Once in UO I was in the earlier areas of a Dungeon, in a cavern, killing critters for resources with some other players.
Then we saw small groups (2 or 3 at a time) of players running past us, heading out of the dungeon. It was a little strange. Finally we started asking what was going on. Most didn't answer, but s we started getting a few answers. All the same. "og" was all they said.
We'd ask what "og" was, and finally a player stopped and answered us. "og is the most feared PKer in UO. Run!"
lol
You don't get an experience like that unless players can openly communicate.
I still don't understand this mindset. If you are so anti interaction and grouping, why choose mmorpgs? Worse, why applaud the dumbing down of the genre to satisfy soloers when literally every other genre is designed for solo play, and does it better?
Because other players existing improves MY gameplay experience without ever requiring me to interact with them.
When I clear a dungeon with people I care very little about beating a scripted NPC, I do enjoy the DPS meter wars which requires other human players.
Playing with the game's market/economy and trying to get a piece of the market also requires other players
When I brainlessly grind to reach max gear to optimize my own build to more efficiently kill players or have better dps also requires other people.
Why do I applaud that the genre is becoming more solo friendly? Because raidlogging and forced group content hurts mmorpgs by pushing away players that could have stayed if they were rewarded for their time spend.
Putting the best rewards behind raids forces you to raid, and guess what happens if you login and there's no decent players online at the time?
You cant do anything, you might as well logout because solo content has been gutted in terms of power rewards so badly your only option is to logout.
People pretend forced group content is the real mmorpg but forced group content is just turning mmorpgs into lobby games where you wait for a decent group, sometimes waiting for hours. And guilds are not much more reliable, they often die throughout patch cycles so you have to go through the same process again and again, at some point you stop bothering.
Mmorpgs need to be more solo friendly because even to this day we have devs who believe raiding/raiders are speshiul and deserve more things than every one else even though group content is merely giving the illusion of challenge by its nature.
I say let everyone get access to everything through multiple types of content and a lot of grinding if the content is easy, but that will enrage raiders since their self worth depends on having things others dont have and people even having access to their speshiul rewards enrages them xd
You can get all of that in a shared world multiplayer game that isn't an MMORPG, just an FYI.
And again: generations ahead of MMORPGs in terms of graphics, combat, etc..
In fact: I'd argue you're literally shooting yourself in the foot by stubbornly sticking with MMORPGs when it seems clear a game like Desiny servers your tastes far better.
This isn't a "you don't know how to play MMORPGs correctly," it's a genuine confusion at why you're trying to fit the square peg into a round hole with there are multiple round pegs laying around.
It used to be you had to accept dated combat mechanics and gameplay loops to enjoy sharing a virtual world with others while doing your own thing. That's decidedly not the case anymore, though. You don't have to slog through dated content you dislike just to adventure in a virtual world with others around.
Once in UO I was in the earlier areas of a Dungeon, in a cavern, killing critters for resources with some other players.
Then we saw small groups (2 or 3 at a time) of players running past us, heading out of the dungeon. It was a little strange. Finally we started asking what was going on. Most didn't answer, but s we started getting a few answers. All the same. "og" was all they said.
We'd ask what "og" was, and finally a player stopped and answered us. "og is the most feared PKer in UO. Run!"
lol
You don't get an experience like that unless players can openly communicate.
You also don't get that if everyone is running instanced content and/or the game doesn't run open PvP.
Dunno that communication is the particular hiccup there.
I believe it's a mix of many (convenience) features. - Faster combat
- Faster spawn timers
- More fast travel + smaller zones - Dungeon finder + direct port into dungeon
- Everyone gets loot who contributes
- No mob trains
People like to blame these things for people not talking, but this is a fallacy.
The reason people don't talk, is they don't have to. The games are on EZ mode, people are just being zombies while running around.
You show me a group game where the content is VERY difficult for the players that participate. Then tell me they don't find a way to communicate. I am talking about games where players are constantly struggling yet they are not communicating either.
Challenge being removed from games is the sole reason people don't communicate. If people need to communicate they will communicate.
You show me a group game where the content is VERY difficult for the players that participate. Then tell me they don't find a way to communicate. I am talking about games where players are constantly struggling yet they are not communicating either.
Challenge being removed from games is the sole reason people don't communicate. If people need to communicate they will communicate.
You assume that casual players will choose to communicate instead of quit.
You are FORCING them to communicate, that by definition proves people dont want to communicate naturally and you are trying to force artificial communication.
Secondly when I log in a new game, if the one of the first things to do is being forced to talk with others to do a quest, I am uninstalling along many other casuals who just want to login and have fun.
This idea that "people actually love what I like, the game just doesnt force it enough on them" is the exact mentality we see from hardcore mmo players which when the devs listen to, many people just outright leave or the game dies because they wanted to pander to the hardcore minorities.
There is nothing wrong admitting you like something niche, but trying to force it on everyone and saying it is actually popular if the game forces it is going places
You show me a group game where the content is VERY difficult for the players that participate. Then tell me they don't find a way to communicate. I am talking about games where players are constantly struggling yet they are not communicating either.
Challenge being removed from games is the sole reason people don't communicate. If people need to communicate they will communicate.
You assume that casual players will choose to communicate instead of quit.
You are FORCING them to communicate, that by definition proves people dont want to communicate naturally and you are trying to force artificial communication.
Secondly when I log in a new game, if the one of the first things to do is being forced to talk with others to do a quest, I am uninstalling along many other casuals who just want to login and have fun.
This idea that "people actually love what I like, the game just doesnt force it enough on them" is the exact mentality we see from hardcore mmo players which when the devs listen to, many people just outright leave or the game dies because they wanted to pander to the hardcore minorities.
There is nothing wrong admitting you like something niche, but trying to force it on everyone and saying it is actually popular if the game forces it is going places
People play MMO's to interact with people. Otherwise they can play single player games, which are normally more in depth anyways.
Its the same as people joining social platforms. It up to the platform to create an environment that gives people a reason to communicate. If there is no reasons at all to communicate than many people wont. But if they didn't want to interact at all why did they join a social platform to begin with?
Obviously you will have outliers, but the general mass of people fall within that range.
There's a reason the majority of online games are catered to the solo player. A chatbox is all that's needed for social interaction, nothing more. And even that has become something to be removed as unneeded in newer games. Even guilds are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, having to become forced on the playerbase via tying to mechanics like trading or certain PvP activities. The majority of players now consider Discord to be the closest thing to a guild they need or want.
You say everyone wants to be solo, yet which games are able to maintain the player base like before when games were more social? Even retail WoW is less played than it was years ago. So why cant these games release something as popular as before? Every other genre is releasing games that are more popular than 15 years ago, so what's the problem with MMO's?
I would even go farther and say in MMO's, most the games with social mechanics like end game Raiding where people communicate via voice chat are the only ones maintaining subs? All the others are forced to go FTP just to scrounge numbers.
You show me a group game where the content is VERY difficult for the players that participate. Then tell me they don't find a way to communicate. I am talking about games where players are constantly struggling yet they are not communicating either.
Challenge being removed from games is the sole reason people don't communicate. If people need to communicate they will communicate.
You assume that casual players will choose to communicate instead of quit.
You are FORCING them to communicate, that by definition proves people dont want to communicate naturally and you are trying to force artificial communication.
Secondly when I log in a new game, if the one of the first things to do is being forced to talk with others to do a quest, I am uninstalling along many other casuals who just want to login and have fun.
This idea that "people actually love what I like, the game just doesnt force it enough on them" is the exact mentality we see from hardcore mmo players which when the devs listen to, many people just outright leave or the game dies because they wanted to pander to the hardcore minorities.
There is nothing wrong admitting you like something niche, but trying to force it on everyone and saying it is actually popular if the game forces it is going places
People play MMO's to interact with people. Otherwise they can play single player games, which are normally more in depth anyways.
Its the same as people joining social platforms. It up to the platform to create an environment that gives people a reason to communicate. If there is no reasons at all to communicate than many people wont. But if they didn't want to interact at all why did they join a social platform to begin with?
Obviously you will have outliers, but the general mass of people fall within that range.
There's a reason the majority of online games are catered to the solo player. A chatbox is all that's needed for social interaction, nothing more. And even that has become something to be removed as unneeded in newer games. Even guilds are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, having to become forced on the playerbase via tying to mechanics like trading or certain PvP activities. The majority of players now consider Discord to be the closest thing to a guild they need or want.
Then why aren't those players playing shared world games, instead? Like FO76, Warframe, Book of Travels, No Man's Sky, The Division, Monster Hunter, or Destiny?
I mean, the list keeps growing of shared world multiplayer games that leverage the smaller multiplayer systems to create more engaging moment-to-moment gameplay than these traditional MMORPGs by a fairly obvious margin. So if gamers eschew those in favor of MMORPGs, it doesn't seem like it's because content was created that can be completed solo, because ALL of those games include a LOT of such content.
People play MMO's to interact with people. Otherwise they can play single player games, which are normally more in depth anyways.
And what makes you thing interacting with other players means:
"Forced to social interact with other people because it is the only way to farm power since it is locked behind ORGANIZED coordinated content that requires the creation of a manually created old fashioned group"
And not:
"Interacting via killing other players in pvp in a battleground I easily qued via an automated system without any social interaction requirement and I am now having personal fun without having to socially interact with anyone" May i remind you the countless people who are having fun ignoring the objective? Because what matters is personal fun.
Like i explained earlier, other people existing is vital for mmorpgs, social interaction isnt.
Games have shown that casuals if placed against a big obstacle will choose to quit rather than do what you want them to, and social interaction is an OBSTACLE, not something fun, otherwise casuals would be spending all their time talking and manually grouping up with others instead of doing anything solo and ejoying their own solo PERSONAL adventure.
Like i said before, liking a niche thing personally is not a bad thing, expecting that everyone should like it and trying to force it on everyone by locking X thing behind it is the problem.
You show me a group game where the content is VERY difficult for the players that participate. Then tell me they don't find a way to communicate. I am talking about games where players are constantly struggling yet they are not communicating either.
Challenge being removed from games is the sole reason people don't communicate. If people need to communicate they will communicate.
You assume that casual players will choose to communicate instead of quit.
You are FORCING them to communicate, that by definition proves people dont want to communicate naturally and you are trying to force artificial communication.
Secondly when I log in a new game, if the one of the first things to do is being forced to talk with others to do a quest, I am uninstalling along many other casuals who just want to login and have fun.
This idea that "people actually love what I like, the game just doesnt force it enough on them" is the exact mentality we see from hardcore mmo players which when the devs listen to, many people just outright leave or the game dies because they wanted to pander to the hardcore minorities.
There is nothing wrong admitting you like something niche, but trying to force it on everyone and saying it is actually popular if the game forces it is going places
People play MMO's to interact with people. Otherwise they can play single player games, which are normally more in depth anyways.
Its the same as people joining social platforms. It up to the platform to create an environment that gives people a reason to communicate. If there is no reasons at all to communicate than many people wont. But if they didn't want to interact at all why did they join a social platform to begin with?
Obviously you will have outliers, but the general mass of people fall within that range.
People play MMOs to play MMOs. One need not interact with others to play them and doing so isn't necessarily the motivator for any particular player.
Not everyone joins social platforms to be active participants. Some prefer to lurk and stick to reading comments posted by others. Why? Who knows, it doesn't matter. It causes no harm to those that choose to take part or the silent.
What the general mass of people do or not want in MMOs isn't particularly relevant to those other than. Such are focused on what they personally want and the way they want to go about getting it. If that is playing a MMORPG alone, so be it.
I'd argue that gamers are much more social and engaged, it just all happens on Discord now. Even that PUG in WoW, where no one says anything in chat, most likely a player or 2 is chatting with their own guild on Discord while running a dungeon.
And that's much more socially engaged, two players chatting on discord while no one else in the party is talking or texting?
Some MMOs have voice chat options, would be interesting to hear from players how much official VC gets used?
Voice chat makes sense to me in focused group activities like group PvP, Trials and even group dungeons. It's 100% better than text chat in those situations.
But I have no use for it otherwise and will stay away from guilds that make Discord mandatory like quite a few do these days.
Same as my own experience there, maybe in the future that will change, but for now it only has utility in a few areas.
Looking at what Camel said; I sometimes used it in Lotro myself but then I hardly did many PUG's, mostly guild groups and we were using Teamspeak I think it was. But I can remember it coming in for some PUG's, just quicker to get everyone up to date on what was going to happen.
From a roleplaying point of view it was hardly used at all in Lotro, but others may differ? I found we did everything in text, if we had used VC it would have been far harder to manage large groups.
Because the majority are playing the ones you ignored. Fort Nite, Dead by Daylight, and the like. Games with minimal need for reading or even thinking and quick in and out gameplay sessions. And as a bonus for today's media hound glory seekers of the Twitch audience, easy as fuck to stream with constant audio/visual stimulation a.k.a. "action" with little to no down time. And even the ones you mentioned are from various different genres of gaming, which narrows the target audience for each one. Someone wanting the questing of FO76 isn't necessarily going to like the "open world sandbox" of a No man's Sky. People wanting "realistic" settings like The Division aren't going to automatically be in the target audience of a Fallout 76 or Monster hunter. And people wanting to jump in for 10 minutes on their coffee break or 15 minutes before bed after working all day aren't playing any of them.
No, all of those can be played in short segments as well as any MMORPG. FO76 and Destiny require little reading, and what is included is mostly optional lore fluff. Destiny has some of the tightest FPS gunplay on the market, so it's naturally as exciting to watch as a game like Dead by Daylight. And MMORPGs are one of the absolute stalest genres in gaming in terms of variety in setting and general experience. They share far more in common with one another (and deviate from the "playbook" far less) than shared world multiplayer games. So the idea that shared world shooters won't scratch the itch due to genre or setting doesn't pass the smell test.
And that list spanned numerous genres for a reason: to show that it isn't just a matter of "setting" or "shooter." These shared world games span most subgenres and will continue expanding into new subgenres. And again: they're actually designed with solo play in mind *even more* than any modern MMORPG.
They also have better graphics (generally) and better combat systems (though Book of Travels isn't focused on combat, so it's got a basic one). They generally have better narratives and world building than MMORPGs because they're designing a more intimate experience than is available in an MMORPG.
And on top of all that: shared world multiplayer is in its relative infancy. Destiny 1 was only released in 2014. The genres will continue to expand into new settings and game loops, and continue to push graphics beyond what will ever be possible with MMORPGs while requiring largely the same hardware to run it.
In fact: based on the popularity of small multiplayer, server-based survival games, I'd be willing to bet the majority of players playing current MMORPGs would be happy as a lark to trade in the MMORPG for shared world if it meant they got improvements in other areas of the game, such as graphics or combat or narrative.
It took the players several MONTHS to figure it out totally.
Put that in a game today, without quest markers or anything other than text clues hidden in the world... and you'll have a riot in your player base. Man, I loved that quest, I made runs for newbies every week
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
People play MMOs to play MMOs. One need not interact with others to play them and doing so isn't necessarily the motivator for any particular player.
Not everyone joins social platforms to be active participants. Some prefer to lurk and stick to reading comments posted by others. Why? Who knows, it doesn't matter. It causes no harm to those that choose to take part or the silent.
What the general mass of people do or not want in MMOs isn't particularly relevant to those other than. Such are focused on what they personally want and the way they want to go about getting it. If that is playing a MMORPG alone, so be it.
Complete nonsense talk.
Facts are, solo games and IP's have been converting to multiplayer and getting more popular for doing that.
MMO games were more popular when they were more social. The entire MMO genre is stale and dieing due partly on its focus on solo only play.
MMO's were ahead of their time with social interaction and have been devolving for years.
People that want solo can play single player games. I am not saying to get rid of single player games, as obviously there is a market. However you don't need to completely destroy the entire MMO industry for some solo players. Once MMO's get back to there social roots they will get more popular again.
There is a huge base of people that want social platforms and in gaming they are not being served. I am not talking just chat boxes, but real features that push people to interact with people like economy, trading, helping others, exploring with others, doing events with other etc...
People play MMOs to play MMOs. One need not interact with others to play them and doing so isn't necessarily the motivator for any particular player.
Not everyone joins social platforms to be active participants. Some prefer to lurk and stick to reading comments posted by others. Why? Who knows, it doesn't matter. It causes no harm to those that choose to take part or the silent.
What the general mass of people do or not want in MMOs isn't particularly relevant to those other than. Such are focused on what they personally want and the way they want to go about getting it. If that is playing a MMORPG alone, so be it.
Complete nonsense talk.
Facts are, solo games and IP's have been converting to multiplayer and getting more popular for doing that.
MMO games were more popular when they were more social. The entire MMO genre is stale and dieing due partly on its focus on solo only play.
MMO's were ahead of their time with social interaction and have been devolving for years.
People that want solo can play single player games. I am not saying to get rid of single player games, as obviously there is a market. However you don't need to completely destroy the entire MMO industry for some solo players. Once MMO's get back to there social roots they will get more popular again.
There is a huge base of people that want social platforms and in gaming they are not being served. I am not talking just chat boxes, but real features that push people to interact with people like economy, trading, helping others, exploring with others, doing events with other etc...
Lots of false equivalencies there.
MMOs were more popular when they were a new thing not when they were more social. They were more social simply because socializing online was also a relatively new thing then also. There was no cause and effect just the coincidence of MMOs also serving as cool online social media before that was even a term in common use.
MMO social interactions were cool before social media. Now they are merely another way to interact socially online. There is nothing special about MMO socializing because online socializing in a variety of ways is routine now.
People want to both solo and group play MMOs and do as much of either as they want because grouping is now an option not a requirement. This is a good thing.
I'm also not buying the "silent majority" argument about any huge bases wanting to socialize in games and all these retro MMOs being created by people who think that what MMOs need is more forced grouping are just a niche of a niche and ain't going to have massive numbers nor lead to any kind of MMO revival.
What people actually want is a game world with many options to do many different things and group or not when they feel like it.
The staleness of the genre has everything to do with safe design of what has worked before with very few true innovations and nothing much to do with how forced group/social they are.
Also, from my experience of what I see in the MMOs I play, the most antisocial crowds are those who play with a small group of friends and want nothing to do with outsiders. It's not the soloers who are the antisocial ones it's ironically the ones who always play grouped with their small, cliquey circle of friends.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
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
People play MMOs to play MMOs. One need not interact with others to play them and doing so isn't necessarily the motivator for any particular player.
Not everyone joins social platforms to be active participants. Some prefer to lurk and stick to reading comments posted by others. Why? Who knows, it doesn't matter. It causes no harm to those that choose to take part or the silent.
What the general mass of people do or not want in MMOs isn't particularly relevant to those other than. Such are focused on what they personally want and the way they want to go about getting it. If that is playing a MMORPG alone, so be it.
Complete nonsense talk.
Facts are, solo games and IP's have been converting to multiplayer and getting more popular for doing that.
MMO games were more popular when they were more social. The entire MMO genre is stale and dieing due partly on its focus on solo only play.
MMO's were ahead of their time with social interaction and have been devolving for years.
People that want solo can play single player games. I am not saying to get rid of single player games, as obviously there is a market. However you don't need to completely destroy the entire MMO industry for some solo players. Once MMO's get back to there social roots they will get more popular again.
There is a huge base of people that want social platforms and in gaming they are not being served. I am not talking just chat boxes, but real features that push people to interact with people like economy, trading, helping others, exploring with others, doing events with other etc...
Lots of false equivalencies there.
MMOs were more popular when they were a new thing not when they were more social. They were more social simply because socializing online was also a relatively new thing then also. There was no cause and effect just the coincidence of MMOs also serving as cool online social media before that was even a term in common use.
MMO social interactions were cool before social media. Now they are merely another way to interact socially online. There is nothing special about MMO socializing because online socializing in a variety of ways is routine now.
People want to both solo and group play MMOs and do as much of either as they want because grouping is now an option not a requirement. This is a good thing.
I'm also not buying the "silent majority" argument about any huge bases wanting to socialize in games and all these retro MMOs being created by people who think that what MMOs need is more forced grouping are just a niche of a niche and ain't going to have massive numbers nor lead to any kind of MMO revival.
What people actually want is a game world with many options to do many different things and group or not when they feel like it.
The staleness of the genre has everything to do with safe design of what has worked before with very few true innovations and nothing much to do with how forced group/social they are.
Also, from my experience of what I see in the MMOs I play, the most antisocial crowds are those who play with a small group of friends and want nothing to do with outsiders. It's not the soloers who are the antisocial ones it's ironically the ones who always play grouped with their small, cliquey circle of friends.
The focus on grouping as the only social aspect of an MMORPG is a huge, huge problem. Those cliquey groups can play that way and go through every ounce of content the game has because the game allows a small group to do so with very minimal outside interactions.
But it's the design that allows this to be productive for that group. Obviously at some point, when a guild has enough regulars to run 40 man raids every week, you just have to tip your hat to the leaders who built that gaming group. But the cliquey, small group stuff wouldn't corner a market full of player crafted items. And that's because 50 people farm more materials than 5.
I think that stuff is going to fall away from MMORPGs naturally though, because these survival type games that allow you to host your own server, build wherever, and progress through content at your own pace, without any worry about any other player groups interfering whatsoever. It will allow devs to begin creating more bespoke experiences made to be played through one time, like the Last of Us or Bioshock, but for a small group of folks.
And, like with action combat and narratives and adventure... The nature of MMORPGs will render them a comparatively watered down experience.
Such outdated thinking, the "best" rewards are from paying cash money to the hackers who make them in FO76
Or the WOW carry guilds who sell clears, or the EVE players that sell pilots with gazillions of skill points trained on them.
What are you, like over 40 or something
Me getting "carried"
One of the few positives that came out of this, elitists are foaming in their mouth that gear doesnt make them special anymore because anyone can buy it.
Because the truth is beating scripts never made you special or was somekind of worthy real life achievement but people with low self esteemed latched onto online video game achievements and became one of the most obnoxious type of player since they clearly forgot video games are not to be taken seriously and are just meant to be fun.
Devs didnt want to democratize gear, the accounting department forced them too lmao
Such outdated thinking, the "best" rewards are from paying cash money to the hackers who make them in FO76
Or the WOW carry guilds who sell clears, or the EVE players that sell pilots with gazillions of skill points trained on them.
What are you, like over 40 or something
Me getting "carried"
One of the few positives that came out of this, elitists are foaming in their mouth that gear doesnt make them special anymore because anyone can buy it.
Because the truth is beating scripts never made you special or was somekind of worthy real life achievement but people with low self esteemed latched onto online video game achievements and became one of the most obnoxious type of player since they clearly forgot video games are not to be taken seriously and are just meant to be fun.
Devs didnt want to democratize gear, the accounting department forced them too lmao
So there's always a positive side ;^)
No. They argue against this monetization because time and money don't even share the same nature.
Gear wasn't "democratized," and I'm honestly not sure how you even arrived at that conclusion based on the monetization scheme you're referencing. It shows a distinct lack of knowledge about the monetization schemes and, well.. Democracy as a concept.
No. They argue against this monetization because time and money don't even share the same nature.
Gear wasn't "democratized," and I'm honestly not sure how you even arrived at that conclusion based on the monetization scheme you're referencing. It shows a distinct lack of knowledge about the monetization schemes and, well.. Democracy as a concept.
Oh I know they were ironic and are against such monetization, doesnt change the fact that a positive side exists.
Gear is nothing more than a tool that let's you push higher dps numbers/content(if it scales infinitely).
Sadly instead of that, people will low self esteem obsessed over having that gear and others not having it and loved to gatekeep since it made them feel speshiul. Thankfully the accounting department forced the devs to make gear buyable through indirect methods so such unhealthy mentalities cant control the design anymore to pander to them.
And I am using the current version of democracy we have in the west as definition, whoever pays the most gets to do what they want ;^)
I absolutely think that games not being designed around benefiting neets who play all day from their basement is a good thing.
Like i said, positive side exists in all events xD
Comments
Once in UO I was in the earlier areas of a Dungeon, in a cavern, killing critters for resources with some other players.
Then we saw small groups (2 or 3 at a time) of players running past us, heading out of the dungeon. It was a little strange.
Finally we started asking what was going on. Most didn't answer, but s we started getting a few answers. All the same. "og" was all they said.
We'd ask what "og" was, and finally a player stopped and answered us.
"og is the most feared PKer in UO. Run!"
lol
You don't get an experience like that unless players can openly communicate.
Once upon a time....
And again: generations ahead of MMORPGs in terms of graphics, combat, etc..
In fact: I'd argue you're literally shooting yourself in the foot by stubbornly sticking with MMORPGs when it seems clear a game like Desiny servers your tastes far better.
This isn't a "you don't know how to play MMORPGs correctly," it's a genuine confusion at why you're trying to fit the square peg into a round hole with there are multiple round pegs laying around.
It used to be you had to accept dated combat mechanics and gameplay loops to enjoy sharing a virtual world with others while doing your own thing. That's decidedly not the case anymore, though. You don't have to slog through dated content you dislike just to adventure in a virtual world with others around.
Dunno that communication is the particular hiccup there.
People like to blame these things for people not talking, but this is a fallacy.
The reason people don't talk, is they don't have to. The games are on EZ mode, people are just being zombies while running around.
You show me a group game where the content is VERY difficult for the players that participate. Then tell me they don't find a way to communicate. I am talking about games where players are constantly struggling yet they are not communicating either.
Challenge being removed from games is the sole reason people don't communicate. If people need to communicate they will communicate.
Its the same as people joining social platforms. It up to the platform to create an environment that gives people a reason to communicate. If there is no reasons at all to communicate than many people wont. But if they didn't want to interact at all why did they join a social platform to begin with?
Obviously you will have outliers, but the general mass of people fall within that range.
You say everyone wants to be solo, yet which games are able to maintain the player base like before when games were more social? Even retail WoW is less played than it was years ago. So why cant these games release something as popular as before? Every other genre is releasing games that are more popular than 15 years ago, so what's the problem with MMO's?
I would even go farther and say in MMO's, most the games with social mechanics like end game Raiding where people communicate via voice chat are the only ones maintaining subs? All the others are forced to go FTP just to scrounge numbers.
I mean, the list keeps growing of shared world multiplayer games that leverage the smaller multiplayer systems to create more engaging moment-to-moment gameplay than these traditional MMORPGs by a fairly obvious margin. So if gamers eschew those in favor of MMORPGs, it doesn't seem like it's because content was created that can be completed solo, because ALL of those games include a LOT of such content.
May i remind you the countless people who are having fun ignoring the objective? Because what matters is personal fun.
People play MMOs to play MMOs. One need not interact with others to play them and doing so isn't necessarily the motivator for any particular player.
Not everyone joins social platforms to be active participants. Some prefer to lurk and stick to reading comments posted by others. Why? Who knows, it doesn't matter. It causes no harm to those that choose to take part or the silent.
What the general mass of people do or not want in MMOs isn't particularly relevant to those other than. Such are focused on what they personally want and the way they want to go about getting it. If that is playing a MMORPG alone, so be it.
Looking at what Camel said; I sometimes used it in Lotro myself but then I hardly did many PUG's, mostly guild groups and we were using Teamspeak I think it was. But I can remember it coming in for some PUG's, just quicker to get everyone up to date on what was going to happen.
From a roleplaying point of view it was hardly used at all in Lotro, but others may differ? I found we did everything in text, if we had used VC it would have been far harder to manage large groups.
And that list spanned numerous genres for a reason: to show that it isn't just a matter of "setting" or "shooter." These shared world games span most subgenres and will continue expanding into new subgenres. And again: they're actually designed with solo play in mind *even more* than any modern MMORPG.
They also have better graphics (generally) and better combat systems (though Book of Travels isn't focused on combat, so it's got a basic one). They generally have better narratives and world building than MMORPGs because they're designing a more intimate experience than is available in an MMORPG.
And on top of all that: shared world multiplayer is in its relative infancy. Destiny 1 was only released in 2014. The genres will continue to expand into new settings and game loops, and continue to push graphics beyond what will ever be possible with MMORPGs while requiring largely the same hardware to run it.
In fact: based on the popularity of small multiplayer, server-based survival games, I'd be willing to bet the majority of players playing current MMORPGs would be happy as a lark to trade in the MMORPG for shared world if it meant they got improvements in other areas of the game, such as graphics or combat or narrative.
https://asheron.fandom.com/wiki/Lady_Aerfalle_Quest
It took the players several MONTHS to figure it out totally.
Put that in a game today, without quest markers or anything other than text clues hidden in the world... and you'll have a riot in your player base.
Man, I loved that quest, I made runs for newbies every week
Respect, walk
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No. The soloization of MMOs is real.
No. The solo OPTION is real, but you still get the best rewards and get faster to them by grouping.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Complete nonsense talk.
Facts are, solo games and IP's have been converting to multiplayer and getting more popular for doing that.
MMO games were more popular when they were more social. The entire MMO genre is stale and dieing due partly on its focus on solo only play.
MMO's were ahead of their time with social interaction and have been devolving for years.
People that want solo can play single player games. I am not saying to get rid of single player games, as obviously there is a market. However you don't need to completely destroy the entire MMO industry for some solo players. Once MMO's get back to there social roots they will get more popular again.
There is a huge base of people that want social platforms and in gaming they are not being served. I am not talking just chat boxes, but real features that push people to interact with people like economy, trading, helping others, exploring with others, doing events with other etc...
MMOs were more popular when they were a new thing not when they were more social. They were more social simply because socializing online was also a relatively new thing then also. There was no cause and effect just the coincidence of MMOs also serving as cool online social media before that was even a term in common use.
MMO social interactions were cool before social media. Now they are merely another way to interact socially online. There is nothing special about MMO socializing because online socializing in a variety of ways is routine now.
People want to both solo and group play MMOs and do as much of either as they want because grouping is now an option not a requirement. This is a good thing.
I'm also not buying the "silent majority" argument about any huge bases wanting to socialize in games and all these retro MMOs being created by people who think that what MMOs need is more forced grouping are just a niche of a niche and ain't going to have massive numbers nor lead to any kind of MMO revival.
What people actually want is a game world with many options to do many different things and group or not when they feel like it.
The staleness of the genre has everything to do with safe design of what has worked before with very few true innovations and nothing much to do with how forced group/social they are.
Also, from my experience of what I see in the MMOs I play, the most antisocial crowds are those who play with a small group of friends and want nothing to do with outsiders. It's not the soloers who are the antisocial ones it's ironically the ones who always play grouped with their small, cliquey circle of friends.
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Or the WOW carry guilds who sell clears, or the EVE players that sell pilots with gazillions of skill points trained on them.
What are you, like over 40 or something
Me getting "carried"
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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But it's the design that allows this to be productive for that group. Obviously at some point, when a guild has enough regulars to run 40 man raids every week, you just have to tip your hat to the leaders who built that gaming group. But the cliquey, small group stuff wouldn't corner a market full of player crafted items. And that's because 50 people farm more materials than 5.
I think that stuff is going to fall away from MMORPGs naturally though, because these survival type games that allow you to host your own server, build wherever, and progress through content at your own pace, without any worry about any other player groups interfering whatsoever. It will allow devs to begin creating more bespoke experiences made to be played through one time, like the Last of Us or Bioshock, but for a small group of folks.
And, like with action combat and narratives and adventure... The nature of MMORPGs will render them a comparatively watered down experience.
Gear wasn't "democratized," and I'm honestly not sure how you even arrived at that conclusion based on the monetization scheme you're referencing. It shows a distinct lack of knowledge about the monetization schemes and, well.. Democracy as a concept.
Thankfully the accounting department forced the devs to make gear buyable through indirect methods so such unhealthy mentalities cant control the design anymore to pander to them.