Originally posted by Rayalist

 

Originally posted by Fion

If all your doing is looking for that one perfect MMOG that will never and has never happened, your right, you will be wasting your time. Instead you could be thuroughly enjoying a MMOG that might not meet all your desires, but at least some of them.

 

Exactly! Unless you make the game yourself, there will never be a perfect game for you.

Also, Kyleran, which Alliance did your corporation join? My alliance got a couple new corps recently.

I'll have to let you know after its all completed.  Being the typical paranoid EVE player, I don't want to give away any intel that might result in our convoys out to 0.0 running into a massive gate camp waiting for us.

This exact thread has been revolving since the EQ days, and probably before that.  In fact, I think the old AOL NWNers were all teary-eyed in the UO days that their NWN was pretty much dead, and how UO wasn't the game they wanted to play.

MMOs come and go.  Every once in awhile a really good one comes out.  IMO, the golden age of MMOs, with all the new concepts and innovation, is over.  Copy copy copy has been the way of things for a long while now, pretty much since EQ.

But I also see some games coming out which are trying to get away from the EQ model, and more into a mesh of pvp and pve, etc.  That's a good thing.

The MMO industry is a juggernaut, and never changes quick enough to keep everyone happy.  It's just the way it is.  Eventually you'll come back to MMOs.  Us old timers know how you feel.  ;)  You'll be back.

Can I have your stuff?

Why not just go back to the games you enjoyed in 2004, why does everything have depend on what new games are coming out. I was lucky enough to find something that fit my expectations of what an mmo means to me.

If nothing new can do it for you, I don't see the harm in going back to what you liked in the first place..

Be well dude .

I go through cycles of pessimism and optimism about the future of mmorpgs.  But as time passes I find myself feeling pessimistic more often and optimistic less often and in shorter bursts.  I guess I haven't completely given up hope or wouldn't still be reading and talking about MMORPGs.  Although I think a big part of the reason I still yak about this crap is just because I've gotten in the habit.

I've done my rant about the death of the dream of creating virtual world games.  I'm sure I've done it more than once.  I think the problem is that nobody gives a damn except a relatively few of us who genuinely expected MMORPGs to evolve naturally in that direction.  Most people seem content with linear, disposable content, treadmill type games.

I honestly don't know if I could ever stomach another treadmill game again.  It's just so f--king stupid.  Scratch and claw for experience to gain a level so you can scratch and claw for experience to gain the next level and on and on untill you run out of levels and then you grind, grind, grind for gear so that you can use your new gear to grind, grind, grind for the next gear upgrade.  And all along the way, if you ever stop to think about it, you realize that you're doing almost exactly the same thing at your latest level as you were doing at level 1, the numbers just got bigger is all that changed.  You basically start over again at level 1 every time you gain a level, you just move to new area where the numbers are bigger.

I can tolerate it if the gameplay itself is fun enough but I've almost come to the conclusion that mmorpg developers don't even try to make gameplay fun.  I think they just slap some sh-t together and rely on the lure of levels and loot to keep people going.  Hell, if the gameplay was fun enough for it's own sake then they wouldn't need the crutch of levels and loot to keep people hooked.

Oh well, whatever.  I just went off on a rant again even though I know it will do absolutely no good at all.  Force of habit I guess.  

Gamers need to talk about what is Great in games, or what they would rather have.

Example:

Star wars galaxies

Pros - None, not anymore.

cons, everything about the game(big steamy pile) , the players that play it(the little speck on top of the steamy pile trying to decieve themselves into believing its still playable),  and the developer/company that maintains it (the orafice from whence it came)

City of Heroes 

Pros

Great environment, police sirens, cars driving by, the wind, birds, citizens gettin mugged.

Fantastic auction house called wentworths it's great, you can see what the last 5 people paid for the item your trying to sell before you price it, the people buying have to bid until they win the item but they dont see a price. this way people can sometimes make more for thier item and if you spend too much for it, be more careful next time.

Cons

No gear in game, or very little, powers and enhancements mainly

its great that thier are millions of costume combinations and choices, problem is all the choices are lame.

the zones are too small, even the large ones are small. there are no nooks and crannies to explore.

overall the game is too easy to play, easy to learn, easy to play, easy to max a character, too easy. and if you get help from friends, its remedial, great for 12 year olds only.

--------------------------------------------------

Everquest 1 and 2.

Pro

well there are alot, BUT when you first load it up and log in, if you have played before, you can not overcome the feeling ive done all this before and im not going to invest my life the way i did before. If it's all new to you and you havent played before, you quickly realize its too much to learn, too much to invest of your time, and you will never be more than mediocre cuase someone else is running around looking leet and you will never get the gorups you need to get the gear you may want. you tell yourself i can just craft or roleplay and enjoy the little things but that gets old fast too.

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anarchy online

Alot of pros in my opinion - mission terminals, instanced missions. ratings for zones wehre you can play safely and mayhem zones where you can risk venturing for that thrill of gettin to a mission without gettin killed. tons of outfits for roleplaying, environments that encourage it, bars, stores, burger stands.

gear with quality levels, so that you can upgrade every level if you want to.

210 levels i think been awhile since i played, so alot of work to max out on level

wonder skill system base on your abilities. if i pick opifex(race of character) i have high agi dex, so my abilities that use agi dex like sniper rifle, are cheaper to spend points on, but i can use two handed blunt but it will be exspensive to use. so i would lose some points for things like cloaking etc.

Gearing up in AO is fanstastic, i can get buffs to get higher implants in, that give me more agi dex, so i can get that next sniper rifle i want on my agent, buffs stack, different classes have different buffs,

SCI FI GAME huge bonus, was damn tired of orcs and elfs.

mainly the only reason i quit, i ruined my guild heh. everyone hated me, as a leader of the guild i was in i had to fire one of the popular leaders, and half the people quit, wasnt even my choice, the other leaders wanted him fired or they were going to quit with half the people. damn guild politics. No matter what i did it was doomed.

tons of vehicles, water vehicles, ground vehicles, flying cars, hoverboards, i even think couple character classes can fly.

also classes, doctor, soldier, beaurocrat, engineer, agent, enforcer, at least they were not - paladin, rogue, cleric, wizard, blah....nausiating.

cons

huge zones, but still with flying cars too small to leave anything to be discovered.

was horribly bugged from start, and i dont think it ever recovered...

too many expansions...

funcom added content instead of polishing what it already had.

not very good environment, not enough sounds and noises kinda quiet walking around.

they needed to improve the amount of experience gained from completing missions.

needed to improve the look of the gear, you spend 80 levels looking like a hobo, then 50 levels looking decent but still gimp, then 50 levels starting to feel better about how you look and last 30 levels feeling elite, like you got the best looking gear in game, till you goto town and see everyone else with your gear on.

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last contestant ....World of Warcraft. ( i dont even want to post anything about it )

pros

Wow has nice graphics, smooth game play, fun battlegrounds, plenty going on around the world to be immersive, lots to see, cool gear sets, if you can get it. im sure there are 1500 other things that also serve to please.

Cons

in my opinion these are the Huge ones.

SO WHAT....its orcs and elfs... and i got 65 levels in 15 days, and i was done with it. its 2008 and we live in a world where entire worlds can be created and we cant even make a game that puts the gamer in a futuristic environment, and still cant make a game that people can change the world they are living in.

Here is what has to be DONE...

Certain cultures take things from around the world and make it thier own(cough* the japanese* cough)

why cant someone take all the good, and work it out into a game.

i know what i have to have in a game.

Has to have gear, has to be huge world, has to have a living environment, has to allow the player to alter his world. has to be skill based that doesnt take hours to learn, just use, first few abilites are easy to gain, but it gets slower as it goes up. dialog with npcs has to be interactive, and they have to speak up, i want interaction not a reading assignment. No orcs, No elfs, no dwarfs etc. characters are mutually exclusive, you cant give gear to your noob character, one character one account, dont like your guy delete and start over or go screw yourself. more options for appearance, i hate the asian games and thier 4 hair-dos, 4 options this 4 options that. blah...ill pay, no free to play, subscription is fine, if its worth it. the character should have more than 6 to 10 gear slots, i want 20 slots, maybe 40 slots, i want sci fi game so having a ton of slots is imaginable, since i can wear a t-shirt, with sweater over it, with flak jacket, with body armor over it and a tranchcoat to top it off, then i have pockets to store stuff in each one, screw backpacks, give me gear with the ability to hold stuff, i want to keep my pocket knife in my pocket, wear a watch, have sunglasses, carry my money in my wallet. have a 9mm under each armpit, have a knife in my boot.

Im spent...this was my first post, and only on mmorpg.com, i like this site, but reading stuff here is inspiring and frustrating at same time. i jsut wanted to share something of my feelings. maybe someone can make use of it.

Jkati - recovering mmorpg addict...i need a new drug.

You people pretty much nail it on the head.

I know that i am not the only mmorpg genre fan ,  feeling this way.

But i am genuinely getting sick and tired. As poster above me said : It would be all good , if at least they tried to make gameplay fun. But they are not even trying.

Instead the game is about spamming the same set of skills in exact same sequence against exactly the same enemies (with worse AI of any other game type) , and repeating this 10.000 times x 10 for each level.

And this is nothing AOC or WAR will change.

I will still buy both of this games and play them for duration of complementary month. Just so i dont feel i wasted all these years debating over them. But I expect them to be the same all *** in bit different package , with just a bit more instancing added over their predecessors

My 1st MMO was WoW. Everything else seemed to me 2nd rate untill i played LOTRO.  I dont play any right now due to wife and previous mmo addiction.

Im just waiting for WAR due to  x-treme wife aggro! LOL

Originally posted by Kyleran

Lobo, I used to feel like you did. But more and more as I play EVE I find myself anticipating the new games less and less.  Not sure I even care if AOC is released, I'll buy it so my 15 year old son can play.

After a few slow months of Empire mission running, I joined a new corporation about 10 days ago, who suddenly joined a new, major alliance in 0.0 and we're all frantically mustering our gear and making ready for a jump back to the real fun part of EVE.

I'm all excited once again, but much better prepared.  When I first went out to 0.0, I had about 3 months training and could only tackle and rat drones.  I soon learned to fly stealth bombers but that was pretty much all the action I saw before returning to empire for a variety of reasons. (computer hardware failures, had to do some Research, and my old corp was in the wrong time zone for me)

Now I come back able to fly Sniping Battleships, man Deathstar guns, fly Heavy assault Cruisers, Interceptors, Recon and other ships, and this time, I promise, some folks are going to feel a lot of hurt when they attack us.

Suddenly, its like a whole new game, and I control my own destiny. Its really a great feeling, and I'm happy the way its worked out.

But also a word of caution, EVE isn't a game where you can easily control the flow of fun.  There are just some months that sort of blow, and you have to ride them out and set in place plans that will let you have more fun down the road.  More like real life I'm afraid, and not always full of fun 24/7.

 

Instances, Battlegrounds, Faction grinds, no death penalty, you can't have that cool stuff happen if you have these things.  Most of the time I look back on playing wow it involves me riding around azshara mining thorium for some strange reason.  I am the type though that preemptivly mutes teamspeak before first boss kills cause to me it's a bunch of cromags cheering about figuring out how to beat a computer.

---

Originally posted by Kyleran Lobo, I used to feel like you did. But more and more as I play EVE I find myself anticipating the new games less and less. Not sure I even care if AOC is released, I'll buy it so my 15 year old son can play. After a few slow months of Empire mission running, I joined a new corporation about 10 days ago, who suddenly joined a new, major alliance in 0.0 and we're all frantically mustering our gear and making ready for a jump back to the real fun part of EVE. I'm all excited once again, but much better prepared. When I first went out to 0.0, I had about 3 months training and could only tackle and rat drones. I soon learned to fly stealth bombers but that was pretty much all the action I saw before returning to empire for a variety of reasons. (computer hardware failures, had to do some Research, and my old corp was in the wrong time zone for me) Now I come back able to fly Sniping Battleships, man Deathstar guns, fly Heavy assault Cruisers, Interceptors, Recon and other ships, and this time, I promise, some folks are going to feel a lot of hurt when they attack us. Suddenly, its like a whole new game, and I control my own destiny. Its really a great feeling, and I'm happy the way its worked out. But also a word of caution, EVE isn't a game where you can easily control the flow of fun. There are just some months that sort of blow, and you have to ride them out and set in place plans that will let you have more fun down the road. More like real life I'm afraid, and not always full of fun 24/7.

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Originally posted by Lobotomist

I lost my interest in MMO's ...

there I said it....

Since 2004 I am regular member of this forums. I played and tried everything , and i followed and took part ( community wise ) in most of MMOs in development. I seen this form of gaming blossom and vain.

And waited and waited and waited for the MMO messiah to come... but all what i seen was chain of disapointments. I am sure many of you feel this way...

And now 2008 , on the edge of final release of AOC and WAR it hits me...

This games are nothing like what 2004 mmo fan expected 2008 mmo would be

 

Where is the sandbox ? Where is community ? Where is roleplay ? Where is massive seamless world ?

It is replaced by

Instanced , battleground , grind , linear , limited , l337.

 

The new word is not community , group , simulation , open ended ... no

The new word is how to bring singleplayer experience into multiplayer game.

 

But why do i need that ? Singleplayer RPG's allready give me that in better way. Minus grind and minus sub...

Lack of content hidden by mandatory grind and raid...i am getting bored

 

Couple this with having no more than 10 hours to play weekly. When it seems to me that MMO design is targeted at population that has time and time on their hands...students, unemployed, stay home mom's.

 

Where is the world for us , the working class ?

 

And how about community ?

From one side we have the PVP crowd - that for some unfortunate reason draws (among others)   emotionally chalenged , social misfits - that find the MMO to be sole medium of exercising their frustration and hate.

And on the otherside the PVE crowd - that for some reason attracts stay home mom and dad , emo poets and people that confuse MMOs with My Space ...

And me ... for all my non-perfection , my visit to MMO community made me worse - bitter ...

 

And to make all this worse. Is there anything on horizon that will change MMOs for better ?

 

AOC ? WAR ? ... Aion ?

Just a same ol'grind

 

Sandbox is abandoned concept. Virtual world is abandoned concept.

 

The mmo of the future are singleplayer games in multiplayer enviroment with added grind ...

 

 

I had enough ....

 

companies and devs dont listen and continue to shove this crap on us but until we stand up and stop buying these games even to try out of desperation and stop going back to whats out there just because theres nothing else to play nothing is gonna change

Originally posted by Tatum

You are not alone...

The evolution of MMOs has really stagnated since WOW took off.  Its almost like we've experienced a mass extinction event and an evolutionary bottleneck   Entire branches of the MMO genre have died off while others have scrambled to conform.

There have been some advances since the early days, but these have been negated (IMHO) by the loss of other features, depth, and content.  We're seeing what happens when a form of entertainment caters ENTIRELY to the mainstream.  Everything must now be polished (which is the one good point) but it must also be ridiculously shallow, easy to understand, and convenient.

Personally, I have little to no hope or expectations for this next crop of MMOs, which is OK since Im fairly busy with RL right now.  But, maybe we'll see something interesting in the next few years as the "we're not WOW" MMOs start making their way to the shelves.

That's current science applied to gaming now - conform to the status quo, and damn if you question the Establishment!

I actually prefer SP gaming to online gaming, because I don't have to deal with the crap from 15 year-old sociopaths (especially the $5,000 bought PvP axe tankers). I'd play a MMO every once in a while when the game selection looks dull, only to find myself sick of not only the grinding level based concept, but the item stores where anyone can buy stuff to level quicker or gain better equipment.

Love to play Eve, but it had not only unethical management, it's a game designed for who-the-most-pays-wins. Other MMOs push grouping/joining guilds, when I prefer to play a game for a personal challenge, not let someone else cover weaknesses. If I get killed in a SP game, I get killed because something I missed, or not equipped to handle -- no one else to blame but myself. Come online, it's no longer about poor preparation or oversight making me lose, it's because some store bought wimp thinks it's fun to not only kill you in a city, without a weapon -- even from behind!

Then on top of all of that misery is games that if you don't bind items or pick them up within a certain time (i.e., if you're a farmer planting), you will lose it all. Doesn't matter if their server crashes, or if a main pipe of a major ISP goes down. The game devs are never responsible for such stupid conditions. So you wasted an hour of your life or more, so they can sit smug (and/or their minions of paid supporters trashing you on their forum, because you're damn frustrated in losing RL time over something beyond your control, and state so on their playground of a forum).

Like to like MMOs, as much as I liked early gaming. But if any two-bit dev can make and market a MMO and can be as sociopathic as the players they can attract, it'll be very difficult for me to play this genre more than a passing interest. Heck, can't even mod the game to change ridiculious looking graphics, even!

I agree. But I'm so tired of it that I don't even want to talk about it much anymore. I've waited for years, the future looks very dim. There are a few possibilities (Darkfall, Earthrise, Earth Eternal maybe, probably one or two more), but we'll have to wait and see. But the big money isn't going to give us anything different. I'm about tapped out on the whole thing.

Oh, I haven't bought a new game since City of Heroes. Beta'd LoTR, too much instancing and grind. Keep watching, keep waiting. But I'm not buying another one of the same lousy experience.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I lost my interest in MMO's ...

I had enough ....

 

so... go do something else then

add: don't mean to be an ass on this, but you are a regular poster here and it strikes me - just empty your head of this genre for a while, go learn to play the guitar or something, and when you come back you'll find all sorts of entertainment will be there to be had.

a watched kettle never boils.

Originally posted by Amaranthar

I agree. But I'm so tired of it that I don't even want to talk about it much anymore. I've waited for years, the future looks very dim. There are a few possibilities (Darkfall, Earthrise, Earth Eternal maybe, probably one or two more), but we'll have to wait and see. But the big money isn't going to give us anything different. I'm about tapped out on the whole thing.

 

Oh, I haven't bought a new game since City of Heroes. Beta'd LoTR, too much instancing and grind. Keep watching, keep waiting. But I'm not buying another one of the same lousy experience.

if you don't want to talk about it anymore, why are you on this forum talking about it?

add: as per last post, this came across wrong - what I mean is, if you are that tired, just give it a break for a while. These things are so much more fun after a breather. If you are tapped out, use it - change hobbies... this will be here when you come back, promise, and you'll enjoy it all the more.

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Originally posted by Kyleran
Lobo, I used to feel like you did. But more and more as I play EVE I find myself anticipating the new games less and less.  Not sure I even care if AOC is released, I'll buy it so my 15 year old son can play.
After a few slow months of Empire mission running, I joined a new corporation about 10 days ago, who suddenly joined a new, major alliance in 0.0 and we're all frantically mustering our gear and making ready for a jump back to the real fun part of EVE.
I'm all excited once again, but much better prepared.  When I first went out to 0.0, I had about 3 months training and could only tackle and rat drones.  I soon learned to fly stealth bombers but that was pretty much all the action I saw before returning to empire for a variety of reasons. (computer hardware failures, had to do some Research, and my old corp was in the wrong time zone for me)
Now I come back able to fly Sniping Battleships, man Deathstar guns, fly Heavy assault Cruisers, Interceptors, Recon and other ships, and this time, I promise, some folks are going to feel a lot of hurt when they attack us.
Suddenly, its like a whole new game, and I control my own destiny. Its really a great feeling, and I'm happy the way its worked out.
But also a word of caution, EVE isn't a game where you can easily control the flow of fun.  There are just some months that sort of blow, and you have to ride them out and set in place plans that will let you have more fun down the road.  More like real life I'm afraid, and not always full of fun 24/7.
 

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I wish I could fly all those ships bro. I'm so immersed in this game its freaky. Like I'm living another life. Every death is terrible but real.

glad I listened to the eve players and gave the game a try. Now got a few others to play as well. Spread the word to all the ends of the galaxy! um, yeah better login for a min to get my fix....

darkfall/earthrise or bust =(

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Originally posted by GreenChaos
In MUDs were they have always been.  Shame on anyone who though MMOs were the next step for MUDs.  They never had the pvp, roleplay and community MUDs have and they never will.

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Yeppers.

Most extensive worlds; with mindblowing storylines and quests; adult PvP (not a place for kids and women who like to be alchemists!); shops and crafting that could put nearly all the MMOs together of their goods in ONE MUD game (plus offer your own names and descriptions of what you crafted). It's all in the MUDs, just kids can't stand reading a book, and need eye candy to fight and show off their epics.

It's a shame that a MUD couldn't be made into a MMO, despite MUDs have very tight communities and all the OP craves, even today. 

Looking at the numbers, WoW more than doubled the genre. So it's safe to guess that half of the current MMO players on the planet today were introduced to MMOs with WoW. WoW is fast, intuitive, plays smooth and is not demanding on the hardware.

So eventually somebody is going to introduce sandbox elements, more role-playing elements, more dynamic of a world, and at the same time bring along all the good points of WoW. They will not get sidetracked by silly goals like visual realism resulting in an unplayable product (vanguard) and they will not create an MMO that has less customization, character uniqueness, and interesting pvp than WoW (lotro). But they will get everything that this new population of players enjoy and then add the virtual world to it.

It just hasn't happened yet.

and also; maybe they really prepared for  it ... no  one wants play a junk MMO right?