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Gaming in general desperately needs something new...
Alasti
Member UncommonPosts: 287
I have been a gamer since I was old enough to play them. At age 14, in 1986, I bought a Commodore 64 (most of you probably have no idea what I'm even talking about there...which makes me feel old) and played role-playing games (almost exclusively) for years. I bought an Atari ST after that, and then an IBM PC where I paid $200.00 to get an EXTRA 4GB of RAM, and have owned a decent gaming computer ever since....all of which to show that I've been playing games for a while. I, like so many of you, have played dozens and dozens of games, a HUGE portion of which has been MMORPG's....which for a long time, was AWESOME!!!
I remember the first time I saw an MMORPG, and was floored by it. The internet as a whole was still in its adolescence and the fact that we could go online and play role-playing games with/against other people from across the globe was astounding! It was a HUGE leap in the gaming industry with games like Meridian 59, Everquest, and Ultima Online etc. I played EQ and Ultima Online for YEARS.... but eventually, people get tired of just about everything...
We haven't really had any major breakthroughs since then. Yes World of Warcraft took what a lot of games were doing and made it REAL pretty and marketed it to perfection (I never played WoW very much), and many many other games have been developed and played since then, but nothing has blown me away since the first MMO's I mentioned above. Some company or game developers need to come up with something innovative to "Sweep us all off our feet" again...much like MMO's did to the gaming industry in the late 1990s. Will it be Holographic games?? Who knows... I do know that even now, as new games are developed and claims of innovation abound, nothing is different enough to entice me....
Its all so stale right now...
Comments
I think one of the first MMOs built around the Oculus Rift from the ground up will be a breath of fresh air since it will have to work a bit different from existing mmos..this one may not even be 100% combat focused.
When you are fully immersed with visual (Oculus Rift) and audio (Noise Cancelling headphones) with a game that is optimized for the experience with other players for dungeon crawling or exploring together in the first person it will be pretty amazing imo.
Yes I had the Commodore vic20/64/MSX and about every console from several type of pong machines till the PS2.
I actually appriaciatte the smaller things we have in games these day's, the great amount of detail. Due to my long gaming experiance I notice these things probebly allot more then today's people into games, as most people who are fairly new to gaming take most things in games for granted.
So I often amazed when I read other experianced gamers talk like OP.
MMO's or MMORPG are as stale as people want them to be, often it has more to do with people's limited playstyle then the game itself. Take WoW clone for example, that can only be viewed by people who try to play every game like WOW, else everyone would know there is no such thing as a WoW Clone other then having a game in a specific genre with familiar basics.
I do understand and even want more from my MMO or MMORPG experiance then most of today's MMO's deliver, but mainly due to experiance and knowing what I want I know tech aint there yet.
This x10.
The Rifts immersive quality's are a revolution in themself, and thats just the DEVKIT version. I cannot help but feel that the next big mmo will be based around The Oculus Rift or similar technology. Having a blast modelling and experimenting with it right now and everytime I put it on its an extreme pleasure for my inner gamer to just be inside a virtual environment.
I think the MMO field will take off when it becomes possible to make MMOs for reasonable budgets, not the $50 Million plus we see now. It will allow all sorts of niche playstyles to blossom.
ON the other hand maybe the games aren't really that stale, maybe it's just us....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I'm really looking forward to the Oculus Rift as well and psyched that it has so many big names supporting it including John Carmack. Looks like VR might actually become a reality in the next couple years, its certainly taken long enough. In the meantime, GTA V has taken over my life.
You want a crowning achievement in gaming GTA is it. Awesome characters, dialog, story, mechanics and a ridiculous amount of content and fun things to do. It's not hard to see where the $265 million development cost went. If your a gamer you owe it to yourself to play it. It's really that good.
FYI, graphics are good but can be a little rough for those of us used to crisp his res PC graphics with AA. I'm sure it will be on PC at some point but I didn't feel like waiting another 6-12 months. It bugged me the first few hours but once I got swept up in the world and stories I stopped noticing.
I'm like you, only that i got blown away by WoW.
But have you ever stopped, and thought about maybe it is you and I that it are the problem?
Maybe we are too old for games? I am 34. I don't know, but I would love an answer to that question.
good post OP..
From where I sit, one of biggest disappointments in the MMO genre is the lack of content.. Games now concentrate so much on graphics and eye candy, that the meat of a good RPG game is lost.. EQ was a good start for me.. I enjoyed all the faction aspects of the game, and how vending and crafting was.. It wasn't pefect, but in my opinion, it has gotten worse with each new release.. If you needed a pristine leather hide, you either farmed it and tried to get one.. or you got lucky and bought one off a NPC vendor that got one from a player that sold it to them hours earlier.. OR you tried to get one off other players..
What EQ did with players being the vendor as it was in the bizzare was OK.. You could only sell what you had in your vendor bags.. I am dead set against modern day AH.. The complexity of MMO's today is so simple, it removes any challenge of making choices.. I wish we could move back to the days that crafting machines could only be used by one person at a time.. Freeport for example might only have 3 locations, but IF the players of Freeport wanted a 4th, they could public quest it.. Same with brewery, talioring, cooking etc etc..
For me after MMORPGs the next big thing was 3D gaming. There is a lot of trashtalking about how its gimmick and doesnt matter. Truth is anyone who says it either never tried to play in 3D or did it on bad tech.
Many games with Helix Fix look mind blowing in 3D. You dont "play" game, you feel like youre inside and it makes day and night difference. Im really looking forward to Oculus Rift which I think will be next step over 3D. Pretty sure it will revolutionize gaming
Perhaps the biggest problem is reality we live in, back in the day it was easy to blow our minds with games, almost every new game blew our mind because it added this and that. However, games didnt need but few features and a graphics update to be AMAZING.
These days, games have tons of features, stuff that takes hundreds if not thousands of hours to develop, that's years, can be many years. It's a lot more work these days to create awesome sound envinronment into games compared to the few kabooches 15 years ago with simple music. Graphics and effects are a huge work these days. Massive worlds and environments, voices etc etc.
It's just a huge undertaking to create an AAA-game, many publishers are not willing to take risks with the games since the core game alone is a massive job, not to mention what would they add or change? Many people demand innovation etc but never say what that innovation is. Sometimes they do, but it's often something completely unrealistic, like people wanting a MMORPG where the world functions like real world with economy, NPC commoners etc, you cant develop that into game unless your development cycle is 20 years long pretty much.
I have to agree. Virtual Reality is going to be the breath of fresh air for me. I hear a lot about being immersed in a world/game. I never will until I can touch, smell and taste the world I'm in.
WOW, Pokemon, Farmville, League of Legends, World of Tanks, and Angry Birds are all examples of games that did that.
Facebook and mobile are examples of platforms that have done that.
If your interest is in new tech, that has never been what swept people off their feet. It's always been either a new utility or a gimmick, although games here and there have made good use of the latter once in a while. Nintendo Powerglove, Vivox VoIP, Nintendo 3DS, the Wii, PS Move, MS Kinect, Facial tracking (ex: SOEmote)... new technology is always appearing.
When mobile is raking in cash hand over fist and the latest game release just sold $800 million in copies in its first 24 hours, I don't see many indicators that gaming is 'stale'. If the statement is about tech, then I'd say take a look at this recent E3 and Gamescom announcements, as each console and platform has new tech coming to it in one form or another.
Are you sure the problem isn't that you're looking for the same thing you had before, but a new take on it?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
May be the OP needs a new hobby.
Gaming is great (for me) and far from stale. There are tons of indie games, and even MMOs are going into new directions (like Destiny). And i don't need a completely new idea to have fun.
For me ... really new and innovative fun
The ROOM - best gorgeous puzzle game for the iOS
Gone Home - first person DRAMA! enough said.
868-Hack - retro grid turned-based hacking game
Dishonored - steam punk stealth game with some RPG elements
......
For me ... really polished, fun game based on old ideas
D3 - super fun combat ARPG
Marvel Heroes - marvel character in a ARPG! It is even a MMO.
Splinter Cell Black List
Bioshock Infinite
....
gaming is GOOD (for me, of course)!
I agree that it is entirely possible that the problem lies with me and not the genre....although I hope not
I still WANT to love games...nothing grabs me though. I just watched the trailer for some new game..can't remember what it was called, Dragon's Prophet or something...anyway...the trailer looked amazing...and they did their absolute BEST to show that just about EVERY possible "perk" or concept that has been widely yearned for was in their game. They had a list 20+ long of all the aspects of their game that they had: Guilds, PvP, hundreds of quests, player housing, dozens of dungeons, etc etc...which is all neat...but all bleh......cuz its all not only been done before...but done by almost every game anymore....
I will need to look into this Oculus Rift...sounds like possibly what I'm talking about.
To be honost I don't know if it will as big or immersive as people might think.
Sure what I have seen makes me truly excited, but I wonder how long can a person be gaming with his OR headset on. Apart from the weight, it's mostly how long can the brain endure long periods of gaming time in the OR.
I am positive plenty of players will not have any issue with it.
Immodium goes abit futher expecting a holo deck, unless I missed the info that with the OR you can truly smell and taste the world you are in (game)
But as stated already in this topic, allot has to do with players limited playstyles and the people who just take things for granted without actually looking beyond.
I started with the atari 1st council (was it 1200?) then atari 2800 and the nes but somewhere along the line I picked up an atari 400/800 with both cartrige and flopy from an old school geek. He gave me a set of disks containing some 6000 games including Questron
Now Questron was what ultima one was designed from. And THAT game was my 1st truly astonished moment in gaming.
My 2nd big moment was with ultima underworld 2. The 1st(to my knowlage) real 3d RPG. It was just 1/4 of the screen being a 3d FP RPG the rest of the screen was stats invt and spells. That was a big step for gaming!
Then it was my 1st mmorpg that blew me away and that was UO. I stayed with UO for 8-9 years and never tried EQ or wow or any of those games that "softened" the genrea.
Since UO i have not found anything that really made my socks fall off. I mean there were a few choose your own story games that really set the standard for "choices made a diference in the world" games but those while make a great experiane are not quite a milestone enough to mention here.
Whats next?
Well to me what I open up firefox everyday hoping to see is a game that is as player driven as 2nd life but with the developers "hand holding" on the technical stuff that some of the bigger named games have like wow or tor. But from a time frame of instant gratifacation. I know it is alot to ask but ehh that to me would be our next milestone.....
Every day someone is born that will become a gamer and has never seen any of this. If the vets burn out or get bored because they've seen it all, the games will just focus on newer younger players.
Younger gamers are all playing minecraft too. So that's fine.
It's only the core mmo scene that is stuck on DIKU for over a decade now. All the other platforms and genres are getting fantastic games that earn a billion dollars in a week. MMORPG players get DIKU starwars. That's why they laugh at us.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
People get motion sickness playing FPS...It didn't seem to be an issue for those types of games.
gaming in general or mmorpgs?
I've played some great games recently. While they didn't push the technological boundaries as say a virtual reality game might, they were really great to play. But I'm really referring to single player games such as The Last of Us.
If you are referring more to mmos than I can see your point. Mmos have lost their luster for me over the past 3 years. I still play them from time to time as a time killer but I hesitate to say that I enjoy them.
The % of people having the issues is higher with the Oculus Rift. Having support for this device will be interesting and good. However, I am not sure we will see a lot of games designed exclusively for it.
I've been gaming for as long as you. My first computer was a BBC Micro and I remember when Pacman was new, when Elite first came out etc etc. But I don't think that games are stale now. I think it is simply a matter of age. We are both outside the core demographic for video games. What is 'awesome' for 18-35 year old guys isn't 'awesome' to me. I can appreciate that GTA V may be a magnificent game, but I have no desire to play it. But there are still games out there that interest me - I just have to look a little harder to find them. It's much the same with music, film and other forms of entertainment.
I don't think it is a matter of age, I am 22 and feel as if this genre has gone stale as well. I also love GTA though, but thats just me. I also don't think the occulus rift is the right answer...or even an answer at all. What I think has been lost is the immersion and creativity that this genre was known for. GTA isn't successful because of the violence, it's because of the fact that it immerses you fully into someones life, into a world, and most importantly....it gives you freedom. This is what MMORPG's have lost. The focus has been lost from creating worlds to creating bite sized content. Developers are scared. Which is understandable, these games cost a lot to make after all, and it's no easy work. But, scared nonetheless. Scared of branching out and trying new things instead of opting for what has worked in the past, or following gaming trends.