I hate in EQ2 where you find yourself leveling on Crabs, Deer, Birds, beetles etc etc. Then every 10 levels you move to the next zone and you see the same frigging mobs but 10 levels higher lol. Found myself leveling on crabs for 20 levels.
QFT. This was the reason i quit FFXi. Theres only so many crabs you can kill before you go insane! To make matters worse they had some kind of stoneskin spell, which made the process 3-5 minutes longer pr mob.. Never again!
Well the most illogical thing I can think of in MOST MMO's is MOBS such as rats, pigs,bats etc etc dropping coins, runes, swords, armor guns etc etc... WTF? MOBS such as rats bats etc should drop the resource they are made from i.e. fur, meat, teeth, claw and so on which can then be used in crafting professions. The ONLY MOBS that should drop coins, runes, swords, armor, guns etc should be Humanoid in nature. And whatever you see the Humanoid wearing/weilding should be what is dropped.
Absolutely agree but I'll go one farther. I hate when you're fighting a guy with a sword and he drops a crossbow. What? He had a sword! Why doesn't he drop it? Or when they drop armor that they were obviously not wearing. If I'm fighting a guy in gold armor, I want him to drop gold armor. If I'm fighting a guy with a sword, I want him to drop a sword. Having melee combatants dropping ranged weapons or vice versa sucks.
You have to have jumping in the game for a 3D game world and better level design. It makes the games better like in MC where you could take shortcuts and stuff to get to the bosses. I don't see why people hate seeing people jump.... like whocares?
I think they mean jumping in the sense of training to get better at jumping. Some games, you have to spend all your time jumping to improve the skill, so people go EVERYWHERE jumping. They jump down the corridors in dungeons, they jump through towns, they jump in the fields, etc. That part is entirely stupid, but that's a training issue, not a jumping issue.
i have never left a game over it but my peeves are getting stuck on a little rock or branch. uneven quest progresion when the previous quests are harded then the final boss, i feel just cheated. or the quest chains is easy and the boss wipes three of u out with one hit .
Mobs that don't fight 'naturally'. If there are lions in the game, have them hunt like lions do - stalk, pounce, and maul. Don't have them stand off and melee like a humanoid NPC does. This has bothered me right from when I first started with PnP RPGs like D&D. Don't have stupid mobs know things that they shouldn't. No animal could tell what a healer is doing (or even care). They should have a much simpler aggro mechanic than intelligent mobs.
I'll add another one, although this applies to all melee mobs. Stop letting melee mobs hit you from ranges that are far outside of their reach! I'm sick of standing 30 feet away from a lion, for example, and still having it hit me! It's arms are not 30 feet long, stop it!
You have to have jumping in the game for a 3D game world and better level design. It makes the games better like in MC where you could take shortcuts and stuff to get to the bosses. I don't see why people hate seeing people jump.... like whocares?
I think they mean jumping in the sense of training to get better at jumping. Some games, you have to spend all your time jumping to improve the skill, so people go EVERYWHERE jumping. They jump down the corridors in dungeons, they jump through towns, they jump in the fields, etc. That part is entirely stupid, but that's a training issue, not a jumping issue.
Personally, bounders annoy me greatly. No skill-ups for doing it in WoW, but they still do it.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I hate, no I loathe, camping as in: "this here boss mob, and only this here boss mob, might, just might, honestly it just might, possibly,one day, drop the sword of ultimate doom (or the skimpy armour of blinding sexyness)" Lets face it sitting in one spot and killing the same mob over and over again never gets fun especially not if you need to organize a full team or even a raid to kill it. (AO did this really well with insane respawn times that had you looking at an empty patch hours only to find the item you needed wouldn't drop...)
The problem with AO's spawn rates is they were still predictable for the most part, there were level 220s who would set their alarm clocks so they'd be up when the mob spawned and could kill it, then go back to bed with a new alarm for the next respawn. I think all spawns should be entirely random, it could happen any time in the next 6 hours, the only way to be sure is to sit in front of your computer 24/7.
Mine is bind on pickup. I think that bop is really more of a symptom than a root cause, but I can't quite figure out if the root cause is forced raiding or linear theme park games because technically you could have one without the other. Yet, those are the kinds of games that implement such systems and it blows. I've always been completely amazed that the north american market, which lives in a capitalist society, prefers games that discourage trading. Just completely mind-boggling to me. I guess if I had to guess why (and this will be highly elitist), it's because those who are successful in life don't play mmos, and those who are successful and play mmos transfer that success to mmos. Thus all the other regular joes fail at mmos just as they fail at real life and the dev has to give handouts to the regular joes to keep them playing. Boy, I sure know how to annoy a lot of people...
That's not really the problem, the problem is that it lets people cheat. I've told the story before of taking part in a transfer from a maxed-level character to his level 10 alt, he handed over 200 million credits and a couple of backpacks full of everything the alt would need for the long haul. No need to do quests, no risk, he was twinked to the hilt from day one and could take on much, much harder and higher mobs because of it. That's far too common in most games, how do you compete with a character that has an immensely wealthy and powerful patron like that?
I think we ought to have all objects, at least powerful objects, bind on pickup so they cannot be sold or given to others. If they want it, they have to go on the same quest. I also think we ought to limit how many credits can be given to any character based on their level. A level 10 character cannot be given more than 10 million credits per day, say. The chances of them ever getting a saleable object worth more than 10 million is nil, it stops gold sellers and patrons from pumping up any particular toon with inordinate amounts of booty.
If my characters actions dont mesh with what I am actually doing its a fail and it'll cause me to quit. If I push an attack, the mob takes damage, and 3s later an attack animation goes off = no good. If I run and my character "slides", no good.
I expect my Avatars actions to correspond with what I am actually doing. Thats my biggest pet peeve. Not talking about lag issues, they happen. But I've played games where the sync is well out of wack and it drives me nuts. Worst still are games where there is no distinct combat animations, just an auto-attack like repeted movement reguardless of what attacks you make. Ugh.
Although not game breakers, here are some things that make my eye twich:
1) when your armor value does not represent your actual armor value (i.e. if u have 100 armor a mob hits you for 10 dmg, you raise your armor to 200, and the same mob hits you for 7 dmg)
2) swords that look bigger than your character or are so weirdly shaped that it doesn't look like a sword anymore
3) female bikini armor that has the same resistances as full plate on their male counterparts
I was hard pressed to think of anything. I don't like games which don't have jumping, but have never avoided playing one for that reason. Never let character customization, graphics or sound affect whether I stay with a MMO. Its all about the gameplay really, and everything else is just optional in my book. I cringe when people complain about things I find irrelevant like "combat animations" or whether or not you can swim in the water. I prefer open worlds, but can have fun in a zoned or instanced game.
Similarly. It's not hard to find a legitimate cause of complaint in a game. Little things like looks and jumping and swimming don't mean squat - of course, I'll complain if they're done poorly, but they won't stop me from playing a game.
The reasons why I quit are grounded in reality: no GM/admin presence (i.e. cheaters running rampant and nothing being done about them), and games which quickly reveal themselves as committing the cardinal sins of having mostly no-impact fetchquests, being a grindfest, and having more than a passing similarity to the cookie-cutter f2p stereotype (it's called a stereotype for a reason, devs - Pay Attention).
Well the most illogical thing I can think of in MOST MMO's is MOBS such as rats, pigs,bats etc etc dropping coins, runes, swords, armor guns etc etc... WTF? MOBS such as rats bats etc should drop the resource they are made from i.e. fur, meat, teeth, claw and so on which can then be used in crafting professions. The ONLY MOBS that should drop coins, runes, swords, armor, guns etc should be Humanoid in nature. And whatever you see the Humanoid wearing/weilding should be what is dropped.
Totally agree with this one... Early on in EQ it was a favorite practical joke of mine to trade a newbie zone snake outside of Freeport and load it down with a TON of copper pieces or Rusty Two Handed Swords, so that the person who killed and looted them walked at snails pace and had to make the rough choice of keeping the cash, or dropping enough to not be encumbered. Ah... good times.
As far as recent griefs of MMO's, specifically with WoW... is character customization. After how many years, it still feels pretty limited. No dye for armor or weapons, every gnome, human, orc, tauren, ect is the same height as the next one. Static faces, hair, no sliders for certain colors... Gnome A sounds exactly like Gnome B. Lack of armor or weapon design for guild affiliation.
I think if anything the reason I get bored with WoW so often is feeling like I'm playing a very popular F2P kind of game because of limited choices of character design/customization abilities. But that's just me, I spent 1/2 of my time in CoX designing characters and the other playing them, and I loved pimping out my ships in Earth and Beyond. With Blizzard having such a huge income I find it hard to see that implimenting simple things like that would be more costly than their Barbershop update.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
3) female bikini armor that has the same resistances as full plate on their male counterparts
It's a deal-breaker if the game doesn't have that.
I feel if you're throwing fireballs alongside elves and gnomes while attacking mythical beasts just so you can collect their toenails because Bob the Questgiver had an exclamation point over his head and needs said toenails from said mythical beast for a magical potion... you need to throw f'ing reality and common sense out the damned window anyways.
Male full plate vs. female bikini place makes no difference when you apply the theory of a 100m tall dragon biting you in the torso with a toothed hydrolic press for a maw. But again, this is theory... never ran into a dragon, but the closest research from Stanford in releation to a T-Rex states,
"The authors report that the ferocious beast (T-Rex) could exert between 1,440 and 3,011 pounds of force, greater than the crushing force of any known creature, though close to the maximum force exerted by the American alligator, a dinosaur relative."
So I don't know, not a physics expert... but my old D&D GM had a rule of thumb... "Don't play a fantasy game if you want to talk science."
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
1. Open seams where one can fall through the world. The world is one big mesh-fest, and 3dmax/ maya uses Object collision now that can easily be built into the models themselves now. Other graphics devs reading this: clean your $^&@ up.
2. No jumping allowed. Come on, are you going to tell me that you weigh so much you cannot jump? At all?
3. Poor animations. Understandable for older games, but come on. With the selection of free bone animations out now on places like Turbo Squid, there is no reason for it to be looking bulky. Preferably though, if you have the budget for the motion camera settup, use it. It will do far more for your game return than having marketing buy a hummer with your decals all over it.
4. Controls. Point and clicks are for strategy games, not RPGS. I don't run to a place and stop and turn around and run to another in real life, why in a game? This helps the animations feel fluid too.
5. Mobs. I know that the spreadsheets for mobs can get pretty big. But hell, if you have the time to do 5 extra textures for a mob, the least you can do is 5 other meshes. A brown lvl 3 pig enlarged with a different texture for lvl 40, does not a great experience make.
6. Loot tables. 2 parts to this really. If I kill some mob wearing plate, I want plate armor drops. If I kill a giant freaking hamster, I want to get the liver, ears, eyeballs, bones, skin or whatever else is logically salvageable from it. Not some coin or swords, tyvm.
7. I can handle small varieties of armours out at launch. That is sometimes fine. But what you DO have, should look like it does a better job of protecting you as you level. I can have a piece of leather that looks like a thick shirt at lvl 10, sure. But by the time I am 60, my armour should be looking pretty badass comparitively, even if it is junk armour.
8. Drop rates. If I get a quest to collect 5 spider sacks, then I expect to be able to get 5 spider sacks from 5 spiders. Not 2 sacks from one, or 3 sacks from 20.
9. Camping a mob. If that mob is so important that someone sent you after it, then it should be important enough to spawn when the quest holder is in the vicinity, even if someone JUST killed it. Waiting at his spawn point for him to come back from relieving himself in the mob graveyard, is no fun.
10. Names. Come on people, we are playing RPGs, not MMOHALO. Would you name your kid "5UK5MUNK3YBA!!5" or "ipwndurmum"? No? Well then don't name your toon that.
11. Night time. I don't want it to be as well lit at night as it is during the day. I definetly should not have a shadow at night.
12. No or bad animation sounds. If I am walking in the grass, then make it sound like I am walking in the grass. If I am in a city, I want to hear shopkeepers yelling theif as a rogue class walks by, because we all know the rogue must have stolen at some point in his career.
13. Claiming the world is a certain size, and the reality is that invisi-walls and landmark features realistically make it a fraction of that. However, if I am going along a landmark feature, say a mountain, I do not want to do cliff walking. I do want a climbing animation.
15. If your graphics aim is photorealistic, then your mounts should look real. Not badly textured clay with disproportioned body parts. A horse should look like a horse and not have a stub for a tail, or an obvious seam around it's arse. It should also ALWAYS have reigns. The tanner managed to get the leather for a saddle, but couldn't dry enough intestine for reigns???
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW -- -- "Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
This may sound silly to some but for me, the most important aspects are world design, character design and animation. I cannot stand games with subar animations and bland world and character design. I just can't get into them. Being a designer myself, I notice these things and they annoy me to no end. Especially with games that try to look more realistic.
For example, when I tried Vanguard, even though I liked the concept of the game and the diplomacy system, I couldn't get into it because character animations were not too good. Also the game world, while having really good graphics, was bland and failed to grasp me. I just didn't feel immersed.
I associate with the character I play, that's why I very rarely have multiple high level alts and mostly play one character. If the character does not move naturally or looks a bit off, I'll have a hard time relating to it. Also, having some martial arts training and weapon training, I notice improper and unrealistic combat animations and they stand out like a sore thumb.
That's one of the reasons why I keep going back to WoW, because the stylized art, even with a dated graphics engine, still looks good and being that it's stylized, the characters don't have to move realistically.
This may sound silly to some but for me, the most important aspects are world design, character design and animation. I cannot stand games with subar animations and bland world and character design. I just can't get into them. Being a designer myself, I notice these things and they annoy me to no end. Especially with games that try to look more realistic. For example, when I tried Vanguard, even though I liked the concept of the game and the diplomacy system, I couldn't get into it because character animations were not too good. Also the game world, while having really good graphics, was bland and failed to grasp me. I just didn't feel immersed. I associate with the character I play, that's why I very rarely have multiple high level alts and mostly play one character. If the character does not move naturally or looks a bit off, I'll have a hard time relating to it. Also, having some martial arts training and weapon training, I notice improper and unrealistic combat animations and they stand out like a sore thumb. That's one of the reasons why I keep going back to WoW, because the stylized art, even with a dated graphics engine, still looks good and being that it's stylized, the characters don't have to move realistically.
Mine is bind on pickup. I think that bop is really more of a symptom than a root cause, but I can't quite figure out if the root cause is forced raiding or linear theme park games because technically you could have one without the other. Yet, those are the kinds of games that implement such systems and it blows. I've always been completely amazed that the north american market, which lives in a capitalist society, prefers games that discourage trading. Just completely mind-boggling to me. I guess if I had to guess why (and this will be highly elitist), it's because those who are successful in life don't play mmos, and those who are successful and play mmos transfer that success to mmos. Thus all the other regular joes fail at mmos just as they fail at real life and the dev has to give handouts to the regular joes to keep them playing. Boy, I sure know how to annoy a lot of people...
Totally agree. BOP/BOE caused me to leave Vanguard and also affects how much I play other games. For example I enjoy aspects of LotRo but since my first love is crafting, I don't waste a lot of time in that game since anyone can be entirely self-sufficient and there is no real point to being a trader. If a game doesn't have a real economy like EVE, pre-NGE SWG, or UO, I'll play it for the free month and that's probably about it.
I wouldn't call your observations elitist, there is some truth to them. Generally people play mmo's to escape and to find a sense of accomplishment. Whether or not this is lacking in their real lives I can't say, but seeing as how it is one of the cheapest hobbies around, you will find a lot of players who are on the lower end of the real-life economic spectrum. Many (not all) of these folks do want handouts, that's reflected in the current political climate here in the States, which as you say is capitalist, but is also moving towards a more socialist mindset.
So, it's not terribly surprising to me that most current gen mmo's discourage trading. People are lazy, and they feel entitled, and this is reflected in their entertainment choices.
Pet peeves are players who want player housing. I rather build a castle with my guild then have some virtual box as a house. People who make big choices on extremely small things said before the music, ect. People who want to buy an mmo because it has some gimmic but totally sucks at everything else. Like the only reason I want to play Aion is because of the flying.
I hate in EQ2 where you find yourself leveling on Crabs, Deer, Birds, beetles etc etc. Then every 10 levels you move to the next zone and you see the same frigging mobs but 10 levels higher lol. Found myself leveling on crabs for 20 levels.
QFT. This was the reason i quit FFXi. Theres only so many crabs you can kill before you go insane! To make matters worse they had some kind of stoneskin spell, which made the process 3-5 minutes longer pr mob.. Never again!
Oh god... I had completely forgotten... honestly yes this is why I left early FFXI. Same mob, different name and color.
Lvl1 mob: Crab (blue)
Lvl10 mob: Angry Crab (red)
Lvl 20 mob: Very Angry Crab (purple)
Lvl 30 mob: Super Very Angry Crab (orange)
Lvl 40 mob: Super Very Angry Crab drunk on cheap scotch (white)
Lvl 50 mob: Ultima Crab (plaid)
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
Originally posted by Lansid Lvl1 mob: Crab (blue) Lvl10 mob: Angry Crab (red) Lvl 20 mob: Very Angry Crab (purple) Lvl 30 mob: Super Very Angry Crab (orange) Lvl 40 mob: Super Very Angry Crab drunk on cheap scotch (white) Lvl 50 mob: Ultima Crab (plaid)
I lol'd...
Yeah, it also didn't matter what type of environment you were in... there were crabs on the beach (sense), crabs in the jungle (meh?), and the exact same crabs on the peaks of snowy mountains (wtf).
Comments
QFT. This was the reason i quit FFXi. Theres only so many crabs you can kill before you go insane! To make matters worse they had some kind of stoneskin spell, which made the process 3-5 minutes longer pr mob.. Never again!
--
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Absolutely agree but I'll go one farther. I hate when you're fighting a guy with a sword and he drops a crossbow. What? He had a sword! Why doesn't he drop it? Or when they drop armor that they were obviously not wearing. If I'm fighting a guy in gold armor, I want him to drop gold armor. If I'm fighting a guy with a sword, I want him to drop a sword. Having melee combatants dropping ranged weapons or vice versa sucks.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I need options in my games.
I hate handholding and games with limited playstyles.
I hate Games that force feed you a particular playstyle (FFA pvp gank friendly Games or Raid or die games).
I want to do what I want, When I want.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I think they mean jumping in the sense of training to get better at jumping. Some games, you have to spend all your time jumping to improve the skill, so people go EVERYWHERE jumping. They jump down the corridors in dungeons, they jump through towns, they jump in the fields, etc. That part is entirely stupid, but that's a training issue, not a jumping issue.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
i have never left a game over it but my peeves are getting stuck on a little rock or branch. uneven quest progresion when the previous quests are harded then the final boss, i feel just cheated. or the quest chains is easy and the boss wipes three of u out with one hit .
I'll add another one, although this applies to all melee mobs. Stop letting melee mobs hit you from ranges that are far outside of their reach! I'm sick of standing 30 feet away from a lion, for example, and still having it hit me! It's arms are not 30 feet long, stop it!
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I think they mean jumping in the sense of training to get better at jumping. Some games, you have to spend all your time jumping to improve the skill, so people go EVERYWHERE jumping. They jump down the corridors in dungeons, they jump through towns, they jump in the fields, etc. That part is entirely stupid, but that's a training issue, not a jumping issue.
Personally, bounders annoy me greatly. No skill-ups for doing it in WoW, but they still do it.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The problem with AO's spawn rates is they were still predictable for the most part, there were level 220s who would set their alarm clocks so they'd be up when the mob spawned and could kill it, then go back to bed with a new alarm for the next respawn. I think all spawns should be entirely random, it could happen any time in the next 6 hours, the only way to be sure is to sit in front of your computer 24/7.
I loathe camping too.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
That's not really the problem, the problem is that it lets people cheat. I've told the story before of taking part in a transfer from a maxed-level character to his level 10 alt, he handed over 200 million credits and a couple of backpacks full of everything the alt would need for the long haul. No need to do quests, no risk, he was twinked to the hilt from day one and could take on much, much harder and higher mobs because of it. That's far too common in most games, how do you compete with a character that has an immensely wealthy and powerful patron like that?
I think we ought to have all objects, at least powerful objects, bind on pickup so they cannot be sold or given to others. If they want it, they have to go on the same quest. I also think we ought to limit how many credits can be given to any character based on their level. A level 10 character cannot be given more than 10 million credits per day, say. The chances of them ever getting a saleable object worth more than 10 million is nil, it stops gold sellers and patrons from pumping up any particular toon with inordinate amounts of booty.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Synchronization.
In a word.
If my characters actions dont mesh with what I am actually doing its a fail and it'll cause me to quit. If I push an attack, the mob takes damage, and 3s later an attack animation goes off = no good. If I run and my character "slides", no good.
I expect my Avatars actions to correspond with what I am actually doing. Thats my biggest pet peeve. Not talking about lag issues, they happen. But I've played games where the sync is well out of wack and it drives me nuts. Worst still are games where there is no distinct combat animations, just an auto-attack like repeted movement reguardless of what attacks you make. Ugh.
Although not game breakers, here are some things that make my eye twich:
1) when your armor value does not represent your actual armor value (i.e. if u have 100 armor a mob hits you for 10 dmg, you raise your armor to 200, and the same mob hits you for 7 dmg)
2) swords that look bigger than your character or are so weirdly shaped that it doesn't look like a sword anymore
3) female bikini armor that has the same resistances as full plate on their male counterparts
It's a deal-breaker if the game doesn't have that.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Similarly. It's not hard to find a legitimate cause of complaint in a game. Little things like looks and jumping and swimming don't mean squat - of course, I'll complain if they're done poorly, but they won't stop me from playing a game.
The reasons why I quit are grounded in reality: no GM/admin presence (i.e. cheaters running rampant and nothing being done about them), and games which quickly reveal themselves as committing the cardinal sins of having mostly no-impact fetchquests, being a grindfest, and having more than a passing similarity to the cookie-cutter f2p stereotype (it's called a stereotype for a reason, devs - Pay Attention).
" In Defeat, Malice; In Victory, Revenge! "
Totally agree with this one... Early on in EQ it was a favorite practical joke of mine to trade a newbie zone snake outside of Freeport and load it down with a TON of copper pieces or Rusty Two Handed Swords, so that the person who killed and looted them walked at snails pace and had to make the rough choice of keeping the cash, or dropping enough to not be encumbered. Ah... good times.
As far as recent griefs of MMO's, specifically with WoW... is character customization. After how many years, it still feels pretty limited. No dye for armor or weapons, every gnome, human, orc, tauren, ect is the same height as the next one. Static faces, hair, no sliders for certain colors... Gnome A sounds exactly like Gnome B. Lack of armor or weapon design for guild affiliation.
I think if anything the reason I get bored with WoW so often is feeling like I'm playing a very popular F2P kind of game because of limited choices of character design/customization abilities. But that's just me, I spent 1/2 of my time in CoX designing characters and the other playing them, and I loved pimping out my ships in Earth and Beyond. With Blizzard having such a huge income I find it hard to see that implimenting simple things like that would be more costly than their Barbershop update.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
It's a deal-breaker if the game doesn't have that.
I feel if you're throwing fireballs alongside elves and gnomes while attacking mythical beasts just so you can collect their toenails because Bob the Questgiver had an exclamation point over his head and needs said toenails from said mythical beast for a magical potion... you need to throw f'ing reality and common sense out the damned window anyways.
Male full plate vs. female bikini place makes no difference when you apply the theory of a 100m tall dragon biting you in the torso with a toothed hydrolic press for a maw. But again, this is theory... never ran into a dragon, but the closest research from Stanford in releation to a T-Rex states,
"The authors report that the ferocious beast (T-Rex) could exert between 1,440 and 3,011 pounds of force, greater than the crushing force of any known creature, though close to the maximum force exerted by the American alligator, a dinosaur relative."
So I don't know, not a physics expert... but my old D&D GM had a rule of thumb... "Don't play a fantasy game if you want to talk science."
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
Are there any games which require click-to-move? Any which offer it that I have seen have it as an option.
Also: I think I detect a 'Valkyrie Profile' fan. Correct?
Nope, just a Norse mythology fan, and a fan of mythology in general.
As for point and click, many F2P games are P&C. Most, if not all mainstream games are W, A., S, D or arrow key movement.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Here are mine in the order of importance:
1. Open seams where one can fall through the world. The world is one big mesh-fest, and 3dmax/ maya uses Object collision now that can easily be built into the models themselves now. Other graphics devs reading this: clean your $^&@ up.
2. No jumping allowed. Come on, are you going to tell me that you weigh so much you cannot jump? At all?
3. Poor animations. Understandable for older games, but come on. With the selection of free bone animations out now on places like Turbo Squid, there is no reason for it to be looking bulky. Preferably though, if you have the budget for the motion camera settup, use it. It will do far more for your game return than having marketing buy a hummer with your decals all over it.
4. Controls. Point and clicks are for strategy games, not RPGS. I don't run to a place and stop and turn around and run to another in real life, why in a game? This helps the animations feel fluid too.
5. Mobs. I know that the spreadsheets for mobs can get pretty big. But hell, if you have the time to do 5 extra textures for a mob, the least you can do is 5 other meshes. A brown lvl 3 pig enlarged with a different texture for lvl 40, does not a great experience make.
6. Loot tables. 2 parts to this really. If I kill some mob wearing plate, I want plate armor drops. If I kill a giant freaking hamster, I want to get the liver, ears, eyeballs, bones, skin or whatever else is logically salvageable from it. Not some coin or swords, tyvm.
7. I can handle small varieties of armours out at launch. That is sometimes fine. But what you DO have, should look like it does a better job of protecting you as you level. I can have a piece of leather that looks like a thick shirt at lvl 10, sure. But by the time I am 60, my armour should be looking pretty badass comparitively, even if it is junk armour.
8. Drop rates. If I get a quest to collect 5 spider sacks, then I expect to be able to get 5 spider sacks from 5 spiders. Not 2 sacks from one, or 3 sacks from 20.
9. Camping a mob. If that mob is so important that someone sent you after it, then it should be important enough to spawn when the quest holder is in the vicinity, even if someone JUST killed it. Waiting at his spawn point for him to come back from relieving himself in the mob graveyard, is no fun.
10. Names. Come on people, we are playing RPGs, not MMOHALO. Would you name your kid "5UK5MUNK3YBA!!5" or "ipwndurmum"? No? Well then don't name your toon that.
11. Night time. I don't want it to be as well lit at night as it is during the day. I definetly should not have a shadow at night.
12. No or bad animation sounds. If I am walking in the grass, then make it sound like I am walking in the grass. If I am in a city, I want to hear shopkeepers yelling theif as a rogue class walks by, because we all know the rogue must have stolen at some point in his career.
13. Claiming the world is a certain size, and the reality is that invisi-walls and landmark features realistically make it a fraction of that. However, if I am going along a landmark feature, say a mountain, I do not want to do cliff walking. I do want a climbing animation.
15. If your graphics aim is photorealistic, then your mounts should look real. Not badly textured clay with disproportioned body parts. A horse should look like a horse and not have a stub for a tail, or an obvious seam around it's arse. It should also ALWAYS have reigns. The tanner managed to get the leather for a saddle, but couldn't dry enough intestine for reigns???
These are my top 15 anyway...
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Tried- L2, Ryzom, WAR, DDO, PWI, Tab Rasa, Requiem, Champs, AA, JD, PWI, SUN, Dawntide
Played- SWG (pre-cu), AoC, VG, WoW, LoTRO,CoX, EQ2, DAOC, GW, PotBS, Aion, MO,APB, NASA, Fallen Earth, DCUO, Rift
Playing- EVE, Black Prophecy, TOR
Waiting for- Tera, Jumpgate Evo, WH40K, WWE, WOD, TSW
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"Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Double Fine President Tim Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyonce is going to sue me too."
I wouldnt call it illogical, but I quit one game because it didnt have an /ignore function.
This may sound silly to some but for me, the most important aspects are world design, character design and animation. I cannot stand games with subar animations and bland world and character design. I just can't get into them. Being a designer myself, I notice these things and they annoy me to no end. Especially with games that try to look more realistic.
For example, when I tried Vanguard, even though I liked the concept of the game and the diplomacy system, I couldn't get into it because character animations were not too good. Also the game world, while having really good graphics, was bland and failed to grasp me. I just didn't feel immersed.
I associate with the character I play, that's why I very rarely have multiple high level alts and mostly play one character. If the character does not move naturally or looks a bit off, I'll have a hard time relating to it. Also, having some martial arts training and weapon training, I notice improper and unrealistic combat animations and they stand out like a sore thumb.
That's one of the reasons why I keep going back to WoW, because the stylized art, even with a dated graphics engine, still looks good and being that it's stylized, the characters don't have to move realistically.
Thats the Uncanny Valley effect mate.
Totally agree. BOP/BOE caused me to leave Vanguard and also affects how much I play other games. For example I enjoy aspects of LotRo but since my first love is crafting, I don't waste a lot of time in that game since anyone can be entirely self-sufficient and there is no real point to being a trader. If a game doesn't have a real economy like EVE, pre-NGE SWG, or UO, I'll play it for the free month and that's probably about it.
I wouldn't call your observations elitist, there is some truth to them. Generally people play mmo's to escape and to find a sense of accomplishment. Whether or not this is lacking in their real lives I can't say, but seeing as how it is one of the cheapest hobbies around, you will find a lot of players who are on the lower end of the real-life economic spectrum. Many (not all) of these folks do want handouts, that's reflected in the current political climate here in the States, which as you say is capitalist, but is also moving towards a more socialist mindset.
So, it's not terribly surprising to me that most current gen mmo's discourage trading. People are lazy, and they feel entitled, and this is reflected in their entertainment choices.
Pet peeves are players who want player housing. I rather build a castle with my guild then have some virtual box as a house. People who make big choices on extremely small things said before the music, ect. People who want to buy an mmo because it has some gimmic but totally sucks at everything else. Like the only reason I want to play Aion is because of the flying.
My number 1 pet peeve that will almost instantly deter me from playing a game or continuing one:
Non-existent GMs and official forum admins.
Someone needs to help people who get stuck, remove RMTs, and bots.
Number 2 would be game exploits that are not fixed quickly, but rather continue for weeks at a time allowing everyone to exploit the game.
Others:
Maybe not really illogical, but still annoy me to no end.
Games advertised as F2P and after beginning the game they implement a cash shop later on that you have to use to actually play the main quest.
Games that have tons of quests and great content at first, but after 2 weeks of playing it's all gone and you must grind to level up.
Games that are advertised to be something totally different than what it really is when you begin playing.
Games that are released when the official website still is missing pages and most of it is "under construction".
But poor customer service (GMs, Admins) is my biggest turn-off.
QFT. This was the reason i quit FFXi. Theres only so many crabs you can kill before you go insane! To make matters worse they had some kind of stoneskin spell, which made the process 3-5 minutes longer pr mob.. Never again!
Oh god... I had completely forgotten... honestly yes this is why I left early FFXI. Same mob, different name and color.
Lvl1 mob: Crab (blue)
Lvl10 mob: Angry Crab (red)
Lvl 20 mob: Very Angry Crab (purple)
Lvl 30 mob: Super Very Angry Crab (orange)
Lvl 40 mob: Super Very Angry Crab drunk on cheap scotch (white)
Lvl 50 mob: Ultima Crab (plaid)
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
I lol'd...
Yeah, it also didn't matter what type of environment you were in... there were crabs on the beach (sense), crabs in the jungle (meh?), and the exact same crabs on the peaks of snowy mountains (wtf).