Playing any game with lame people...makes playing the game lame right? You play chess with a person who just learned how to play multiple times and you keep beating them the same way. It's not chess that sucks but the experience you're sharing with this beginner.
I think some of the wrong people are playing Mmorpgs now and their infecting the right people....making them miserable in which case they turn into "This game sucks, that game sucks, here's the problem with this game."
Every game has problems but you usually overlook them because the problems mean nothing as opposed to the enjoyable experience.
Grinding is nothing when you're grinding with your friends and chatting about life or whatever it is you like to chat about.
The truth is,if the people are great and you're enjoying your time with them you wouldn't really care about the game's flaws.(In My opinion)
What do you all think?
Comments
When WoW came out, the MMORPG genre had a massive influx of casuals. And I do mean massive, the MMO demographics went from a few millions in EQ, Lineage and FF, to tens of millions in a matter of a couple of years.
These 2 groups of players aren't the same type of players.
And that does cause problems, these people then head to forums and whine and force developers to change the game. And since these casuals often outnumber more traditional players, they often do change the game.
But these same people are the first ones to bail on the game after a couple of weeks.
Seen this happen many times, one example is Vanguard where people whined until travel was made easier.
Another example is often casual PVP players who join PVE oriented games, and whine that not all classes are "balanced", even though PVE players tend to understand that it is in fact the unbalance making the game interesting and reinforcing class dependency.
WoW has always had some 'flaws' but none of them matter when the community/guild/vocal player-base is pleasant.
On the other hand, sometimes games are just bad bad bad, and I can't get over it regardless of the people I'm playing with. First and foremost, for me to stay and enjoy an online game, it MUST feel good to play. It just had to be enjoyable to move around, travel, participate in combat whether it be pve/pvp, and typically have some good casual choices for when I don't have much playtime, such as minigames, gathering, exploring, crafting, housing, etc.... Not that 'bullet points of features = good', but if these features are in said game, it's a plus, but it's a WIN if these features are actually fun to play. Second, the community/people. If the people suck in a game, I don't care how fun it is to play, it ruins my enjoyment.
A prime example imo is GW2.
I think the game is utter crap and feels like cold utter crap while playing it. Don't care about the community being good or bad, the game feels like crap in every way.
An example on the opposite end is EVE Online. Beautiful game, and no matter what people say in forums, the community is FANTASTIC. I've been playing since 2004 and not once, NOT ONCE, have I ever dealt with someone that just disgusted me with their rudeness or immaturity. Not once have I been harassed. (verbally)
There is definitely piracy, griefing, mild trolling, and scamming, but those are gameplay dynamics promoted by the developers. You can get blown up in eve, scammed, and even ransomed, and it feels shitty to lose stuff, but even then, if you actually TALK to the player(s) that are attacking you, you'll more often than not gain new friends and possibly a new corporation or alliance.
EVE players WANT more players. They do not want to drive people away. They welcome even the least experienced of players in hopes of growing their own social and political circle.
The game is too often boring to play, though, which causes me to cancel and take breaks.
So, good game, bad community = crap.
Bad game, good community = crap.
Decent/good game, decent/good community = awesome.
We used to pay for a game that allowed social construction. We now allow social destruction for free.
You stay sassy!
For me, community is 75-90% of the enjoyment for me. 75-90% of players today do not even know what community means.
VG
It's like saying there are good movies with bad actors, a good movie by definition has good actors, it's a required precursor to a good movie.
My worst experience with an MMO community was with a game based around PvP, and dealing with the crazy levels people would go to cheat, from using hacks, making characters to spy/take up player spots, to win trading. Compare that to CS:GO, where my worst times have had people spewing hate speech, deliberately losing games, using hacks, or trying to scam/steal skins from one another. To me it seems that the MMO crap community was preferable. Neither game is this bad usually, but they are both capable of it.
I really do think it is the developers and the games, not the community they are catering to. This is a genre where the devs expect us to play constantly and pay constantly, whether it be purchasing items from a cash shop or a subscription fee. They want this crazy level of commitment from the players, yet offer us games with less content than single player games - while at the same time expecting us to just accept that due to limitations of the genre the content itself will never be as meaningful or as well designed. I would say the only reason they get away with it as much as they do is because the communities are full of such pleasant people. How many times have you kept playing a game you were bored with, simply because you didn't want to disappoint your friends?
Checkers is a great game, no doubt, but having played it thousand times already kinda makes it old and boring.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Like we've all seen and analyzed to death on this site. Games are designed with too small of a life-cycle now, and have too much of a 'visitor' feel. It's like we walk into Disneyland every single day, eat some food, punch a child, whiz on a roller coaster, whatever floats your goat. Then we leave the park and the devs come out and clean up our mess and start it all over again.
I wouldn't say that this next generation is waiting for The Next WoW to take the genre by the horns be a massive blockbuster to smash all records. That's like thinking any of Wayne Gretzky's hockey records are going to be broken. The way that the game is played is different today, and the possibility or even likelihood of it happening is remote, if not near impossible.
But what we do need is more community ownership in a game, and that is found by making the game something we want to hang around for. Something that we are willing to police ourselves for in our own way. I'm sure you remember in the EQ and early WoW years, if someone was marked as being a tool, then they were blacklisted, if not shunned.
As I see it. The better the game. The stronger the community. The fewer asshats survive.
This problem goes alot further and deeper than games. IMHO what you're seeing in games is systemic of society itself.
How many of us can name our neighbors?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
The forums are usually filled with noble knights and clerics that become powerful so they can protect the weak, but the game is filled with the most asinine people. Rarely do companies properly police the the game and even rarer do they give us the tools to properly police ourselves. Rarest of all, do they do this at the outset.
In my experience (literally, from the timeline of mmos that I played), WoW was the first major mmo to implement a cross-server dungeon finder. And for about a week, it was a wonderous invention bringing joy to the masses. You could be anywhere, doing (almost) anything, and queue up for an instance. And then people realized that they could be complete assholes and (at the time) there was nothing that could be done to them.
So most games like to implement cross-server dungeon finders now and it always launches with all of the benefits and none of the protections and poisons the community. If I'm ever involved in mmo development, cross-server friending, cross-server blacklists, vote-to-kick, and some sort of player reputation mechanic will be a part of the DF from launch.
I've seen people, in several games, enter a dungeon and AFK, or refuse to move because they didn't like another players gearing choices, or pull and drop group. And you might think the effect is minor, but it erodes at the community until people become embittered.
It's the same people unhappy with the previous line of mmo's they've played that are migrating from game to game, handing over $75, $100 for CEs that end up collecting dust on a shelf. These people bring their toxicity with them, refusing either enjoy, or--more importantly--let others enjoy, a game for what it is.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
But I need a game that is fun for us all so we can find something not boring or grindey to do. Once you find that fun game it gets tedious seeing someone else NOT having fun at it. They may have the right to complain and I can understand they are disappointed in some game dynamics. But mostly it feels like a bunch of depressed people who can't control their emo dumping on your happy good time.
That is why I think game makers should have a Groan & Moan Forum Thread. Then moderators should quickly stuff any complaints about game design there (politely - no infractions).
It is not that I disagree with complaints. It is more that nothing is perfect and sometimes you just want to enjoy what did go right instead of looking always for what went wrong.
So let's all have fun, okay?
We are talking about a cultural issue within gaming. Very explorable through discussion ... the most advanced problem solving tool of any animal. Humans just have to choose to use it.
You stay sassy!
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
however the game could be amazing , if the community is crap , i wont last.... and its breaks my soul when the devs made an awesome game and is ruined by the community.
I think that's the problem with modern communities. The overseers of the MMOs take no responsibility for people that just want to cause havoc.
Example: Corpse camping a player of equal level (or similar if neither of you is capped*) is a crappy thing to do but it's whatever. It's part of PVP. Camping the spawn area of newbies, or people that just have no shot of damaging you is complete and utter BS yet MMOs have taken the stance in the past that this conduct is fine.
(*Level capped gear frequently has the potential to be much much much more powerful than gear for a character one level lower)
It's a very good example of dev teams washing their hands of any problems, even as it costs them subscriptions.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
People are not the problem. MMOs are not the problem. There is no problem.
Chat has become irrelevant and people are disconected from the world because they just sit on TS talking to RL people instead of TYPING to that dwarf you met in some forest and that Elf whose probably a guy but you refuse to accept it.
The magic is gone!