1. Not true. Plenty of MMOs are still coming down the line from big companies - just none with an impending release. The genre is not dead - it's just rebuffed a bunch of developers who want to have their cake and eat it too. A cashcow like WoW by taking zero risks.
2. Sadly, too true... and the stupid part? They never learn. By the time something hits it big (like LoL or Hearthstone), it's usually too late to try and clone it (Heroes of the Storm being an exception... but it's Blizzard. They don't have to play by the rules. They've built a legacy over about 30 years of excellence that they're only just beginning to squander). With every passing year, gamers get better at spotting the knock-off cashgrabs. They stick with the one that brought them to the dance, then - when they tire of it - they try something 100% different.
While I disagree with nariusseldon for discounting Everquest next, I have to agree that there aren't a lot of mmo's "still coming down from the big companies". And by that I mean "in development".
What would they be?
Everquest next
Blade & Soul which was made several years ago so not in development just a translation.
Echo of Soul
Black Desert though I think that is done and this is just the translation (?)
Skyforge.
Some indies.
Everquest next is the only one from a large company or at least one with "lots of" experience.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
1. Not true. Plenty of MMOs are still coming down the line from big companies - just none with an impending release. The genre is not dead - it's just rebuffed a bunch of developers who want to have their cake and eat it too. A cashcow like WoW by taking zero risks.
2. Sadly, too true... and the stupid part? They never learn. By the time something hits it big (like LoL or Hearthstone), it's usually too late to try and clone it (Heroes of the Storm being an exception... but it's Blizzard. They don't have to play by the rules. They've built a legacy over about 30 years of excellence that they're only just beginning to squander). With every passing year, gamers get better at spotting the knock-off cashgrabs. They stick with the one that brought them to the dance, then - when they tire of it - they try something 100% different.
While I disagree with nariusseldon for discounting Everquest next, I have to agree that there aren't a lot of mmo's "still coming down from the big companies". And by that I mean "in development".
What would they be?
Everquest next
Blade & Soul which was made several years ago so not in development just a translation.
Echo of Soul
Black Desert though I think that is done and this is just the translation (?)
Skyforge.
Some indies.
Everquest next is the only one from a large company or at least one with "lots of" experience.
Agreed with Sovrath. Though that's not to say there aren't lots of experienced developers still developing in the genre. Just, most of them have moved to and/or started an indie house to do so.
Nostalgia is very hard to replicate. I also yearn for an old school mmorpg. I think whats happening is the basic format of open world pvp seems scarce. Big populations and drama guilds; mixed with open world pvp seems dead to a lot of us. These pay to win games have fallen short because it creates an inequality when one reaches endgame. These other sub games have potential with the new and improved graphics but often miss the mark, because they fail to adhere to the old style gameplay. Bottom line is you will never regain that feeling you had when you enjoyed that first classic mmorpg you were playing. It was a special experience for you and over time it faded away. The gaming population is so spread out now because were all playing so many games. Back in the day there were just a few strong mmorpgs. The population was much higher and the competition was a lot stronger. Look at it now; mmo's are everywhere, and granted 90% of them are bad, but how on earth will a new mmorpg bring us back together? Something special needs to happen, but I have no clue how this will come about.
1. Not true. Plenty of MMOs are still coming down the line from big companies - just none with an impending release. The genre is not dead - it's just rebuffed a bunch of developers who want to have their cake and eat it too. A cashcow like WoW by taking zero risks.
2. Sadly, too true... and the stupid part? They never learn. By the time something hits it big (like LoL or Hearthstone), it's usually too late to try and clone it (Heroes of the Storm being an exception... but it's Blizzard. They don't have to play by the rules. They've built a legacy over about 30 years of excellence that they're only just beginning to squander). With every passing year, gamers get better at spotting the knock-off cashgrabs. They stick with the one that brought them to the dance, then - when they tire of it - they try something 100% different.
While I disagree with nariusseldon for discounting Everquest next, I have to agree that there aren't a lot of mmo's "still coming down from the big companies". And by that I mean "in development".
What would they be?
Everquest next
Blade & Soul which was made several years ago so not in development just a translation.
Echo of Soul
Black Desert though I think that is done and this is just the translation (?)
Skyforge.
Some indies.
Everquest next is the only one from a large company or at least one with "lots of" experience.
Fair enough. I use the term "in development" and "big companies" a lot more loosely. I'm actually an optimist - when I hear "Indie" I actually clap my hands in excitement still, especially if it's being headed by someone who quit the AAA grind to follow their passion.
Also, slight nitpick, but Blade and Soul is more than just a translation - it's a complete westernization and, as it's been previously unproven in the western market due to language barriers, it's as good as a fresh release.
Also, let's not *completely* rule out the impact A Realm Reborn will have on the market. First time a modern flop was pulled off the market, deconstructed over a year or two, rehyped and rereleased... and it's become the clear #2, bypassing even EvE Online.
With that now being a potentially viable option, who's to say games that had a lot going for it, but just fell flat on a few key elements in a few key markets - can't go back into development and be re-released a year later and make a huge splash.
A few I can think of that could rock it on a Reborn-like Re-Release:
Age of Conan
Aion (A new western release as its own stand-alone product, not a Korean piggyback)
Guild Wars 2 (Revamping that weird ass no consequence style of Themepark into something better)
Warhammer Age of Reckoning (Was so close to becoming the premier MMO PVP experience, just took 1-2 too many things from WoW - despite that, still some of the best PvP I've ever experienced in an MMO).
Gw2 is doing exactly that, the devs have moved away from the 'no expansion' approach, and introducing a Lot more skills, also the new wvw is a very different style, all good stuff that is reflective of what the players were crying out for.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Game Company: makes new DO ANYTHING sandbox of FREEDOM!
Smart Players: Think up a way to game the system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the smart players gaming the system in the FREEDOM! game.
Game Company: makes new rules restricting smart player exploits. (Also known as restricting FREEDOM!)
Smart Players: Find new ways to exploit system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the new exploits.
Game Company: makes even more rules, and further restricts their FREEDOM! game.
(100x iterations of this process)
...eventually...
Players: Your game isn't a FREEDOM! sandbox anymore!
Game Company: But that's what you cried for!!
Dead FREEDOM! game.
You people ask for something (pure FREEDOM! sandbox) and then proceed to cry about players exercising their FREEDOM! in the new sandbox FREEDOM! game. And you STILL continue to beg for the next FREEDOM! sandbox without ever realizing that the very thing you're begging for is the thing that will make you hate the game...
(Well, unless you're the first one to adopt the exploit and get rich.)
You know, if any of you were actual Old Timer's you would recognize this cycle by now. I have. (and for the poseurs, no, I didn't 'sploit AA, didn't play AA, because I knew what was coming from when I played UO... just look at my sig about the cat and the sandbox.)
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
1. Not true. Plenty of MMOs are still coming down the line from big companies - just none with an impending release. The genre is not dead - it's just rebuffed a bunch of developers who want to have their cake and eat it too. A cashcow like WoW by taking zero risks.
2. Sadly, too true... and the stupid part? They never learn. By the time something hits it big (like LoL or Hearthstone), it's usually too late to try and clone it (Heroes of the Storm being an exception... but it's Blizzard. They don't have to play by the rules. They've built a legacy over about 30 years of excellence that they're only just beginning to squander). With every passing year, gamers get better at spotting the knock-off cashgrabs. They stick with the one that brought them to the dance, then - when they tire of it - they try something 100% different.
While I disagree with nariusseldon for discounting Everquest next, I have to agree that there aren't a lot of mmo's "still coming down from the big companies". And by that I mean "in development".
What would they be?
Everquest next
Blade & Soul which was made several years ago so not in development just a translation.
Echo of Soul
Black Desert though I think that is done and this is just the translation (?)
Skyforge.
Some indies.
Everquest next is the only one from a large company or at least one with "lots of" experience.
Fair enough. I use the term "in development" and "big companies" a lot more loosely. I'm actually an optimist - when I hear "Indie" I actually clap my hands in excitement still, especially if it's being headed by someone who quit the AAA grind to follow their passion.
Also, slight nitpick, but Blade and Soul is more than just a translation - it's a complete westernization and, as it's been previously unproven in the western market due to language barriers, it's as good as a fresh release.
Also, let's not *completely* rule out the impact A Realm Reborn will have on the market. First time a modern flop was pulled off the market, deconstructed over a year or two, rehyped and rereleased... and it's become the clear #2, bypassing even EvE Online.
With that now being a potentially viable option, who's to say games that had a lot going for it, but just fell flat on a few key elements in a few key markets - can't go back into development and be re-released a year later and make a huge splash.
A few I can think of that could rock it on a Reborn-like Re-Release:
Age of Conan
Aion (A new western release as its own stand-alone product, not a Korean piggyback)
Guild Wars 2 (Revamping that weird ass no consequence style of Themepark into something better)
Warhammer Age of Reckoning (Was so close to becoming the premier MMO PVP experience, just took 1-2 too many things from WoW - despite that, still some of the best PvP I've ever experienced in an MMO).
all good points but still, there aren't a whole lot of "new" games coming down the pike. Well, the westernizations are new to us but once those hit what is there?
I suspect more games from the east but not sure, after Everquest Next, what is realy there other than the indies. I'm all for the indies, believe me. But they still actually need to be made and released.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Game Company: makes new DO ANYTHING sandbox of FREEDOM!
Smart Players: Think up a way to game the system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the smart players gaming the system in the FREEDOM! game.
Game Company: makes new rules restricting smart player exploits. (Also known as restricting FREEDOM!)
Smart Players: Find new ways to exploit system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the new exploits.
Game Company: makes even more rules, and further restricts their FREEDOM! game.
(100x iterations of this process)
...eventually...
Players: Your game isn't a FREEDOM! sandbox anymore!
Game Company: But that's what you cried for!!
Dead FREEDOM! game.
You people ask for something (pure FREEDOM! sandbox) and then proceed to cry about players exercising their FREEDOM! in the new sandbox FREEDOM! game. And you STILL continue to beg for the next FREEDOM! sandbox without ever realizing that the very thing you're begging for is the thing that will make you hate the game...
(Well, unless you're the first one to adopt the exploit and get rich.)
You know, if any of you were actual Old Timer's you would recognize this cycle by now. I have. (and for the poseurs, no, I didn't 'sploit AA, didn't play AA, because I knew what was coming from when I played UO... just look at my sig about the cat and the sandbox.)
I honestly think the key to success in an MMO is to listen to Agent Smith from the Matrix:
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
If no one's suffering in your game, you've created a fairy tale world that everyone's just going to log off from... because success no longer has any value. Everyone can do it. Hell, LoL, the most successful game in recent history, has half its players suffer at any one time - in every MOBA, there's a winner and a loser. This "everyone can succeed" model developer shoot for to appease the crying masses just ruins the very reason the whiners care and never leads anywhere.
I honestly think the key to success in an MMO is to listen to Agent Smith from the Matrix:
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
If no one's suffering in your game, you've created a fairy tale world that everyone's just going to log off from... because success no longer has any value. Everyone can do it. Hell, LoL, the most successful game in recent history, has half its players suffer at any one time - in every MOBA, there's a winner and a loser. This "everyone can succeed" model developer shoot for to appease the crying masses just ruins the very reason the whiners care and never leads anywhere.
I understand you guys are really broken up about the late 90's being over but holy crap. You don't need to make a game mostly steeped in misery so that the actual "fun" parts can feel fun by relative comparison. Are you MMO "vets" suffering from some sort of MMO PTSD that prevents you from integrating into modern MMOs based on abuse you suffered in those old MMOs? This is like the MMO equivilent of people cutting themselves.
Originally posted by delete5230 A few months back I played Vanilla WoW, that game has so much content that games like ESO and FF14 would have to release four expansions.
Playing casually a few hours a day, some days maybe an hour, and maybe on weekends three or four. A little bit of chatting and a little helping lower Guild members, It would take :
3 days to get to level 10
2 weeks to get to level 20
1 day for each level past 20
2 day for each level past 30........And so on.
4-6 months total playing that way.
The game is made to level slower BECAUSE THERE ARE ENUFF QUEST !
The game was harder where you had to wait for someone to come on line to help or make a new friend by asking them to help.
You could, choose between three different race areas to quest in.
Come to think of it, if you gave the graphics a face lift for Vanilla WoW, it would blow all newer mmos out of the water. Maybe reduce the old quest would also help. Now this is an OLD old school game !
This was a world players could live in. Very few carrot-on-a-stick, without fast leveling.
I was playing swg when wow came out. Vanilla wow was the most, restricted, linear mmo I've ever played. Only 9 classes, no open world housing, crafting had zero depth. All of your items existed merely as 2d icons on your bag.
But it had bright, pretty colors and it had arcade style combat. And it had pop culture references up the wazoo and everybody ate it up.
Now people put vanilla wow in the same category as old school MMOs like uo, swg, ac? No thanks lol
^ this^
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Us "old schoolers" often forget the bad parts with the games we played back in the Days and only remember the good times. We are searching for that good old feeling (kick if you like) we had back in the Days that won't come back and since it is not coming back we blame the people that play the new games, we blame the games and we blame the developers. It was so new to us back then, this whole concept, that we had the time of our lives. Of course we don't remember how inbalanced stuff was, the bugs or Everything else that was bad. We remember the feeling we had with the other players when playing the game when it was fun.
This is the first time I refer to myself as a old schooler. But since you mentioned some of the games I have played I guess I am one. I truly hate all the game bashing that goes on in the forums on this site. I just don't get how people can get offended when someone bash a game you like. I mean if you like it you do, why do you care what other Think about the game. And I also see the people you refer to as old schoolers that acts as if Everything was better Before. It wasn't! It is just that the drug that used to make you happy doesn't give you the same feeling anymore. It is not the same players. It is not the same sensation anymore.
One thing I do not like with new games though is that most of them are so easy. Everyone should be able to get to max in crafting in no time, Arrows to all the places in the World, all should be able to get the best gear etc. I guess I have that in common with many of the old school posters here.
The thing is I do consider myself a old school gamer but I will never forget all the bad parts of games of the old. My example will alway's be Star Wars Galaxies, regardless all the bug/issues and even some pretty bad gamebreaking bugs...example disappearance of a fully stocked harvester/bank/house. Even so TO ME the game still gave me the greatest MMORPG experiance that still today has never been matched in how much fun I had in that game.
However what I never understood is when old school players speak about today's genre is too easy. Sure it is if you're a min/maxer. But I would think that a oldschool player is able to find his own niche even within today's "easy" games.
I alway's game for the challenge regardless if this challenge is pressented in a sandbox/virtual world or in the more linear MMO's. When something is to easy and I actually enjoy allot of the game I will find way's to make the game more challeging. Of course many people do not want to "gimp" themselfs which I can understand from a PVP perspective. But since I prefer PVP in other type of games MMORPG's for me are mostly social/PVE atleast most of today's MMORPG's.
I enjoy some of the current MMORPG's yet only for a short period of time but they are far from what I really want out of my MMORPG experiance that doesn't mean it makes them less enjoyable, just differrent in how I play them.
The only thing ArcheAge proved, is how to destroy a decent game as fast as humanly possible.
By virtue of experience, old school players that have honestly played both the old and new, do have more knowledge. The vast majority of the players in this genre have never experienced an MMO that operates and feels like a virtual world rather than just a game. Most of them simply read a wikipedia entry, looked at some google images, or played the modernized version of old games and parade around here like they have a clue. They stick out like a sore thumb.
In other words, if you don't agree with "me" you're not old school... Do you realize how juvenile that type of thing sounds? What exactly are we who played games dating back to Pre-WOW, more knowledgeable about? Other than having experience in this or that game? No matter what experience it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in regard to subjective tastes. WHich these conversations in the end boil down to. No one is right or wrong in these topics, do you not get that?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I honestly think the key to success in an MMO is to listen to Agent Smith from the Matrix:
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
If no one's suffering in your game, you've created a fairy tale world that everyone's just going to log off from... because success no longer has any value. Everyone can do it. Hell, LoL, the most successful game in recent history, has half its players suffer at any one time - in every MOBA, there's a winner and a loser. This "everyone can succeed" model developer shoot for to appease the crying masses just ruins the very reason the whiners care and never leads anywhere.
I understand you guys are really broken up about the late 90's being over but holy crap. You don't need to make a game mostly steeped in misery so that the actual "fun" parts can feel fun by relative comparison. Are you MMO "vets" suffering from some sort of MMO PTSD that prevents you from integrating into modern MMOs based on abuse you suffered in those old MMOs? This is like the MMO equivilent of people cutting themselves.
There's a difference between "mostly steeped in misery" and having a game where the bottom 25% of players have a very difficult time progressing because they just aren't good enough yet.
The problem with modern MMOs is that they try to make everyone happy. If everyone can succeed, that removes any feeling of accomplishment. Feeling a sense of accomplishment is vital to any MMO and constant "accessability buffs" have just removed that feeling from most of the genre.
At this point, most MMOs are like playing poker without money, without chips... and without hand strength. You just throw cards away at random, make pointless choices under the illusion of freedom. At the end of the hand, you show everyone that you managed to make it to the end with 5 cards in your hand and everyone playing is declared a winner.
New games are too easy. Old school PVE used to be harsh. The lack of good online guides also assisted this as players had to band together and pool knowledge to tackle some of the harder tasks in the game.
Things were not spelled out for people and needed to be discovered such as the crafting systems of ultima or the spellcreation systems of asheron's call or the resource gathering of star wars galaxies.
I wish similar systems like these could come back in some way. Current MMOs feel whitewashed because it feels like the game wants to guide the player on rails the entire time. I don't necesarrily want a sandbox, but I would like the rails to be more like a spiderweb of multiple trails some of which are rarely chosen rather than a multiple lane interstate highway.
I wish the discovery of the game was put back into the players hands rather than promo trailers and websites.
I miss the sense of exploration and discovery and the benefits of befriending others.
Game Company: makes new DO ANYTHING sandbox of FREEDOM!
Smart Players: Think up a way to game the system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the smart players gaming the system in the FREEDOM! game.
Game Company: makes new rules restricting smart player exploits. (Also known as restricting FREEDOM!)
Smart Players: Find new ways to exploit system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the new exploits.
Game Company: makes even more rules, and further restricts their FREEDOM! game.
(100x iterations of this process)
...eventually...
Players: Your game isn't a FREEDOM! sandbox anymore!
Game Company: But that's what you cried for!!
Dead FREEDOM! game.
You people ask for something (pure FREEDOM! sandbox) and then proceed to cry about players exercising their FREEDOM! in the new sandbox FREEDOM! game. And you STILL continue to beg for the next FREEDOM! sandbox without ever realizing that the very thing you're begging for is the thing that will make you hate the game...
(Well, unless you're the first one to adopt the exploit and get rich.)
You know, if any of you were actual Old Timer's you would recognize this cycle by now. I have. (and for the poseurs, no, I didn't 'sploit AA, didn't play AA, because I knew what was coming from when I played UO... just look at my sig about the cat and the sandbox.)
Ok gotcha... By smart you mean cheaters & by freedom you mean exploit game weaknesses instead of reporting them to make the game ACTUALLY BETTER FOR EVERYONE.
No need to say more...
Don't take it personally. I didn't call you stupid, but some people think FREEDOM! sandbox means leave a cat turd in it. To them THAT is FREEDOM! And it's not even their fault. Freedom is not a constant. It means different things to different people. Just like folks asking for small government, but bring up some subjects and even those people suddenly start talking about making laws to restrict those activities.
It's the exact same in MMOs. People think, "I want FREEDOM! to do what I want to do, everyone else has to stop doing that thing that bugs ME so I can have FREEDOM!". It doesn't exist. Look at Ultima Online, People placed houses in such a way that blocked off areas of the map. If you weren't in that clan/guild sorry that part of the map was off limits to you. Best hunting area? Sorry. Troll spawn... tooo bad. It wasn't breaking any rules, but people (who weren't in that clan) hated it. Should it be stopped? Why? it's not an exploit (technically speaking), so why stop it?
Jump forward to AA... It has rules that prevented much of what happened in UO, BUT... they introduced so many more systems that now they have a ton of questions left unresolved that leave room for the players that don't break rules (technically speaking) but that annoy other players that either didn't get on board early, or don't like that happening in their FREEDOM!
And on and on it will go. The more FREEDOM! you make your game, the more people will take it as an excuse to exploit it (within the rules or without) and the more people that didn't get in on the advantage will cry about it. Another real world example? Monopolies, it helped build America's elite wealthy, when they got there they listened to the whining poor and helped pass antitrust laws. The poor stopped crying and the new rich just smiled and thought not only did we get here quick and we shut off access to anyone else trying the same, but we made the people happy by refusing them the same opportunity.
...aren't we smart.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
New games are too easy. Old school PVE used to be harsh. The lack of good online guides also assisted this as players had to band together and pool knowledge to tackle some of the harder tasks in the game.
Depends on the game really, PVE in SWG pre-cu as an example was anything but harsh. Which their buff system made it even worse (essentially god mode)..
DAOC wasn't all that tough PVE wise either. EQ is the main western one that focused on that type of thing (harsh penalty). They tried going that route with SWG, yet even by then (a couple years after EQ) that stuff was wearing thin on players and it was removed right after launch.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
New games are too easy. Old school PVE used to be harsh. The lack of good online guides also assisted this as players had to band together and pool knowledge to tackle some of the harder tasks in the game.
Depends on the game really, PVE in SWG pre-cu as an example was anything but harsh. Which their buff system made it even worse (essentially god mode)..
DAOC wasn't all that tough PVE wise either. EQ is the main western one that focused on that type of thing (harsh penalty). They tried going that route with SWG, yet even by then (a couple years after EQ) that stuff was wearing thin on players and it was removed right after launch.
There was still a need to socialize to get these buffs though and not all combat was made trivial with them. Krayt dragons come to mind but sure the combat was easier than others I give you that. DAOC was more grindy than hard but it still encouraged grouping.
However, there was not the hand holding quest leveling systems that waypoint the next place to go like current MMOs. In DAOC and SWG you at least had to discover through world exploration good places to level or find resources (or hear about them from friends).
New games are too easy. Old school PVE used to be harsh. The lack of good online guides also assisted this as players had to band together and pool knowledge to tackle some of the harder tasks in the game.
Depends on the game really, PVE in SWG pre-cu as an example was anything but harsh. Which their buff system made it even worse (essentially god mode)..
DAOC wasn't all that tough PVE wise either. EQ is the main western one that focused on that type of thing (harsh penalty). They tried going that route with SWG, yet even by then (a couple years after EQ) that stuff was wearing thin on players and it was removed right after launch.
There was still a need to socialize to get these buffs though and not all combat was made trivial with them. Krayt dragons come to mind but sure the combat was easier than others I give you that. DAOC was more grindy than hard but it still encouraged grouping.
However, there was not the hand holding quest leveling systems that waypoint the next place to go like current MMOs. In DAOC and SWG you at least had to discover through world exploration good places to level or find resources (or hear about them from friends).
That's true, they did both require socialization, as well as questing took a backseat to give the presentation of a world the spotlight.
My personal stance on OS vs NS, is that they both offer something the other did not. New School has added a lot in terms of storytelling, types of content, production quality, etc.. Yet they left behind the good parts of the OS games, community oriented mechanics. Could just be a matter that time doesn't allow for a focus on both in terms of development. Could be that modern devs just don't like the result that freedom based community oriented design brings to the table. There's always a hole to plug in those designs, plug one and another opens. Straight forward themepark design; while it has it's faults, it's much easier to maintain a level playing field with.
Who knows really, it's one of those questions that could have any answer.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's a difference between "mostly steeped in misery" and having a game where the bottom 25% of players have a very difficult time progressing because they just aren't good enough yet.
The problem with modern MMOs is that they try to make everyone happy. If everyone can succeed, that removes any feeling of accomplishment. Feeling a sense of accomplishment is vital to any MMO and constant "accessability buffs" have just removed that feeling from most of the genre.
At this point, most MMOs are like playing poker without money, without chips... and without hand strength. You just throw cards away at random, make pointless choices under the illusion of freedom. At the end of the hand, you show everyone that you managed to make it to the end with 5 cards in your hand and everyone playing is declared a winner.
As for the highlighted portion: thinking like that and applying it to a persistent always on MMO where power is decided by time invested is essentially designing for failure. You can't design an MMO around relative accomplishment. It doesn't work mathmatically. Let me repeat that so everyone understands: You can not design an MMO around relative accomplishment (meaning your sense of accomplishment is derived from how much you have accomplished that others have not).
You want only the top 5% to accomplish the goal of the game but you still want the other 95% to still play and paticipate? You aren't enslaving your player base and forcing them to participate. They are doing so willingly because they supposedly find it fun. Chasing an unreachable carrot is rather obvious these days. If the chase is mostly a miserable experience softened only by the fact that once you reach the goal you will feel a sense of accomplishment, then you lose every person who doesn't reach the goal or that never had a chance to.
So you ok with the loss, its a niche game you say, only for the top 5% anyway. Eventually everyone drops your left with only the top 5% who feelt that great feeling of accomplishment. But not so much anymore, now everyone in the game is just like you, you chased everyone else away. There is nothing left to distiguish you because you are amoung peers of equal skill. So you raise the bar again, again the Top 5% feel the game is awesome because they accomplished something the other 95% didn't and the bottom 95% quit. On and on until there is only one person left in the game.
And no, you never said anything about those like most people don't. If it's not AAA, it's not worth mentioning. Another sad reality.
Well .. i do play indie games .. just not indie MMOs.
And yes .. since MMO costs so much (unless we are talking about hearthstone ... if you count it as one), if it is not AAA, it is probably not worth mentioning. (That is .. i count marvel heroes as AAA).
I honestly think the key to success in an MMO is to listen to Agent Smith from the Matrix:
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
You think the design philosophy of ENTERTAINMENT should be taken out of dialog of a sci-fi movie?
I don't think i want to "suffer" through my entertainment. I don't suffer when i read a novel. I don't suffer when i watch a movie, and i certainly do not play games to suffer. If it is not fun (to me), ... next.
It doesn't really matter what we call Hearthstone. Blizzard gets to break the rules. They're cloning LoL and they're cloning TF2... and they will be wildly successful. Why? Because Blizzard. Mike Morheime can hire one million people to take craps into a box, slap a Blizzard logo and it will be sold out in a month (that's my theory with Warlords of Draenor, anyway)
Or just because Blizz knows how to make games fun for millions. It also shows that you don't have to be new to have fun. Polish, implementation, attention to details .. all matters.
.. and don't afraid to junk stuff that does not work .. like titan.
When finally a game that goes at a much slower pace comes come, with things to do at every levels in a realistic flesh out world, you'll see how wrong you are. But to be honest, I'm not getting my hopes up for that actually happenneing for the obvious reason that its a lot harder to make & devs only see the quick bucks.
/shrug
It's harder to make? based on what exactly? Since this is a "what bothers me" thread for the most part; I'll have to say this is what bothers me. This kind of statement, because if we're going to be realistic, what you're basing this on is old games, and they were not harder to make. They entailed significantly less in terms of development (scope is another story, ie SWG). Those games were essentially blank canvases, the players made the game. The devs simply designed UI's, Ai, some sort of profession system, as well as a crafting/combat system, the rest was really up to us as players.
When it comes to these discussions this is the biggest fallacy I see in them, the idea that a world is hard to make. What's hard is selling just a world. Sure there's an audience for it, but it requires a lot more time commitment from the player, as well as you have to give them reason to care about being in that world. SWG worked because it's Star Wars... UO is Ultima, which was huge back then in terms of RPG properties. Popular properties have really been key to the success stories in terms of many western titles. It can take years for a new property to really start catching people in mass, for an MMO that's too long.
That is one of the biggest hurdles for a new game, unless it's carrying with it an established name, it's nothing more than generic setting number 2,000,001, hence no one really cares about it's world, or the stories behind it, therefor that world doesn't really sell.
There are exceptions like EQ, or EVE, but they're certainly not the rule, random luck, and the right commitment as well as time played huge parts in those success stories.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
However, there was not the hand holding quest leveling systems that waypoint the next place to go like current MMOs. In DAOC and SWG you at least had to discover through world exploration good places to level or find resources (or hear about them from friends).
Are you forgetting the SWG mission terminals which told you to go to waypoints where a mob lair would spawn so you could kill it and then go to the next mission waypoint? When I played SWG pre-CU that was the primary way for people to level.
Comments
While I disagree with nariusseldon for discounting Everquest next, I have to agree that there aren't a lot of mmo's "still coming down from the big companies". And by that I mean "in development".
What would they be?
Everquest next
Blade & Soul which was made several years ago so not in development just a translation.
Echo of Soul
Black Desert though I think that is done and this is just the translation (?)
Skyforge.
Some indies.
Everquest next is the only one from a large company or at least one with "lots of" experience.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Agreed with Sovrath. Though that's not to say there aren't lots of experienced developers still developing in the genre. Just, most of them have moved to and/or started an indie house to do so.
Fair enough. I use the term "in development" and "big companies" a lot more loosely. I'm actually an optimist - when I hear "Indie" I actually clap my hands in excitement still, especially if it's being headed by someone who quit the AAA grind to follow their passion.
Also, slight nitpick, but Blade and Soul is more than just a translation - it's a complete westernization and, as it's been previously unproven in the western market due to language barriers, it's as good as a fresh release.
Also, let's not *completely* rule out the impact A Realm Reborn will have on the market. First time a modern flop was pulled off the market, deconstructed over a year or two, rehyped and rereleased... and it's become the clear #2, bypassing even EvE Online.
With that now being a potentially viable option, who's to say games that had a lot going for it, but just fell flat on a few key elements in a few key markets - can't go back into development and be re-released a year later and make a huge splash.
A few I can think of that could rock it on a Reborn-like Re-Release:
Age of Conan
Aion (A new western release as its own stand-alone product, not a Korean piggyback)
Guild Wars 2 (Revamping that weird ass no consequence style of Themepark into something better)
Warhammer Age of Reckoning (Was so close to becoming the premier MMO PVP experience, just took 1-2 too many things from WoW - despite that, still some of the best PvP I've ever experienced in an MMO).
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Game Company: makes new DO ANYTHING sandbox of FREEDOM!
Smart Players: Think up a way to game the system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the smart players gaming the system in the FREEDOM! game.
Game Company: makes new rules restricting smart player exploits. (Also known as restricting FREEDOM!)
Smart Players: Find new ways to exploit system.
Jealous Players: Cry about the new exploits.
Game Company: makes even more rules, and further restricts their FREEDOM! game.
(100x iterations of this process)
...eventually...
Players: Your game isn't a FREEDOM! sandbox anymore!
Game Company: But that's what you cried for!!
Dead FREEDOM! game.
You people ask for something (pure FREEDOM! sandbox) and then proceed to cry about players exercising their FREEDOM! in the new sandbox FREEDOM! game. And you STILL continue to beg for the next FREEDOM! sandbox without ever realizing that the very thing you're begging for is the thing that will make you hate the game...
(Well, unless you're the first one to adopt the exploit and get rich.)
You know, if any of you were actual Old Timer's you would recognize this cycle by now. I have. (and for the poseurs, no, I didn't 'sploit AA, didn't play AA, because I knew what was coming from when I played UO... just look at my sig about the cat and the sandbox.)
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
all good points but still, there aren't a whole lot of "new" games coming down the pike. Well, the westernizations are new to us but once those hit what is there?
I suspect more games from the east but not sure, after Everquest Next, what is realy there other than the indies. I'm all for the indies, believe me. But they still actually need to be made and released.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
We all need someone to speak for us.
[Internet 101 instructions: insert my words here, feel free to make up your own]. Now argue against that position. Conclude that you've "won".
Sweet. Arguments on the internet rock. ::narcissist pose::
I honestly think the key to success in an MMO is to listen to Agent Smith from the Matrix:
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
If no one's suffering in your game, you've created a fairy tale world that everyone's just going to log off from... because success no longer has any value. Everyone can do it. Hell, LoL, the most successful game in recent history, has half its players suffer at any one time - in every MOBA, there's a winner and a loser. This "everyone can succeed" model developer shoot for to appease the crying masses just ruins the very reason the whiners care and never leads anywhere.
I understand you guys are really broken up about the late 90's being over but holy crap. You don't need to make a game mostly steeped in misery so that the actual "fun" parts can feel fun by relative comparison. Are you MMO "vets" suffering from some sort of MMO PTSD that prevents you from integrating into modern MMOs based on abuse you suffered in those old MMOs? This is like the MMO equivilent of people cutting themselves.
^ this^
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The thing is I do consider myself a old school gamer but I will never forget all the bad parts of games of the old. My example will alway's be Star Wars Galaxies, regardless all the bug/issues and even some pretty bad gamebreaking bugs...example disappearance of a fully stocked harvester/bank/house. Even so TO ME the game still gave me the greatest MMORPG experiance that still today has never been matched in how much fun I had in that game.
However what I never understood is when old school players speak about today's genre is too easy. Sure it is if you're a min/maxer. But I would think that a oldschool player is able to find his own niche even within today's "easy" games.
I alway's game for the challenge regardless if this challenge is pressented in a sandbox/virtual world or in the more linear MMO's. When something is to easy and I actually enjoy allot of the game I will find way's to make the game more challeging. Of course many people do not want to "gimp" themselfs which I can understand from a PVP perspective. But since I prefer PVP in other type of games MMORPG's for me are mostly social/PVE atleast most of today's MMORPG's.
I enjoy some of the current MMORPG's yet only for a short period of time but they are far from what I really want out of my MMORPG experiance that doesn't mean it makes them less enjoyable, just differrent in how I play them.
In other words, if you don't agree with "me" you're not old school... Do you realize how juvenile that type of thing sounds? What exactly are we who played games dating back to Pre-WOW, more knowledgeable about? Other than having experience in this or that game? No matter what experience it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in regard to subjective tastes. WHich these conversations in the end boil down to. No one is right or wrong in these topics, do you not get that?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's a difference between "mostly steeped in misery" and having a game where the bottom 25% of players have a very difficult time progressing because they just aren't good enough yet.
The problem with modern MMOs is that they try to make everyone happy. If everyone can succeed, that removes any feeling of accomplishment. Feeling a sense of accomplishment is vital to any MMO and constant "accessability buffs" have just removed that feeling from most of the genre.
At this point, most MMOs are like playing poker without money, without chips... and without hand strength. You just throw cards away at random, make pointless choices under the illusion of freedom. At the end of the hand, you show everyone that you managed to make it to the end with 5 cards in your hand and everyone playing is declared a winner.
New games are too easy. Old school PVE used to be harsh. The lack of good online guides also assisted this as players had to band together and pool knowledge to tackle some of the harder tasks in the game.
Things were not spelled out for people and needed to be discovered such as the crafting systems of ultima or the spellcreation systems of asheron's call or the resource gathering of star wars galaxies.
I wish similar systems like these could come back in some way. Current MMOs feel whitewashed because it feels like the game wants to guide the player on rails the entire time. I don't necesarrily want a sandbox, but I would like the rails to be more like a spiderweb of multiple trails some of which are rarely chosen rather than a multiple lane interstate highway.
I wish the discovery of the game was put back into the players hands rather than promo trailers and websites.
I miss the sense of exploration and discovery and the benefits of befriending others.
Don't take it personally. I didn't call you stupid, but some people think FREEDOM! sandbox means leave a cat turd in it. To them THAT is FREEDOM! And it's not even their fault. Freedom is not a constant. It means different things to different people. Just like folks asking for small government, but bring up some subjects and even those people suddenly start talking about making laws to restrict those activities.
It's the exact same in MMOs. People think, "I want FREEDOM! to do what I want to do, everyone else has to stop doing that thing that bugs ME so I can have FREEDOM!". It doesn't exist. Look at Ultima Online, People placed houses in such a way that blocked off areas of the map. If you weren't in that clan/guild sorry that part of the map was off limits to you. Best hunting area? Sorry. Troll spawn... tooo bad. It wasn't breaking any rules, but people (who weren't in that clan) hated it. Should it be stopped? Why? it's not an exploit (technically speaking), so why stop it?
Jump forward to AA... It has rules that prevented much of what happened in UO, BUT... they introduced so many more systems that now they have a ton of questions left unresolved that leave room for the players that don't break rules (technically speaking) but that annoy other players that either didn't get on board early, or don't like that happening in their FREEDOM!
And on and on it will go. The more FREEDOM! you make your game, the more people will take it as an excuse to exploit it (within the rules or without) and the more people that didn't get in on the advantage will cry about it. Another real world example? Monopolies, it helped build America's elite wealthy, when they got there they listened to the whining poor and helped pass antitrust laws. The poor stopped crying and the new rich just smiled and thought not only did we get here quick and we shut off access to anyone else trying the same, but we made the people happy by refusing them the same opportunity.
...aren't we smart.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Depends on the game really, PVE in SWG pre-cu as an example was anything but harsh. Which their buff system made it even worse (essentially god mode)..
DAOC wasn't all that tough PVE wise either. EQ is the main western one that focused on that type of thing (harsh penalty). They tried going that route with SWG, yet even by then (a couple years after EQ) that stuff was wearing thin on players and it was removed right after launch.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There was still a need to socialize to get these buffs though and not all combat was made trivial with them. Krayt dragons come to mind but sure the combat was easier than others I give you that. DAOC was more grindy than hard but it still encouraged grouping.
However, there was not the hand holding quest leveling systems that waypoint the next place to go like current MMOs. In DAOC and SWG you at least had to discover through world exploration good places to level or find resources (or hear about them from friends).
That's true, they did both require socialization, as well as questing took a backseat to give the presentation of a world the spotlight.
My personal stance on OS vs NS, is that they both offer something the other did not. New School has added a lot in terms of storytelling, types of content, production quality, etc.. Yet they left behind the good parts of the OS games, community oriented mechanics. Could just be a matter that time doesn't allow for a focus on both in terms of development. Could be that modern devs just don't like the result that freedom based community oriented design brings to the table. There's always a hole to plug in those designs, plug one and another opens. Straight forward themepark design; while it has it's faults, it's much easier to maintain a level playing field with.
Who knows really, it's one of those questions that could have any answer.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As for the highlighted portion: thinking like that and applying it to a persistent always on MMO where power is decided by time invested is essentially designing for failure. You can't design an MMO around relative accomplishment. It doesn't work mathmatically. Let me repeat that so everyone understands: You can not design an MMO around relative accomplishment (meaning your sense of accomplishment is derived from how much you have accomplished that others have not).
You want only the top 5% to accomplish the goal of the game but you still want the other 95% to still play and paticipate? You aren't enslaving your player base and forcing them to participate. They are doing so willingly because they supposedly find it fun. Chasing an unreachable carrot is rather obvious these days. If the chase is mostly a miserable experience softened only by the fact that once you reach the goal you will feel a sense of accomplishment, then you lose every person who doesn't reach the goal or that never had a chance to.
So you ok with the loss, its a niche game you say, only for the top 5% anyway. Eventually everyone drops your left with only the top 5% who feelt that great feeling of accomplishment. But not so much anymore, now everyone in the game is just like you, you chased everyone else away. There is nothing left to distiguish you because you are amoung peers of equal skill. So you raise the bar again, again the Top 5% feel the game is awesome because they accomplished something the other 95% didn't and the bottom 95% quit. On and on until there is only one person left in the game.
Well .. i do play indie games .. just not indie MMOs.
And yes .. since MMO costs so much (unless we are talking about hearthstone ... if you count it as one), if it is not AAA, it is probably not worth mentioning. (That is .. i count marvel heroes as AAA).
You think the design philosophy of ENTERTAINMENT should be taken out of dialog of a sci-fi movie?
I don't think i want to "suffer" through my entertainment. I don't suffer when i read a novel. I don't suffer when i watch a movie, and i certainly do not play games to suffer. If it is not fun (to me), ... next.
Or just because Blizz knows how to make games fun for millions. It also shows that you don't have to be new to have fun. Polish, implementation, attention to details .. all matters.
.. and don't afraid to junk stuff that does not work .. like titan.
It's harder to make? based on what exactly? Since this is a "what bothers me" thread for the most part; I'll have to say this is what bothers me. This kind of statement, because if we're going to be realistic, what you're basing this on is old games, and they were not harder to make. They entailed significantly less in terms of development (scope is another story, ie SWG). Those games were essentially blank canvases, the players made the game. The devs simply designed UI's, Ai, some sort of profession system, as well as a crafting/combat system, the rest was really up to us as players.
When it comes to these discussions this is the biggest fallacy I see in them, the idea that a world is hard to make. What's hard is selling just a world. Sure there's an audience for it, but it requires a lot more time commitment from the player, as well as you have to give them reason to care about being in that world. SWG worked because it's Star Wars... UO is Ultima, which was huge back then in terms of RPG properties. Popular properties have really been key to the success stories in terms of many western titles. It can take years for a new property to really start catching people in mass, for an MMO that's too long.
That is one of the biggest hurdles for a new game, unless it's carrying with it an established name, it's nothing more than generic setting number 2,000,001, hence no one really cares about it's world, or the stories behind it, therefor that world doesn't really sell.
There are exceptions like EQ, or EVE, but they're certainly not the rule, random luck, and the right commitment as well as time played huge parts in those success stories.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Are you forgetting the SWG mission terminals which told you to go to waypoints where a mob lair would spawn so you could kill it and then go to the next mission waypoint? When I played SWG pre-CU that was the primary way for people to level.