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MMORPGs are at best unstable compositions of players.
pkpkpk
Member UncommonPosts: 265
"Online gaming can be a whole lot of fun, but there are two problems that always seem to ruin it: Cheating and personality conflicts. I don't see solutions for those coming anytime soon. So the entire point is moot as far as I can tell." - Squeek, 2007.
Unless you belong to the greater part of mankind, in which case you have no place in this thread, MMORPGs are at best unstable compositions of players, that is to say, as there is no "massive" number of players existing in the English speaking world who are understanding, literate and play MMORPGs, MMORPGs can be nothing more than the unstable compositions they are. Do not believe me? Take Project 1999, what would seem the sum of discerning players and aspirational MMORPGs. The message boards have been ruined by illiterate rabble, players cheat or have tried to cheat, every end game raiding guild uses microphones to communicate, many players, as judged by their performance in parties, are poorly skilled, &c. Yes I will grant a few things, we have finally achieved a graphical online RPG where players communicate with uppercase letters at the beginning of their sentences and (occasionally) periods at the end. We have achieved one where courtesy, unlike an Eastern bazaar, where swarthy men jostle your elbows, is not extinct, where sometimes we see real shows of manners, and even occasional ones of insight, but it is an unassured achievement. The players are not truly alike; good graphical MMORPGs are such an extreme rarity that the existence of even one functional one (of which I think Project 1999 is the only case) draws players from all places in life. I prophecy two coming trials for the game; one the eventual release of Pantheon, which of course is forgotten by anyone interested in this thread, but which (to prove my point) is not by everyone on Project 1999 (again a good MMORPG is so rare that it has drawn players there only because of a lack of choice), and two the upcoming Green Server in October 2019. Indeed this green server is proof that even the creators of Project 1999 have dissimilar interests; there is no reason for the creation of this other than the desire of the author of P99 to recreate an facsimile of the original Everquest, down to exact intervals of time between expansion packs, &c. I think this qualifies as what Squeek called a personality conflict. Although I look at the intervals between expansions in the original Everquest and shake my head at the short sighted money grubbing, the owner of Project 1999, driven by motives far more systematic than I can comprehend, sees that as the sum of his work, or well at least that is the effect of his words with regard to it. As the creation of this server portends to divide the population of Project 1999, which at last and against all odds, had achieved, unlike every other private server, a population appropriate to a massively multiplayer game, the trial will be whether or not players play on it; if they do, we will see even better the degree to which the disparity between players personalities on P99 is great or not.
Notwithstanding, to those young or unenlightened persons who always wondered at the lot of MMORPGs, well this is it, the natural state of an online RPG with reasonably similar players on it is probably in the range of dozens of players, not thousands. Thus the golden age of online RPGs was the 90s, where good games held some control over a variety of players, and not only the small crowds you find on MUDs today, which are by no means gatherings of wise men themselves. When large 3D MMORPGs began to pour in in the early 2000s, those days were long gone. 90s MMORPGs, for the most part, were like graphical MUDs, they were games that those of us that played RPGs in the 80s and 90s on our computers saw some familiarity in. 2000 and onward MMORPGs, with only the slightest of exceptions in a few parts in the early 2000s, but none I have found was exempt, except perhaps Shadowbane (a reserved exception, for I cannot play it to prove it), were generally hideous games. Indeed I call many of these Catch 22 MMORPGs, for you cannot do anything or advance in them anyway, without killing innocent wildlife, and this as I hope we all know is not advancement, but degradation. Games all better left to forgetfulness, and so they are for the most part, only dredged up occasionally on private servers, as Uthgard DAoC, where they quickly show themselves to have been poorly designed games.
Unless you belong to the greater part of mankind, in which case you have no place in this thread, MMORPGs are at best unstable compositions of players, that is to say, as there is no "massive" number of players existing in the English speaking world who are understanding, literate and play MMORPGs, MMORPGs can be nothing more than the unstable compositions they are. Do not believe me? Take Project 1999, what would seem the sum of discerning players and aspirational MMORPGs. The message boards have been ruined by illiterate rabble, players cheat or have tried to cheat, every end game raiding guild uses microphones to communicate, many players, as judged by their performance in parties, are poorly skilled, &c. Yes I will grant a few things, we have finally achieved a graphical online RPG where players communicate with uppercase letters at the beginning of their sentences and (occasionally) periods at the end. We have achieved one where courtesy, unlike an Eastern bazaar, where swarthy men jostle your elbows, is not extinct, where sometimes we see real shows of manners, and even occasional ones of insight, but it is an unassured achievement. The players are not truly alike; good graphical MMORPGs are such an extreme rarity that the existence of even one functional one (of which I think Project 1999 is the only case) draws players from all places in life. I prophecy two coming trials for the game; one the eventual release of Pantheon, which of course is forgotten by anyone interested in this thread, but which (to prove my point) is not by everyone on Project 1999 (again a good MMORPG is so rare that it has drawn players there only because of a lack of choice), and two the upcoming Green Server in October 2019. Indeed this green server is proof that even the creators of Project 1999 have dissimilar interests; there is no reason for the creation of this other than the desire of the author of P99 to recreate an facsimile of the original Everquest, down to exact intervals of time between expansion packs, &c. I think this qualifies as what Squeek called a personality conflict. Although I look at the intervals between expansions in the original Everquest and shake my head at the short sighted money grubbing, the owner of Project 1999, driven by motives far more systematic than I can comprehend, sees that as the sum of his work, or well at least that is the effect of his words with regard to it. As the creation of this server portends to divide the population of Project 1999, which at last and against all odds, had achieved, unlike every other private server, a population appropriate to a massively multiplayer game, the trial will be whether or not players play on it; if they do, we will see even better the degree to which the disparity between players personalities on P99 is great or not.
Notwithstanding, to those young or unenlightened persons who always wondered at the lot of MMORPGs, well this is it, the natural state of an online RPG with reasonably similar players on it is probably in the range of dozens of players, not thousands. Thus the golden age of online RPGs was the 90s, where good games held some control over a variety of players, and not only the small crowds you find on MUDs today, which are by no means gatherings of wise men themselves. When large 3D MMORPGs began to pour in in the early 2000s, those days were long gone. 90s MMORPGs, for the most part, were like graphical MUDs, they were games that those of us that played RPGs in the 80s and 90s on our computers saw some familiarity in. 2000 and onward MMORPGs, with only the slightest of exceptions in a few parts in the early 2000s, but none I have found was exempt, except perhaps Shadowbane (a reserved exception, for I cannot play it to prove it), were generally hideous games. Indeed I call many of these Catch 22 MMORPGs, for you cannot do anything or advance in them anyway, without killing innocent wildlife, and this as I hope we all know is not advancement, but degradation. Games all better left to forgetfulness, and so they are for the most part, only dredged up occasionally on private servers, as Uthgard DAoC, where they quickly show themselves to have been poorly designed games.
Post edited by pkpkpk on
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