exists solely in chat channels and players' heads is never going to attain the polish level of professionally developed content. The other problem is that most players absolutely suck at creating a story that isn't complete crap.
I have hopes for the storybricks system in EQN. Fingers crossed.
In terms of nostalgia I don't believe that is that case. It's more that the majority of people don't have the patience to explore, be creative, or show some patience. In games like Legend of Zelda (since you know it) you had to show some patience to find all the secret places, pathways, and items needed to advance in the game. You didn't see a guy with an exclamation point above their head telling you exactly what needed to be done in a quest log and then having a GPS to show you where to go. Then you get the reward and feel good so you keep going. In reality you did nothing and probably didn't even read the story. Most MMO stories aren't that interesting anyway. On the flip side you might start playing Zelda and get frustrated because you can't figure out how to get proceed past a certain point or find a certain item so you give up and quit. In an MMO like Everquest you might say the same or you might give up because you died and lost your experience or you lost your items because you couldn't get your corpse back. That doesn't mean the game is bad. It means you have no patience.
In terms of Skyrim not having a good story I don't disagree. The Guild Quests were all pretty fun. The one thing it had going for it was the freedom to explore and do what you want. You don't see that in MMOs at all these days. Thats my point. It's always a very controlled PvE (linear) quest experience combined with a very controlled (PVP experience). Neither of those are fun. You can find them in any MMO out there. It's a worse experience then grinding mobs for exp. It's grinding quests with stories that become more and more meaningless as you play.
In terms of stories being good or bad these are my thoughts. When I used to play through Everquest there was this dark elf outside the city of Qeynos. I used to go think to myself wow this guy is like Drizzt (RA Savatore books). This is amazing. In EQ this was pretty neat because there were factions. A dark elf in Qeynos would be very strange as they would be attacked by the Qeynos guards on site. It' provokes thoughts of why they are there. I saw similar things like Ogres hanging around in good aligned cities. One character I started was a Dark Elf warrior. I ran him from Neriak to Kelethin (wood elf town) and grinding on Orcs to get my reputation up with Kelethin. I did something similar with a dark elf Necromancer. The point is that whatever story the devs make up can never be as good as the one you think up inside your own head. The reason for that is it's personal and makes sense to you.
I recently went on a trip back to Qeynos, stopping by Halas and Blackburrow. It was pretty amazing to go through. Just traveling through the expanse of the Karana's is amazing. They are so big it's incredible. You won't find such a large expanse in any other MMO today. It gives you the feeling that you could become lost.
In terms of stories being good or bad these are my thoughts. When I used to play through Everquest there was this dark elf outside the city of Qeynos. I used to go think to myself wow this guy is like Drizzt (RA Savatore books). This is amazing. In EQ this was pretty neat because there were factions. A dark elf in freeport would be very strange as they would be attacked by the Qeynos guards on site. It' provokes thoughts of why they are there. I saw similar things like Ogres hanging around in good aligned cities. One character I started was a Dark Elf warrior. I ran him from Neriak to Kelethin (wood elf town) and grinding on Orcs to get my reputation up with Kelethin. I did something similar with a dark elf Necromancer. The point is that whatever story the devs make up can never be as good as the one you think up inside your own head. The reason for that is it's personal and makes sense to you.
It can't be as personal. But it can be "better," from a quality standpoint. To me, the highest form of gaming narrative that currently exists is when the developers create the overall story, but give the players tools to define (in a limited fashion) who their characters are within that story, in a way that results in actual coded reactions from NPCs and the world to the player's choices. I think EQN has the potential to deliver fully on this promise.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
In terms of stories being good or bad these are my thoughts. When I used to play through Everquest there was this dark elf outside the city of Qeynos. I used to go think to myself wow this guy is like Drizzt (RA Savatore books). This is amazing. In EQ this was pretty neat because there were factions. A dark elf in Qeynos would be very strange as they would be attacked by the Qeynos guards on site. It' provokes thoughts of why they are there. I saw similar things like Ogres hanging around in good aligned cities. One character I started was a Dark Elf warrior. I ran him from Neriak to Kelethin (wood elf town) and grinding on Orcs to get my reputation up with Kelethin. I did something similar with a dark elf Necromancer. The point is that whatever story the devs make up can never be as good as the one you think up inside your own head. The reason for that is it's personal and makes sense to you.
It can't be as personal. But it can be "better," from a quality standpoint. To me, the highest form of gaming narrative that currently exists is when the developers create the overall story, but give the players tools to define (in a limited fashion) who their characters are within that story, in a way that results in actual coded reactions from NPCs and the world to the player's choices. I think EQN has the potential to deliver fully on this promise.
You don't have to convince me that a professional writer is better than me or others at writing a story. I find it a little difficult to get involved in stories because once you have read a lot of them over the years (or read them in games) they don't hold the same meaning no matter how well written they are. Something you believe in (that you make up yourself) and feel strongly about will almost always make the experience more meaningful (IMO).
EQN does sound interesting. I'll probably try it when it comes out.
Yes I feel the same way, I hate the way game are created today they have no sparkle it's like that dead eyed women at grocery store which says you Have a nice day....
Back in the original Call of Duty days, if there were asshats, or cheaters or racists, the way people dealt with them was to kick them off the server. Worked pretty well.
Not an MMO. Would never work in one, because players don't run the servers, and the AAA MMO has never been made where it would be in the developers interest to let the players run the servers.
But what did happen back then was these players were shunned from the community. Nowadays in the age of solo MMO's who cares.....but back then you NEEDED a group in order to do the majority of content that would actually progress your character at all. If you wanted to be an asshat you would be kicked from the group pretty fast. These days there is no action to be taken.
But what did happen back then was these players were shunned from the community. Nowadays in the age of solo MMO's who cares.....but back then you NEEDED a group in order to do the majority of content that would actually progress your character at all. If you wanted to be an asshat you would be kicked from the group pretty fast. These days there is no action to be taken.
You're forgetting that those players have their own communities. Look at games like EVE, or Darkfall. Entire guilds composed entirely of asshats. If somebody joins those games without a guild, and either doesn't find one very very quickly, or is a person who prefers not to be in one, the experience is pretty much screwed from the word go. Games where the only way to enforce good behavior is through players policing each other attract all the worst players, and the degenerates end up outnumbering the civilized people. To the extent such games end up "policed," it isn't the civilized players keeping the sadistic knuckle-draggers in check, it's just different groups of thugs being ascendant over everyone.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
i agree. had so many great battles and adventures in ac and can remember so many of them. would go back but nobody plays any more. eve is ok for pvp but i prefer dust a lot more now. eve is cool in a lot of ways but unless you want pvp as fleeting for several hour investments with chance for a good fight, eh.
But what did happen back then was these players were shunned from the community. Nowadays in the age of solo MMO's who cares.....but back then you NEEDED a group in order to do the majority of content that would actually progress your character at all. If you wanted to be an asshat you would be kicked from the group pretty fast. These days there is no action to be taken.
You're forgetting that those players have their own communities. Look at games like EVE, or Darkfall. Entire guilds composed entirely of asshats. If somebody joins those games without a guild, and either doesn't find one very very quickly, or is a person who prefers not to be in one, the experience is pretty much screwed from the word go. Games where the only way to enforce good behavior is through players policing each other attract all the worst players, and the degenerates end up outnumbering the civilized people. To the extent such games end up "policed," it isn't the civilized players keeping the sadistic knuckle-draggers in check, it's just different groups of thugs being ascendant over everyone.
Well, since we are in a old school thread, yeah jerks can find a few homes, but without all the cross server stuff, usually they offend enough people, or guild jerk disbands because of infighting, and then the biggest jerks, even if fully geared have problems finding a home. Not always, but very often. I have been in the top guild in a few older school games and had these individuals apply, and people wanted nothing to do with them. Some we gave a chance, but the real bad ones, no one would touch, they usually had to form their own guild and promise the world to get people to join.
That is my experience though, and is not the same as everyone else. I have been playing mmorpgs since UO though.
I'm 25 years old. I've been playing MMORPG's since 1996. I grew up playing online games like EQ, Asheron's Call, DAoC, The Realm, indie games like Well of Souls... ARPG's like Diablo II, and LoD.
Congratulation!! You have matured yourself quite earlier than other, typical MMO players. In fact, majority of them fail to mature themselves. Considering that, and your age, you realized all the things you have mentioned in quite an early age.
Some guy up there pointed out that you are too young to have played UO and EQ seriously, but I don't give a damn about it, that's not important at all.
My advice is just to give up your expectation for a long while. About 10 years at least. No game will break the wall for a long while, or even longer. It is good time to get back to real life since you realized how limited the MMORPG games are now.
Some guys can't mature themselves even at their 40s and even 50s, 60s, you are intelligent person least I can say that.
Just play MMOs, if you will, at very casual level, since they aren't worth your time and you learned it now.
Why doesn't someone buy an older MMORPGs engine, let say Star Wars Galaxies, remove all the Star Wars from it, fix the "big issues" and re-release it under another name for a fractional cost. I am no computer programmer (not even close) but what I have seen modders do to games , leads me to believe that the company that owns the program could do so much more for a fractional price. Why couldn't WAR be scrubbed of warhammer and re-released with generic fantasy setting? How much do failed MMORPGs sell for? You would think that would be a great kickstarter goal rather than a trying to develop a whole new game.
It seems much of the price tags of new games is all about graphics and voice acting. They put all this effort into polishing the bumpers while forgetting to install the freakin' bumper.
The only game I get my old school UO buzz from is Darkfall.
There are a couple of rules though.
1. Turn global chat off - forever, never read it.
2. Only join a guild with people you enjoy spending time with. Sounds simple but its important to avoid the zergs.
3. Immerse yourself in it and have fun with a regular half a dozen people.
My other game is Lotro because I've been lucky enough to fall into a great community and playing Lotro is now about chatting with them more so than about playing Lotro.
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76) Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
The only game I get my old school UO buzz from is Darkfall.
There are a couple of rules though.
1. Turn global chat off - forever, never read it.
2. Only join a guild with people you enjoy spending time with. Sounds simple but its important to avoid the zergs.
3. Immerse yourself in it and have fun with a regular half a dozen people.
My other game is Lotro because I've been lucky enough to fall into a great community and playing Lotro is now about chatting with them more so than about playing Lotro.
Comments
http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/23/3543470/debunked-the-strange-ride-of-millionaire-game-developer-bunky-bartlett
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
In terms of nostalgia I don't believe that is that case. It's more that the majority of people don't have the patience to explore, be creative, or show some patience. In games like Legend of Zelda (since you know it) you had to show some patience to find all the secret places, pathways, and items needed to advance in the game. You didn't see a guy with an exclamation point above their head telling you exactly what needed to be done in a quest log and then having a GPS to show you where to go. Then you get the reward and feel good so you keep going. In reality you did nothing and probably didn't even read the story. Most MMO stories aren't that interesting anyway. On the flip side you might start playing Zelda and get frustrated because you can't figure out how to get proceed past a certain point or find a certain item so you give up and quit. In an MMO like Everquest you might say the same or you might give up because you died and lost your experience or you lost your items because you couldn't get your corpse back. That doesn't mean the game is bad. It means you have no patience.
In terms of Skyrim not having a good story I don't disagree. The Guild Quests were all pretty fun. The one thing it had going for it was the freedom to explore and do what you want. You don't see that in MMOs at all these days. Thats my point. It's always a very controlled PvE (linear) quest experience combined with a very controlled (PVP experience). Neither of those are fun. You can find them in any MMO out there. It's a worse experience then grinding mobs for exp. It's grinding quests with stories that become more and more meaningless as you play.
In terms of stories being good or bad these are my thoughts. When I used to play through Everquest there was this dark elf outside the city of Qeynos. I used to go think to myself wow this guy is like Drizzt (RA Savatore books). This is amazing. In EQ this was pretty neat because there were factions. A dark elf in Qeynos would be very strange as they would be attacked by the Qeynos guards on site. It' provokes thoughts of why they are there. I saw similar things like Ogres hanging around in good aligned cities. One character I started was a Dark Elf warrior. I ran him from Neriak to Kelethin (wood elf town) and grinding on Orcs to get my reputation up with Kelethin. I did something similar with a dark elf Necromancer. The point is that whatever story the devs make up can never be as good as the one you think up inside your own head. The reason for that is it's personal and makes sense to you.
I recently went on a trip back to Qeynos, stopping by Halas and Blackburrow. It was pretty amazing to go through. Just traveling through the expanse of the Karana's is amazing. They are so big it's incredible. You won't find such a large expanse in any other MMO today. It gives you the feeling that you could become lost.
It can't be as personal. But it can be "better," from a quality standpoint. To me, the highest form of gaming narrative that currently exists is when the developers create the overall story, but give the players tools to define (in a limited fashion) who their characters are within that story, in a way that results in actual coded reactions from NPCs and the world to the player's choices. I think EQN has the potential to deliver fully on this promise.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
You don't have to convince me that a professional writer is better than me or others at writing a story. I find it a little difficult to get involved in stories because once you have read a lot of them over the years (or read them in games) they don't hold the same meaning no matter how well written they are. Something you believe in (that you make up yourself) and feel strongly about will almost always make the experience more meaningful (IMO).
EQN does sound interesting. I'll probably try it when it comes out.
But what did happen back then was these players were shunned from the community. Nowadays in the age of solo MMO's who cares.....but back then you NEEDED a group in order to do the majority of content that would actually progress your character at all. If you wanted to be an asshat you would be kicked from the group pretty fast. These days there is no action to be taken.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
You're forgetting that those players have their own communities. Look at games like EVE, or Darkfall. Entire guilds composed entirely of asshats. If somebody joins those games without a guild, and either doesn't find one very very quickly, or is a person who prefers not to be in one, the experience is pretty much screwed from the word go. Games where the only way to enforce good behavior is through players policing each other attract all the worst players, and the degenerates end up outnumbering the civilized people. To the extent such games end up "policed," it isn't the civilized players keeping the sadistic knuckle-draggers in check, it's just different groups of thugs being ascendant over everyone.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Learn to not read these threads then, since they cause you pain, if you can't, then boo f**king hoo to you too!
Well, since we are in a old school thread, yeah jerks can find a few homes, but without all the cross server stuff, usually they offend enough people, or guild jerk disbands because of infighting, and then the biggest jerks, even if fully geared have problems finding a home. Not always, but very often. I have been in the top guild in a few older school games and had these individuals apply, and people wanted nothing to do with them. Some we gave a chance, but the real bad ones, no one would touch, they usually had to form their own guild and promise the world to get people to join.
That is my experience though, and is not the same as everyone else. I have been playing mmorpgs since UO though.
Congratulation!! You have matured yourself quite earlier than other, typical MMO players. In fact, majority of them fail to mature themselves. Considering that, and your age, you realized all the things you have mentioned in quite an early age.
Some guy up there pointed out that you are too young to have played UO and EQ seriously, but I don't give a damn about it, that's not important at all.
My advice is just to give up your expectation for a long while. About 10 years at least. No game will break the wall for a long while, or even longer. It is good time to get back to real life since you realized how limited the MMORPG games are now.
Some guys can't mature themselves even at their 40s and even 50s, 60s, you are intelligent person least I can say that.
Just play MMOs, if you will, at very casual level, since they aren't worth your time and you learned it now.
Why doesn't someone buy an older MMORPGs engine, let say Star Wars Galaxies, remove all the Star Wars from it, fix the "big issues" and re-release it under another name for a fractional cost. I am no computer programmer (not even close) but what I have seen modders do to games , leads me to believe that the company that owns the program could do so much more for a fractional price. Why couldn't WAR be scrubbed of warhammer and re-released with generic fantasy setting? How much do failed MMORPGs sell for? You would think that would be a great kickstarter goal rather than a trying to develop a whole new game.
It seems much of the price tags of new games is all about graphics and voice acting. They put all this effort into polishing the bumpers while forgetting to install the freakin' bumper.
I feel your pain OP.
The only game I get my old school UO buzz from is Darkfall.
There are a couple of rules though.
1. Turn global chat off - forever, never read it.
2. Only join a guild with people you enjoy spending time with. Sounds simple but its important to avoid the zergs.
3. Immerse yourself in it and have fun with a regular half a dozen people.
My other game is Lotro because I've been lucky enough to fall into a great community and playing Lotro is now about chatting with them more so than about playing Lotro.
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76)
Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
If only Darkfall UW wasn't a huge failure.