General Discussion

Originally posted by markyturnip

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?

 

"I don't even want to talk about it much anymore."

If I wanted to really talk about it, you'd still be reading.

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 ....

 

Dude, you summed it up PERFECTLY. Thankyou.

Seriously, Thankyou. I could not have put it better myself. For the longest time I thought original SWG spoiled me, but the reality is that few mmo's ever were sandboxy like that. EVERYTHING now is just like you said, a damned single-player RPG with a subscription fee and a grind.

Yuk. I am passing on AOC and WAR. And you know what, I was absolutely contemplating playing AOC just because of the "ooh it's a new mmo" factor, but now I'm definitely not, and I'm sure many of those that feel like us will end up getting it and quitting before the first month.

All of these dev teams with lack of imagination trying to make the cookie-cutter mmo. Grind Grind Grind, bore bore bore.

Onto the next thing. I want to feel that excitement again the first time I stepped in a sandbox mmo world (swg, the original version at least). I want the randomness again. TO HELL WITH THE ASSEMBLY LINE GRIND MMO'S.

Originally posted by dawn3000

Originally posted by Lobotomist

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.

 

once it was and games were great, now it is surly aiming at casuals like u and games suck. u just have 10hrs a week? ok stick with SinglePlayer RPG there is some great stuff out there and with ur limited playtime u can have fun for month with em.

Here is where you error. The games may suck for you, but great for us casuals. Now since casuals are obviously the BIGGER part of the market, we will be catered to.

And if we want to spend that 10 hours to play a MMORPG instead of SP RPGs and we vote with our dollars, there is really nothing you can do about it.

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.

 

Yeah, that's EVE. The game you start playing 3 months after you start.

    I do not share you enthusiasm for Eve. it was horrible experience with long periods of boredom. I wanted that I would watch paint dry

I am talking from a biased point of view as a online fps nut and a huge planetside fan.

Let me explain, plx bear with me, 

The reason I like online fps is the fact that player skill and teamwork is what matters and luck, but on the downside you only have at the very most 64 people per server and also there is real char progression.

I also lke non FPS games such as MMOs and RTS, both online and offline ofcourse.

Offline games don't have the teamwork or the player skill like online, a computer bot is never as fun so the story is much more important.

By going down the story route for MMOs you are doomed to fail, it is very hard to make a indepth story last the life of an mmo and as said i am biased but story isnt my main thing, lets face it storys in games arent renound for being brilliant. the point is you cant make em as fast as people can complete them.

So with the pretty basic combat system and no story we get good old grind,

 the obvious and ultimate conlusion we an draw is that we need some kind of MMORPG/FPS game, not puerly FPS but with a real leveling system similar to a normal rpg.

It will have all the elements of a normal RPG so dont worry there would be no loss but it wold lose the grind, It would improve PVE and PVP, it would still be highly based on level but not puerly, there would be a litle more luk/skill involved.

i think it is inevitable. it is history repeating. fps games are popular, they simply wernt made till later on due to tech limitations. sam for mmofps, it is hard to get a 1000 man real scale war.

Anyways MMOs are going to the consoles and as much as it pains me to say it PC gaming is getting a smaller %, not that that means less pc gamers, just a crap load more consolers.

You dont get that many RPG games on consoles, people also like realistic movement and aiming, look at the wii, I think we are going to see this soon.

I would love to see more sandboc style mmos but looking at the current market my way is the more likely outocome, atleast it will detrat from the shallowness.

PS, I reckon we can count on NCSoft, they have the WoW clone with Aion, those guys like to make games like err ... Koreans. Maybe Lineage 3 or now Eve and Whitewolf are one, they will make something crazy. You know I keep my Eve sub going to balance out the guilt for paying Blizzard for WoW.

Lobo, the future draws nigh...

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/6400.html

I have never played a sandbox game so this is just from looking and reading about them. Sandbox looked like it was mostly about grinding. Ill use SWG for example- to get rifle skill up go kill things with a rifle. Thats a grind. Now please if there are non-sandbox games like this tell me, but it seems like to be sandbox where you rank up a skill by using it is grinding. So calling out grind as bad seems ironic.

As for now ill take the class system for the RvR WAR is offering. But if another major PVE game comes along i really want sandbox.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by dawn3000

Originally posted by Lobotomist

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.

 

once it was and games were great, now it is surly aiming at casuals like u and games suck. u just have 10hrs a week? ok stick with SinglePlayer RPG there is some great stuff out there and with ur limited playtime u can have fun for month with em.

Here is where you error. The games may suck for you, but great for us casuals. Now since casuals are obviously the BIGGER part of the market, we will be catered to.

And if we want to spend that 10 hours to play a MMORPG instead of SP RPGs and we vote with our dollars, there is really nothing you can do about it.