Originally posted by Kyleran In all fairness, who really doesn't hate to wait on anything? We've spent our entire lives seeing things in RL become more convenient with reduced waiting, its what we all want because time is precious. A large part of what made early games challenging was the time they made you wait and your efforts to minimize that, be it from effectively traveling between locations, reducing your downtime by winning fights as efficiently as possible, to making sure you didn't die and have to respawn in PVP because it was going to take you out of the fight for 10 or more minutes.
Reading this brought to mind that part in the movie, Wall-E, when all the people were hovering around because they were too lazy to walk. We have all this free time now because things are so convenient, and we waste it by playing video games and such things. It's just an analogy. I'm not even really disagreeing with you. And I love wasting time playing video games.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I'd like to point out that the poll isn't exactly relevant, as we can assume kids that started playing MMOs just a few years back can vote, and they have no clue how the games were back then, except from screenshots, will probably throw votes for "better now"
Nice post OP, I agree with it 100%. Once was a promising genre where virtual worlds were to be built are now nothing but casual, single player games in an MMORPG package.
Quite interesting also that the poll shows 50% thinking the genre has got alot worse.
You make many valid points, however when everything becomes so efficient certain core values get left behind, and what it is to be human are lost.
Look at it like this, if you were living in the realm of star trek the next generation, and had access to a replicator as a food supply, of course everyone is going to use it for its ease of use. Now however think about what is being lost in its use. Gone is the dinner so lovingly made for your family through your own work. Gone is the sense of contentment and accomplishment of seeing your family enjoy the meal you made for them. Gone are the days of a family going to the grocery store and spending time together picking out meals for the week. Gone is the time you spend as a family preparing a Thanksgiving meal together enjoying not just what you are doing, but the time you spend together doing it.
I truly fear the long term effects of instantaneous consumption on humanity as a whole.
You make many valid points, however when everything becomes so efficient certain core values get left behind, and what it is to be human are lost.
Look at it like this, if you were living in the realm of star trek the next generation, and had access to a replicator as a food supply, of course everyone is going to use it for its ease of use. Now however think about what is being lost in its use. Gone is the dinner so lovingly made for your family through your own work. Gone is the sense of contentment and accomplishment of seeing your family enjoy the meal you made for them. Gone are the days of a family going to the grocery store and spending time together picking out meals for the week. Gone is the time you spend as a family preparing a Thanksgiving meal together enjoying not just what you are doing, but the time you spend together doing it.
I truly fear the long term effects of instantaneous consumption on humanity as a whole.
lol, well if those are your arguments then replicators can't get here fast enough!
I hate cooking, sitting down with my family is a mixed bag of funny and grating, Hate going to the grocery store, don't like picking meals "together" and Thanksgiving is overated.
So, er, if you can just point me to the neo-replicators I'll be on my way....
sorry, just thought your post was funny from where I was sitting. Still your point is well made and there are a lot of niceties that get lost in the name of modernity.
Well, what I what I was trying to get at is the same principal applies to MMORPGs. As everything becomes easier and more efficient in MMOs, certain interaction between players disappear. Thus why were seeing mmos turn from playing a basketball game with your friends to shooting baskets in your driveway by yourself.
I think the biggest problem with mmo's isnt the games but the players. They are to busy looking back at games they no longer play whining about the old days.
they claim they are hardcore but are the ultimate casual jumping from game to game never given a game time to grow and expand and become what it is aiming to be.
Games today aim at bringing in the most players they can. Thats good buisness. Being able to let solo types play isnt a bad thing.
the way i see it u are entitled to play the games u want U can even blame wow for all games ills but it doesnt make it true.
Games are a buisness. They want the most players they can. Unfortunatly for all the people yelling for a great sandbox no one is acutally willing to give those games a chance to grow and succeed.
Its why games like wow and themepark games rule the genre. So if u are upset at what games have become u have only yourself to blame.
Stop jumping from game to game allow them to grow when they arent so easy to use and have huge difficulty and maybe ore devs would make that type of game.
and saying well if games have bugs we arent gonna stay is part of the issue.
If the early mmo gamers had abandoned the early mmo's due to bugs and difficulty learning them wow and none of the mmo's of today woudl even exist. Todays players expect a game to hit the market polished with minimum bugs when in fact thats rarely the case and as such they abandon the games.
I know i have the earliest mmo players to thank for the fact that wow and other games like it even exist and since i love wow thats a godo thing to me. The said thing is todays players dont have the patence or the inclination to stick with games the way those old time gamers did.
I quit MMOs for the most part. Ive gone back to playing MUDs. The roleplaying is enforced the communities are more tightly knit with fewer players. The Gms constantly run events and interact with the players. You cant powerlevel your way through it, and people socialize constantly while theyre leveling, just like they did in the early days of MMOs.
Its not about "elitism" as you so succinctly put it, it about a frame of mind, and what you want out of your MMOs.
I respect your stance, even if you do not respect mine and are borderline disrespectful. Thats part difference between a lot of the old school players and the new school players.
I think the biggest problem with mmo's isnt the games but the players. They are to busy looking back at games they no longer play whining about the old days.
they claim they are hardcore but are the ultimate casual jumping from game to game never given a game time to grow and expand and become what it is aiming to be.
Games today aim at bringing in the most players they can. Thats good buisness. Being able to let solo types play isnt a bad thing.
the way i see it u are entitled to play the games u want U can even blame wow for all games ills but it doesnt make it true.
Games are a buisness. They want the most players they can. Unfortunatly for all the people yelling for a great sandbox no one is acutally willing to give those games a chance to grow and succeed.
Its why games like wow and themepark games rule the genre. So if u are upset at what games have become u have only yourself to blame.
Stop jumping from game to game allow them to grow when they arent so easy to use and have huge difficulty and maybe ore devs would make that type of game.
and saying well if games have bugs we arent gonna stay is part of the issue.
If the early mmo gamers had abandoned the early mmo's due to bugs and difficulty learning them wow and none of the mmo's of today woudl even exist. Todays players expect a game to hit the market polished with minimum bugs when in fact thats rarely the case and as such they abandon the games.
I know i have the earliest mmo players to thank for the fact that wow and other games like it even exist and since i love wow thats a godo thing to me. The said thing is todays players dont have the patence or the inclination to stick with games the way those old time gamers did.
I've given some pretty buggy games a fair chance. It's not my fault if none of them have turned out to be anything I want to play. Honestly, games do change over time, and I do sometimes go back to see if the game has become something I'd want to play,especially when I've heard it has changes a lot, but most of the time, the answer is no, that it's basically the same game I didn't want to play before. I am even willing to give a game a fair shake a few months after a disastrous launch. Sometimes it is worth it. Sometimes it's not.
A game doesn't need to pull down WoW numbers to be doing good business. They only need to be doing the best they can in their niche market, and there are a lot of small games that are totally worth looking at.
I played EQ for 10 years. TEN. YEARS. In that time, I fell through the world several times, got trapped under rocks (in Plane of Disease, near the exit... oh, the joys of being a gnome.... >.< ) , been chased by flying sharks and been bitten by a fish that had gotten stuck in a wall some distance from the pond it was supposed to be in... And that was years after the launch. I am pretty sure most, if not all, long-term players of older games can tell you a variety of bug-and-glitch stories from their favorite old timey game. Are you really suggesting it's our lack of patience that's to blame for us not getting the games we want to play? I think you're thinking of another part of the MMO demographic.
I will stand by leaving games that have poor performance for me. I am NOT a gamer, and I don't have a gaming computer. It's generally not a matter of bugs that's the problem for me. If I just don't have the power for it, no amount of waiting fixes that, generally.
The hardcore vs. casual argument is bogus here. Casual players know what they are looking for in a game as much as hardcore players do, and nobody becomes a hardcore player of a game that's just not fun for them. A game grows and expands, yes, but they generally don't grow in a way that's going to turn a tourist into a resident. All that growth and development is driven by the wants and needs of the people who are already residents.
I jump from game to game because the games I am trying aren't compelling enough to be anything other than a casual romp. When I've played a few games more seriously, they were fun for a while, but they weren't UO or EQ or AC or AO fun for me... And I liked those games very much-- I just had to choose ONE because I was playing that ONE game so much that there wasn't even time for me to play Bejeweled on the side, much less another whole MMO.
If the early mmo gamers had abandoned the early mmo's due to bugs and difficulty learning them wow and none of the mmo's of today woudl even exist. Todays players expect a game to hit the market polished with minimum bugs when in fact thats rarely the case and as such they abandon the games.
Why shouldn't players expect a minimum level of bugs and " market polished "?
The problem isn't players but developers. They all want a piece of the WOW pie, and aren't bright enough to bake their own.
The genre was never really that awesome to begin with. If you think that, I believe it's time to take off the rose-tinted glasses. I really think people need to stop with labeling stuff hardcore or casual, it's all relative. We're all gamers in some capacity, putting labels on people isn't the way to go, nor is discriminating against gaming style.
The genre was never really that awesome to begin with. If you think that, I believe it's time to take off the rose-tinted glasses. I really think people need to stop with labeling stuff hardcore or casual, it's all relative. We're all gamers in some capacity, putting labels on people isn't the way to go, nor is discriminating against gaming style.
I agree. The games have changed and so have the players. There's no going back for either of them. Half the time, people expect unrealistic feats from these games and get disappointed. No expectations, no disappointment.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I can understand not staying if the bugs dont get fixed i really can. The problem is players qut after a month of play time.
I guess i choose my games diffrently then alot i dont care about hardcore or casual . I try a game if by level 19 im enjoying myself having fun and finding myself engrossed enough to not notice how much time has pssed ill keep playing.
If im bored cant get into it and just plain find myself wondering why i ever tried the game i stop.
I understand themepark mmos need to have alot of content and be pretty well polished to make it in todays mmo market.
The thing to me is u hear alot of people asking for sandboxes which by definition have less dev content and more room for players to generate there own fun. These games tend have smaller budgets and need players to give them time to mature into the games they will become.
If u are gonna whine about not enough sandbox games and then not give them the chance to fix stuff and grow as a game u have only yourselves to blame for the lack of sandbox games.
Themepark games by designe are gonna have alot of wow type features because wow is so popular. And belive me in a buisness a games popularity deetermines its profit.
U can say as a game games dont need to pull wow numbers they can cater to the niche crowd but thats only if a game has a small budget which means mor ebugs. Smaller dev teams and community teams and longer wait to fix bugs.
Obviously people have a hard time accepting the fact that this whole genre has become close to a joke. I also had my moments 10 years ago when mmo's were closer to 'dreams come true' than they are today. The obvious problem is wow and there is no turning back , even other types of games have been dumbed down for a long time.
There used to be much more open ended, open pvp games with little restrictions and more depth 10 years ago than today. The tide has turned and p2p games are dead since a while , we now have to play f2p crap with premium options in watered down clones. There is little hope even in swtor and such with rail shooting in space and such.
This type of game keeps getting worst every day , it got taken over by carebears and solo oriented players who have no idea how to use teamwork or basic roleplaying. The game devs are bending over to the demands of people who want to play single player experiences in an online world. That's like having sex with a blow up doll.
I remember Neocron when you would need 4 hackers (3 layers + hacknet) and 25 fighters to have a small chance of controlling an outpost in the wastelands, not counting the tradeskillers waiting back for poking, repairing, recycling, researching, constructing and modding. Now those were the days, but the game died in 2006 and it's on life support since , basically an abandonware. The game had it's flaws but mostly technical.
There was also ww2online, but the devs destroyed squads to implement a high command system and implemented tons of casual oriented gameplay features that killed the game in the long run, as it was simply a hardcore simulator mmo that tried to appeal to everyone way too much.
The market for niche games is getting smaller everyday, people dont want to create dream worlds and universes anymore, they want your cash real quick by trying to appeal to everyone at the same time and cloning the worst mmo ever created , wow.
I have not found a good mmo since 5 years, i keep searching but lost hope in the long run. Thankfully i spend more time on other dreams like making a legacy out of my audio visual work and gaining knowledge by reading and educating myself. They say all good things must come to an end sometimes to make these things valuable, nostalgia can be bitter.
I was always a twitch player, i just prefer twitch to pnc in this genre. I have always been an honest gamer, never cheated, duped, hacked, exploited , macroed or botted. I think those types of players also destroyed the whole gaming aspect to a certain point. It's not just carebears and solo oriented players that caused all this but all those people who dont play games like they are supposed to be played.
I hope one day i can find my home like Neocron back in 2001 (there was player appartments back then, with sandbox elements and people could visit each other, you could place stuff anywhere you wanted as well ). Neocron has been my best experience and when i look at today's games , they just dont have half the features those decade old mmo's have , they are worst in all aspects except graphics. Even Black Prophecy feels like a big farce to me.
I understand the frustration that i read often around here from people that come from UO, EQ, AC, SB, etc but we all know that era is over since a while , i guess we lived something good compared to what is experienced today. The very repressive nature of such websites never helped, with ego fueled powertripping moderators to money making gimmicks, those people never helped but make things worst. I hope each and everyone of you can find a happy place to game sooner or later, as i think most hardcore mmo players have been let down by the industry since a while. Until then, have fun folks!
Go watch the preview ingame movie they made how a new character starts and get quest and do combat and how game hold your hand in GW2 its just pathetic:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
There are a lot of games that cater to smaller audiences that are successful. The thing that cracks me off about this whole genre is that Game Companies seem to think that they are selling used cars in mexico, not developing games.
If I told my employer that I was going to build a rocket that would be controled by thoughts and run on water, then in 8 months gave him a skateboard with lawn mower pieces tied to it, I would be unemployed. Companies lie through their teeth to consumers, and we keep coming back. Ensuring the next game that comes out is a half finished POS because they know they can get away with it.
I saw a few posters stating that todays mmorpgs are better than the pioneers of the traditional mmorpgs.
Name a mmorpg after 2004 that is kick ass in your opinion (most players are going to say WoW)
Nothing can compare to UO, EQ, Eve, DAoC, AO, AC, SWG (Pre NGE) and Shadowbane for a TRUE MMORPG experience.
What we got now is WoW, AoC, Warhammer, EQ2, RIFT, Aion and many more clones of the WoW formula.
Yeah the graphics are great in these newer mmo's, but there is no soul in the game.
the mmo's today are nothing but single player games with anti social aspects online.
Nothing compared to EQ? LOL ... I played that game for a year. And yes, WOW is much better in DESIGN and FEATURES (and of course graphics).
instances -> no more camping (this is the BIG one)
less down-time -> no more staring at spellbook, less death penalty ...
dungeon finder tool -> streamline looking for groups
quests -> no more single mob grind to level
And who gets to define what is a "true" MMO experience? You? If it is no fun, i don't care if it is a "true" MMO, or a "modified" MMO .. a good game is a good game.
I saw a few posters stating that todays mmorpgs are better than the pioneers of the traditional mmorpgs.
Name a mmorpg after 2004 that is kick ass in your opinion (most players are going to say WoW)
Nothing can compare to UO, EQ, Eve, DAoC, AO, AC, SWG (Pre NGE) and Shadowbane for a TRUE MMORPG experience.
What we got now is WoW, AoC, Warhammer, EQ2, RIFT, Aion and many more clones of the WoW formula.
Yeah the graphics are great in these newer mmo's, but there is no soul in the game.
the mmo's today are nothing but single player games with anti social aspects online.
Nothing compared to EQ? LOL ... I played that game for a year. And yes, WOW is much better in DESIGN and FEATURES (and of course graphics).
instances -> no more camping (this is the BIG one)
less down-time -> no more staring at spellbook, less death penalty ...
dungeon finder tool -> streamline looking for groups
quests -> no more single mob grind to level
And who gets to define what is a "true" MMO experience? You? If it is no fun, i don't care if it is a "true" MMO, or a "modified" MMO .. a good game is a good game.
Isn't that the point people are trying to make though? The experience has changed significantly from what a lot of people learned to love. How about an analogy... cars are without a doubt better in all respects now, but the experience of the gas guzzling cars 20+ years ago just resonates so well with people its just not enjoyable to drive a 2011 ford focus after cruising around in that 1988 monte carlo. But no one is going to make a muscle car of the 80s, all we have is sitting around complaining about how they don't make things like they used to...
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Isn't that the point people are trying to make though? The experience has changed significantly from what a lot of people learned to love. How about an analogy... cars are without a doubt better in all respects now, but the experience of the gas guzzling cars 20+ years ago just resonates so well with people its just not enjoyable to drive a 2011 ford focus after cruising around in that 1988 monte carlo. But no one is going to make a muscle car of the 80s, all we have is sitting around complaining about how they don't make things like they used to...
Actually, a few small companies do make cars and motorcycles like in the 80s.
The whole problems with MMOs in my opinion is not really that they aim more for casual players now. The problem is that it lost focus.
The original idea was to take the experience of playing a pen and paper RPG and make it in a massive computer game. But now is the idea to take any older MMO and make a copy with prettier graphics and possibly a few new features.
The soul of the early games were from pen and paper roleplaying, and we lost that. Instead we get something close to Diablo, we lost the RPG in MMORPG and that is sad.
I am not saying complicated games are better than simple games. I am not saying games aimed for a few players are better than games for many. I am however saying that old games tried to recreate a living world like P&P games do, and that is something were the modern MMOs fails badly.
Modern MMOs need to reconnect to the basics again. They should feel like more than just a game.
That does not mean we need to take away all practical ideas, like auctionhouses and similar. What is needed is to create the feeling of a living breathing world, and it should actually be easier today with modern graphics.
We should send a copy of the P&P game Runequest, Warhammer fantasy RPG or ARS magica to the MMO developers instead of complaining how simple the games have become.
Go watch the preview ingame movie they made how a new character starts and get quest and do combat and how game hold your hand in GW2 its just pathetic:(
A game should hold a noobs hand, that is no problem. The problem is if it does the same thing with experienced players.
A frustrating few hours to learn the game doesn't really add to the experience, hand holding gets annoying after the first day of gaming or so. Having no tutorial just turn some potential players away from the game and that makes no one happy.
I saw a few posters stating that todays mmorpgs are better than the pioneers of the traditional mmorpgs.
Name a mmorpg after 2004 that is kick ass in your opinion (most players are going to say WoW)
Nothing can compare to UO, EQ, Eve, DAoC, AO, AC, SWG (Pre NGE) and Shadowbane for a TRUE MMORPG experience.
What we got now is WoW, AoC, Warhammer, EQ2, RIFT, Aion and many more clones of the WoW formula.
Yeah the graphics are great in these newer mmo's, but there is no soul in the game.
the mmo's today are nothing but single player games with anti social aspects online.
Nothing compared to EQ? LOL ... I played that game for a year. And yes, WOW is much better in DESIGN and FEATURES (and of course graphics).
instances -> no more camping (this is the BIG one)
less down-time -> no more staring at spellbook, less death penalty ...
dungeon finder tool -> streamline looking for groups
quests -> no more single mob grind to level
And who gets to define what is a "true" MMO experience? You? If it is no fun, i don't care if it is a "true" MMO, or a "modified" MMO .. a good game is a good game.
Isn't that the point people are trying to make though? The experience has changed significantly from what a lot of people learned to love. How about an analogy... cars are without a doubt better in all respects now, but the experience of the gas guzzling cars 20+ years ago just resonates so well with people its just not enjoyable to drive a 2011 ford focus after cruising around in that 1988 monte carlo. But no one is going to make a muscle car of the 80s, all we have is sitting around complaining about how they don't make things like they used to...
And the joke of muscle cars of the 80's doesn't hold a candle to the appeal, style, performace of the true muscle cars of the 50's and 60's, where those models of cars were actually introduced.
And comparing a 4-cyl to and 8-cyl is a terrible analogy. Compare it to the models that still exist today and not some radically different off-shoot just to support a point. Companies still make powerful cars, but guess what, price of gas and other factors make them less desirable to the broad market.
No, that's not to say those niche customer-bases are left unfullfilled. There's custom auto-makers like Boyd Coddington(sp), other classic-car restoration shops, entire businesses built and run on replicating those old parts to keep the classic machines running.
And to a lot of the enthusiasts, thats enough for them. They know they're not going to be king of the hill anymore. They're not into their cars because they want to rub what they have oversomeone else in that persons face.
They're into their cars because they love their cars. They're in it for the feel, the sound, the look, the reaction. They love what they love for what it is alone, and not for other peoples opinions or attitudes towards it.
And the same can be said for MMO's. Ya, the manufacturers went to fuel-efficient models. Nothing is stopping anyone else from trying to make a new design to appeal to a niche, but it shouldn't be expected to be funded, refined and polished like a main-line production model. The appeal base just isn't concentrated enough to warrant it.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
I keep seeing people in this thread stating that the older games were more immersive, that content was not the repetitive grind we see today, and the world's were more open, both physically, and to the possibility of multiple types of play.
All of this stems from what us old-timers were clamoring for. We begged for content.
The reason that the older games were immersive, and open to the possibility of multiple types of play was because there was nothing to do. UO, AC, to an extent EQ, and numerous others were just open worlds. As far as the developers telling us how to play, we had two numbers. Our level, and the number of mobs we needed to kill to get to the next level. Since no real gameplay other than "go kill some stuff and see if something drops that you can wear" existed, we made our own systems. We created our own gameplay, simply out of a lack of anything better to do. You made your own game.
We begged for content beyond just that, and they gave it to us. Content, by its very existence, tells you how to play it. If you put a boss mob there with awesome loot on it, we will kill it, or wait for it to spawn, and kill it. If you give us a quest to go get something, we are going to go and get it, and there will always be a "right" way to do these things. The reason why the new worlds aren't immersive, is because so much content is there, that you constantly have something to do. You never have to create your own game, and more, you never have time to, and even if you make time, good luck finding anyone else wanting to make the time too.
Take an objective look at your favorite games of the past, and break them down into core systems. List them. Leave out the flowery prose making it sound great, just list the base name of that core system(ex: Kill mobs for xp, kill mobs for loot, gather mats for crafting, craft). I think that you will find it a pretty short list.
We begged for more, and they gave it to us. If you don't like it, I am sorry, but most people do, and majority rules, for better or worse.
I think the main reason many people are frustrated with MMOs is that they still equate the genre with MMORPGs. None of these games ever achieved true RPG status. The worlds became way too ridiculous in terms of game mechanics. No true role playing game can exist if there are not some plausible set of circumstances. These circumstances do not exits in MMOs- the whole world is killing rats who are carrying gold and armor. All content is built around hack and slash.
If you play an MMO, you have to realize there is no RPG. These games are simply combat simulators with some type of re-hashed story thrown in. Nothing original has been done for a long time.
I think the main reason many people are frustrated with MMOs is that they still equate the genre with MMORPGs. None of these games ever achieved true RPG status. The worlds became way too ridiculous in terms of game mechanics. No true role playing game can exist if there are not some plausible set of circumstances. These circumstances do not exits in MMOs- the whole world is killing rats who are carrying gold and armor. All content is built around hack and slash.
If you play an MMO, you have to realize there is no RPG. These games are simply combat simulators with some type of re-hashed story thrown in. Nothing original has been done for a long time.
Combat simulators!? What kind of pathetic simulators are these games then!?
Comments
Reading this brought to mind that part in the movie, Wall-E, when all the people were hovering around because they were too lazy to walk. We have all this free time now because things are so convenient, and we waste it by playing video games and such things. It's just an analogy. I'm not even really disagreeing with you. And I love wasting time playing video games.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I'd like to point out that the poll isn't exactly relevant, as we can assume kids that started playing MMOs just a few years back can vote, and they have no clue how the games were back then, except from screenshots, will probably throw votes for "better now"
Nice post OP, I agree with it 100%. Once was a promising genre where virtual worlds were to be built are now nothing but casual, single player games in an MMORPG package.
Quite interesting also that the poll shows 50% thinking the genre has got alot worse.
My gaming blog
@kyleran
You make many valid points, however when everything becomes so efficient certain core values get left behind, and what it is to be human are lost.
Look at it like this, if you were living in the realm of star trek the next generation, and had access to a replicator as a food supply, of course everyone is going to use it for its ease of use. Now however think about what is being lost in its use. Gone is the dinner so lovingly made for your family through your own work. Gone is the sense of contentment and accomplishment of seeing your family enjoy the meal you made for them. Gone are the days of a family going to the grocery store and spending time together picking out meals for the week. Gone is the time you spend as a family preparing a Thanksgiving meal together enjoying not just what you are doing, but the time you spend together doing it.
I truly fear the long term effects of instantaneous consumption on humanity as a whole.
lol, well if those are your arguments then replicators can't get here fast enough!
I hate cooking, sitting down with my family is a mixed bag of funny and grating, Hate going to the grocery store, don't like picking meals "together" and Thanksgiving is overated.
So, er, if you can just point me to the neo-replicators I'll be on my way....
sorry, just thought your post was funny from where I was sitting. Still your point is well made and there are a lot of niceties that get lost in the name of modernity.
@Soliliqoy
Well, what I what I was trying to get at is the same principal applies to MMORPGs. As everything becomes easier and more efficient in MMOs, certain interaction between players disappear. Thus why were seeing mmos turn from playing a basketball game with your friends to shooting baskets in your driveway by yourself.
I saw a few posters stating that todays mmorpgs are better than the pioneers of the traditional mmorpgs.
Name a mmorpg after 2004 that is kick ass in your opinion (most players are going to say WoW)
Nothing can compare to UO, EQ, Eve, DAoC, AO, AC, SWG (Pre NGE) and Shadowbane for a TRUE MMORPG experience.
What we got now is WoW, AoC, Warhammer, EQ2, RIFT, Aion and many more clones of the WoW formula.
Yeah the graphics are great in these newer mmo's, but there is no soul in the game.
<IMO> the mmo's today are nothing but single player games with anti social aspects online.
I think the biggest problem with mmo's isnt the games but the players. They are to busy looking back at games they no longer play whining about the old days.
they claim they are hardcore but are the ultimate casual jumping from game to game never given a game time to grow and expand and become what it is aiming to be.
Games today aim at bringing in the most players they can. Thats good buisness. Being able to let solo types play isnt a bad thing.
the way i see it u are entitled to play the games u want U can even blame wow for all games ills but it doesnt make it true.
Games are a buisness. They want the most players they can. Unfortunatly for all the people yelling for a great sandbox no one is acutally willing to give those games a chance to grow and succeed.
Its why games like wow and themepark games rule the genre. So if u are upset at what games have become u have only yourself to blame.
Stop jumping from game to game allow them to grow when they arent so easy to use and have huge difficulty and maybe ore devs would make that type of game.
and saying well if games have bugs we arent gonna stay is part of the issue.
If the early mmo gamers had abandoned the early mmo's due to bugs and difficulty learning them wow and none of the mmo's of today woudl even exist. Todays players expect a game to hit the market polished with minimum bugs when in fact thats rarely the case and as such they abandon the games.
I know i have the earliest mmo players to thank for the fact that wow and other games like it even exist and since i love wow thats a godo thing to me. The said thing is todays players dont have the patence or the inclination to stick with games the way those old time gamers did.
@kalinis
I quit MMOs for the most part. Ive gone back to playing MUDs. The roleplaying is enforced the communities are more tightly knit with fewer players. The Gms constantly run events and interact with the players. You cant powerlevel your way through it, and people socialize constantly while theyre leveling, just like they did in the early days of MMOs.
Its not about "elitism" as you so succinctly put it, it about a frame of mind, and what you want out of your MMOs.
I respect your stance, even if you do not respect mine and are borderline disrespectful. Thats part difference between a lot of the old school players and the new school players.
I've given some pretty buggy games a fair chance. It's not my fault if none of them have turned out to be anything I want to play. Honestly, games do change over time, and I do sometimes go back to see if the game has become something I'd want to play,especially when I've heard it has changes a lot, but most of the time, the answer is no, that it's basically the same game I didn't want to play before. I am even willing to give a game a fair shake a few months after a disastrous launch. Sometimes it is worth it. Sometimes it's not.
A game doesn't need to pull down WoW numbers to be doing good business. They only need to be doing the best they can in their niche market, and there are a lot of small games that are totally worth looking at.
I played EQ for 10 years. TEN. YEARS. In that time, I fell through the world several times, got trapped under rocks (in Plane of Disease, near the exit... oh, the joys of being a gnome.... >.< ) , been chased by flying sharks and been bitten by a fish that had gotten stuck in a wall some distance from the pond it was supposed to be in... And that was years after the launch. I am pretty sure most, if not all, long-term players of older games can tell you a variety of bug-and-glitch stories from their favorite old timey game. Are you really suggesting it's our lack of patience that's to blame for us not getting the games we want to play? I think you're thinking of another part of the MMO demographic.
I will stand by leaving games that have poor performance for me. I am NOT a gamer, and I don't have a gaming computer. It's generally not a matter of bugs that's the problem for me. If I just don't have the power for it, no amount of waiting fixes that, generally.
The hardcore vs. casual argument is bogus here. Casual players know what they are looking for in a game as much as hardcore players do, and nobody becomes a hardcore player of a game that's just not fun for them. A game grows and expands, yes, but they generally don't grow in a way that's going to turn a tourist into a resident. All that growth and development is driven by the wants and needs of the people who are already residents.
I jump from game to game because the games I am trying aren't compelling enough to be anything other than a casual romp. When I've played a few games more seriously, they were fun for a while, but they weren't UO or EQ or AC or AO fun for me... And I liked those games very much-- I just had to choose ONE because I was playing that ONE game so much that there wasn't even time for me to play Bejeweled on the side, much less another whole MMO.
Why shouldn't players expect a minimum level of bugs and " market polished "?
The problem isn't players but developers. They all want a piece of the WOW pie, and aren't bright enough to bake their own.
The genre was never really that awesome to begin with. If you think that, I believe it's time to take off the rose-tinted glasses. I really think people need to stop with labeling stuff hardcore or casual, it's all relative. We're all gamers in some capacity, putting labels on people isn't the way to go, nor is discriminating against gaming style.
I agree. The games have changed and so have the players. There's no going back for either of them. Half the time, people expect unrealistic feats from these games and get disappointed. No expectations, no disappointment.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I can understand not staying if the bugs dont get fixed i really can. The problem is players qut after a month of play time.
I guess i choose my games diffrently then alot i dont care about hardcore or casual . I try a game if by level 19 im enjoying myself having fun and finding myself engrossed enough to not notice how much time has pssed ill keep playing.
If im bored cant get into it and just plain find myself wondering why i ever tried the game i stop.
I understand themepark mmos need to have alot of content and be pretty well polished to make it in todays mmo market.
The thing to me is u hear alot of people asking for sandboxes which by definition have less dev content and more room for players to generate there own fun. These games tend have smaller budgets and need players to give them time to mature into the games they will become.
If u are gonna whine about not enough sandbox games and then not give them the chance to fix stuff and grow as a game u have only yourselves to blame for the lack of sandbox games.
Themepark games by designe are gonna have alot of wow type features because wow is so popular. And belive me in a buisness a games popularity deetermines its profit.
U can say as a game games dont need to pull wow numbers they can cater to the niche crowd but thats only if a game has a small budget which means mor ebugs. Smaller dev teams and community teams and longer wait to fix bugs.
Go watch the preview ingame movie they made how a new character starts and get quest and do combat and how game hold your hand in GW2 its just pathetic:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
There are a lot of games that cater to smaller audiences that are successful. The thing that cracks me off about this whole genre is that Game Companies seem to think that they are selling used cars in mexico, not developing games.
If I told my employer that I was going to build a rocket that would be controled by thoughts and run on water, then in 8 months gave him a skateboard with lawn mower pieces tied to it, I would be unemployed. Companies lie through their teeth to consumers, and we keep coming back. Ensuring the next game that comes out is a half finished POS because they know they can get away with it.
Nothing compared to EQ? LOL ... I played that game for a year. And yes, WOW is much better in DESIGN and FEATURES (and of course graphics).
instances -> no more camping (this is the BIG one)
less down-time -> no more staring at spellbook, less death penalty ...
dungeon finder tool -> streamline looking for groups
quests -> no more single mob grind to level
And who gets to define what is a "true" MMO experience? You? If it is no fun, i don't care if it is a "true" MMO, or a "modified" MMO .. a good game is a good game.
Isn't that the point people are trying to make though? The experience has changed significantly from what a lot of people learned to love. How about an analogy... cars are without a doubt better in all respects now, but the experience of the gas guzzling cars 20+ years ago just resonates so well with people its just not enjoyable to drive a 2011 ford focus after cruising around in that 1988 monte carlo. But no one is going to make a muscle car of the 80s, all we have is sitting around complaining about how they don't make things like they used to...
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Actually, a few small companies do make cars and motorcycles like in the 80s.
The whole problems with MMOs in my opinion is not really that they aim more for casual players now. The problem is that it lost focus.
The original idea was to take the experience of playing a pen and paper RPG and make it in a massive computer game. But now is the idea to take any older MMO and make a copy with prettier graphics and possibly a few new features.
The soul of the early games were from pen and paper roleplaying, and we lost that. Instead we get something close to Diablo, we lost the RPG in MMORPG and that is sad.
I am not saying complicated games are better than simple games. I am not saying games aimed for a few players are better than games for many. I am however saying that old games tried to recreate a living world like P&P games do, and that is something were the modern MMOs fails badly.
Modern MMOs need to reconnect to the basics again. They should feel like more than just a game.
That does not mean we need to take away all practical ideas, like auctionhouses and similar. What is needed is to create the feeling of a living breathing world, and it should actually be easier today with modern graphics.
We should send a copy of the P&P game Runequest, Warhammer fantasy RPG or ARS magica to the MMO developers instead of complaining how simple the games have become.
A game should hold a noobs hand, that is no problem. The problem is if it does the same thing with experienced players.
A frustrating few hours to learn the game doesn't really add to the experience, hand holding gets annoying after the first day of gaming or so. Having no tutorial just turn some potential players away from the game and that makes no one happy.
And the joke of muscle cars of the 80's doesn't hold a candle to the appeal, style, performace of the true muscle cars of the 50's and 60's, where those models of cars were actually introduced.
And comparing a 4-cyl to and 8-cyl is a terrible analogy. Compare it to the models that still exist today and not some radically different off-shoot just to support a point. Companies still make powerful cars, but guess what, price of gas and other factors make them less desirable to the broad market.
No, that's not to say those niche customer-bases are left unfullfilled. There's custom auto-makers like Boyd Coddington(sp), other classic-car restoration shops, entire businesses built and run on replicating those old parts to keep the classic machines running.
And to a lot of the enthusiasts, thats enough for them. They know they're not going to be king of the hill anymore. They're not into their cars because they want to rub what they have oversomeone else in that persons face.
They're into their cars because they love their cars. They're in it for the feel, the sound, the look, the reaction. They love what they love for what it is alone, and not for other peoples opinions or attitudes towards it.
And the same can be said for MMO's. Ya, the manufacturers went to fuel-efficient models. Nothing is stopping anyone else from trying to make a new design to appeal to a niche, but it shouldn't be expected to be funded, refined and polished like a main-line production model. The appeal base just isn't concentrated enough to warrant it.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
I keep seeing people in this thread stating that the older games were more immersive, that content was not the repetitive grind we see today, and the world's were more open, both physically, and to the possibility of multiple types of play.
All of this stems from what us old-timers were clamoring for. We begged for content.
The reason that the older games were immersive, and open to the possibility of multiple types of play was because there was nothing to do. UO, AC, to an extent EQ, and numerous others were just open worlds. As far as the developers telling us how to play, we had two numbers. Our level, and the number of mobs we needed to kill to get to the next level. Since no real gameplay other than "go kill some stuff and see if something drops that you can wear" existed, we made our own systems. We created our own gameplay, simply out of a lack of anything better to do. You made your own game.
We begged for content beyond just that, and they gave it to us. Content, by its very existence, tells you how to play it. If you put a boss mob there with awesome loot on it, we will kill it, or wait for it to spawn, and kill it. If you give us a quest to go get something, we are going to go and get it, and there will always be a "right" way to do these things. The reason why the new worlds aren't immersive, is because so much content is there, that you constantly have something to do. You never have to create your own game, and more, you never have time to, and even if you make time, good luck finding anyone else wanting to make the time too.
Take an objective look at your favorite games of the past, and break them down into core systems. List them. Leave out the flowery prose making it sound great, just list the base name of that core system(ex: Kill mobs for xp, kill mobs for loot, gather mats for crafting, craft). I think that you will find it a pretty short list.
We begged for more, and they gave it to us. If you don't like it, I am sorry, but most people do, and majority rules, for better or worse.
I think the main reason many people are frustrated with MMOs is that they still equate the genre with MMORPGs. None of these games ever achieved true RPG status. The worlds became way too ridiculous in terms of game mechanics. No true role playing game can exist if there are not some plausible set of circumstances. These circumstances do not exits in MMOs- the whole world is killing rats who are carrying gold and armor. All content is built around hack and slash.
If you play an MMO, you have to realize there is no RPG. These games are simply combat simulators with some type of re-hashed story thrown in. Nothing original has been done for a long time.
Combat simulators!? What kind of pathetic simulators are these games then!?
I dont blame blizzard I blame all the other companies that try so hard to be blizzard.