Can we please agree that D2 is Diablo 2 and that we need to find a new calling sign for Destiny 2?
<hipster hat on> Hey doooood, you need to get over that! After all, if MMO can mean anything we like at the time, why can't D2. After all Diablo 2 is so last century! <hipster hat off> (It was beginning to hurt my forehead, and give me a compression headache.
Sorry, but there's no room to budge on the group vs solo issue. The catering to solo gameplay is what has brought the mmorpg genre to the brink of destruction, and the only thing that is going to save it will be infusing it once again with the heavily cooperative play that made it so fantastic to begin with.
That's simply a blatant misunderstanding of the problem.
Solo content is necessary to keep the playerbase engaged. If you force progress - any progress whatsoever - through group content only, players will leave the game in droves. The vast majority of gamers cannot dedicate the necessary amount of time to group content. They have jobs, families, social lives, other games to play, you name it.
The classic model where raiding is paramount and the only way to get progression 'in the endgame' is fatally flawed in this way, as it caters to a very specific audience which does not have the time or is willing to adjust their schedules to partake in it. Maybe you are willing to do the grind *and* the raid every evening between 19:00 and 0:00, but time is an increasingly precious thing for most people able to actually play these games. Even younger audiences (students and highschoolers mostly) who used to have oodles of free time now have an increasingly busy schedule in recent years.
The people who can spend the time on group content or can move their schedules around it (or are willing to) are more and more falling into a minority. This is made clear by the exponential rise in casual gaming in the past decade, and has been the impetus for Blizzard for example to make their group content accessible to the point of being almost irrelevant through the LFG and raid finder tools.
Getting a fixed group together for anything, even an online game, is difficult at best. Anyone who's ever played any P&P game knows this
MMO's which make group content optional rather than necessary are the norm, and will remain so for the forseeable future, unless someone finds out the magic formula for a game which will make everyone a) give up their current game and b) reschedule their life around a videogame.
Of course, you can go to a complete other extreme and remove group content alltogether, which is also obviously a bad idea. Why play an MMO when there's no multiplayer? BDO is a game which suffers from this to some extent, where group content is actually almost detrimental to progress rather than helpful in most cases.
A balance needs to be found here. Group content for when people *can* play together and solo content for when they *can't*, so they can still play the game without feeling that there's nothing to do in the time they actually have to play it.
I think wrong Chrome, while a game that requires more forced grouping might not attract WoW like numbers, there is definitely a market for a game like this. You realize entire reason the genre has been suffering the last 8 years or so, is because we are playing the same solo oriented themepark, and please for the love of god don't use Wildstar as an example for a failed "hardore" game example.
Also, in regards to "people don't have time" to play, I think you are wrong here as well, people had just as many responsibilities as they did 15 years ago as they do today. I mean I played with tons of working adults and students back then that had full schedules and were still able to manage to raid and do a lot of the group content that was spread out through the non-instanced world. I'd also argue the kids playing MOBAs all day, sometimes for every long extended periods would also counter your argument that people don't have time.
The problem MMOs have now is that over the years they attracted a lot of people who really don't like MMOs, and a lot of companies, especially Blizzard have been chasing these customers hardcore the last 10 years or so. I'd wager to bet that these types of players make up a good bit of the MMO potential audience now. That is why you see the mindset that old school MMO mechanics wouldn't work for the modern MMO gamer, because the reality is, they were never MMO gamers to begin with.
Thankfully the indie MMO developers have seen the light, now whether or not they have the resources to deliver on this remains to be seen. I think MMO gaming is going to return to it's roots the next 5 years of being a niche genre for a niche audience. I long for the days when I can play a real MMO again, and not worry about that game catering to some person that really doesn't care for a lot of what for me, made MMOs special in the first place. Sure these games might not attract WoW like numbers, but that is okay, it has been made very clear by these developers that they don't need to cater to a mass audience in order to survive.
I agree with you that there are some projects which will ultimately return MMOs to their roots over the next few years. That's about the end of where I agree with you, though
I think that the biggest problem facing these games is nostalgic players. You are correct that there is a niche market who probably still does want an old school MMORPG (like an actual MMORPG). These are people who still play DAOC or MUDs or EQ or some other game where gameplay trumps graphics. However, if you released that same game today, would it thrive? Would it even get 4 digits of concurrent users? Probably not. DBG showed this with SWG-emu. They effective gave them license to run wild with it, and the numbers are still not large enough to justify any sort of development effort, and SWG could be the most beloved old-schoolish game in the history of gaming.
Pantheon looks encouraging. I think you could actually see 6-digit box sales for that. Is it sustainable, though? I have no clue.
What's cool, though, is that we'll be here to witness the death or rebirth or re-invetion of the genre, one way or another. That's pretty significant and pretty cool. It's one of those stories we'll tell our grand kids about "How back in our day, MMOs worked like this..."
My son who enjoys modern RPGs still looks at me strangely when I tell him we used to map our location on graph paper.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Here's something to stop. The incorrect use of the term RPG. RPGs or Roleplaying Games are don't use electronic anything to play; dice, paper, real people are all that is needed. Computerized RPG (CRPG) or Simulated RPG (SRPG) are correct terms as they are a simulation of an actual RPG. CRPGs are either highly scripted with limited options (ie WoW) or are substantially devoid any substance beyond eye candy. CRPGs are, at best, a very poorly implemented imitation of the RPGs. To claim otherwise to not understand what a (real) RPG is.
This article definitely says a lot of things that needed to be said. So many times I've met those who put down PVE'ers and vice versa So many times people 'frown' on you if you like solo'ing or if you like a theme park format or just totally love to shove their 'ideas' down your throat.
For the record I like all types of games, even pvp, although I'm crap at it but I don't go around forcing people to do things my way. Doing that just shows how immature one can be; like a child throwing a tantrum if mommy and daddy won't take him to Disneyland.
When all I can think of is "Dude, I'm not playing this game because I owe you something. I'm playing this game because I want to."
#5. Endless amounts of armor and clothing (Star Wars Galaxies).
#6. Loads of social features, e.g., incentives to hang out in Taverns, unique professions such as clothing designers, mechanics, shop owners, the ability to play musical instruments, etc (Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online).
#7. Action-packed combat (The Force Unleashed / Black Desert / Chivalry).
I would love it if people got over graphics quality in gaming. This is why we're seeing a resurgence in the success of retro-stylized games. If people focused more on quality and less on graphics, I can think of consoles, component manufacturers, and many studios that would instantly go bankrupt... and (personally) I wouldn't be all that upset.
I get more enjoyment nowadays from running a Diablo 1 ISO, downloading Imperialism (strategy game) from GoG, or booting up Baldur's Gate 2. Horrendous graphics by today's standards but way more fun than I'd get versus dropping $60 on most of today's games.
Wait, did I say $60? I meant $120 for a founder's copy that gives you the ability to assist in debugging an unreleased game for 3 years, after which you must either re-purchase the game, purchase access to premium features, or spend several hundred more $$ in microtransactions to stay competitive.
Comments
<hipster hat on>
Hey doooood, you need to get over that!
After all, if MMO can mean anything we like at the time, why can't D2. After all Diablo 2 is so last century!
<hipster hat off> (It was beginning to hurt my forehead, and give me a compression headache.
My son who enjoys modern RPGs still looks at me strangely when I tell him we used to map our location on graph paper.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
For the record I like all types of games, even pvp, although I'm crap at it but I don't go around forcing people to do things my way. Doing that just shows how immature one can be; like a child throwing a tantrum if mommy and daddy won't take him to Disneyland.
When all I can think of is "Dude, I'm not playing this game because I owe you something. I'm playing this game because I want to."
-- retired former MMO player who can't find any games he likes anymore
I get more enjoyment nowadays from running a Diablo 1 ISO, downloading Imperialism (strategy game) from GoG, or booting up Baldur's Gate 2. Horrendous graphics by today's standards but way more fun than I'd get versus dropping $60 on most of today's games.
Wait, did I say $60? I meant $120 for a founder's copy that gives you the ability to assist in debugging an unreleased game for 3 years, after which you must either re-purchase the game, purchase access to premium features, or spend several hundred more $$ in microtransactions to stay competitive.