General Discussion

Originally posted by Xasapis

Bottom line, the MMO players of the past have grown up, their lives became more complicated and filled with more stuff to do. This did not diminish their love for the gender, just the free time available.

But I think you need to acknowledge that your complicated life should be irrelevant to the developer and what he creates.  The fact that you're busy with wife, kids, job, should not be the cause for developers to dumb down their games. But it is.  I go back to my original analogy- should all books become graphic novels because you no longer have the time to read them? This is the kind of mentality that stifles the creative process- when developers have to cater to everyone. I don't see how that's right, imo.  If they didn't leave out the detailed and expansive elements in favor of fast-and-furious quests, I wouldn't be bitching.  

And that's the problem. Recentl MMOs aren't made with both our playstyles in mind. They're made for yours. 

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Over 4 years ago Blizzard laughed in the face of mmorpg player , and said : MMO player is not interested in complexity , not in virtual world simulation , nor in sandbox gameplay. MMO player wants to be spoon fed with premade choices , premade classes , and simplistic but FUN gameplay....You dont believe us? Look at our subscription numbers.

WOW went on and became a hallmark , not only of MMO success , but PC game success....

4 years have indeed passed , and proven Blizzard was right.

Developers or utterly failed to make any complex MMO. It seemed that what was possible before (AC,UO,SWG) todays coders just can not do anymore....

Or companies just went and made singleplayer online rpgs with multiplay element (Guildwars , DDO)

SWG was butchered to appeal more to mass market - and so one of the last true MMO was killed.

Years passed....

Vanguard came as the last hope for MMORPG player. Something we dreamed of....turned out to be a scam of drug addict developer

Daddy of MMO genre Richard Garriot  - goes and makes instanced half baked shooter MMO...

and Turbine makes copy of WOW with LOTR skin...


MMORPG genre is bleeding , dying on the ground....

And there goes Funcom with AOC -

It is a FUN game. But everything that MMO stands for is removed....It is just a collection of small areas that can barely hold 50 players in same instance - connected with loading screens. Player interaction is brought to the bare minimum. Exploration is removed.Crafting is a funny minigame. Trading is pointless.

It is still fun game. But it is not MMO. It is not Massive....

But FUNCOM succeds! It is a bestseller !

 

.........

So what are developer companies to do now ? If there was ever doubt , now it is clear

Massive = Failure

Mini Online RPG = Success

 

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R.I.P Massive

 

 

 

 

 

Heard of EvE-Online? one server 42k players , one system of great fleet battles reaches around 500-600 players...if not Fleet Battles come to JITA   :p , eve started around 2003 june or something not quiet sure but see wher it stands now? still on the TOP 5 and where is WoW?

Originally posted by andrelle

 

Originally posted by Xasapis

Bottom line, the MMO players of the past have grown up, their lives became more complicated and filled with more stuff to do. This did not diminish their love for the gender, just the free time available.

 

But I think you need to acknowledge that your complicated life should be irrelevant to the developer and what he creates.  The fact that you're busy with wife, kids, job, should not be the cause for developers to dumb down their games. But it is.  I go back to my original analogy- should all books become graphic novels because you no longer have the time to read them? This is the kind of mentality that stifles the creative process- when developers have to cater to everyone. I don't see how that's right, imo.  If they didn't leave out the detailed and expansive elements in favor of fast-and-furious quests, I wouldn't be bitching.  

And that's the problem. Recentl MMOs aren't made with both our playstyles in mind. They're made for yours. 

Imo you're confusing the issue.

I have a job and I'm a parent as well... And I detest the "dumbing down" of the genre.

For me this endless, repetetive grind and hold-your-hand quests are dumbing down of the genre. I'd like, for once, to see a game that is complex and that gives you freedom and immersion but which doesn't require enormous continuous chunks of time to get eligible for having fun.

For example, you can have very complex and rich PvE content that is friendly to casual players. (remember, "casual" doesn't have to equal "dumb" or "shallow").  What you need to do is to make parts of quest chains short in duration (so you can finish a stage in say 1/2 hour) but at the same time remove the requirement that all group members have to be at the same stage to meaningfully participate.

This is probably the main reason us "old fogies" dream about sandbox MMOs.. There you set up your own pace of the game and whether you're off to just grind some mobs you can usually find someone to happen by who wants to grind those mobs as well - if someone was to give this "grind" some story or drama or challenge there would be no one happier than us. .

Linear A-B-C-D quest chains and long duration PvE events (like instanced dungeons) simply force people to stay together all the time and this puts a huge strain on working peoples' schedule. If you're too fast - bad. Too slow - bad again. Everybody gets frustrated in the end unless we all go to the same class and have no evening social life.

Originally posted by andrelle

 

Originally posted by Xasapis

Bottom line, the MMO players of the past have grown up, their lives became more complicated and filled with more stuff to do. This did not diminish their love for the gender, just the free time available.

 

But I think you need to acknowledge that your complicated life should be irrelevant to the developer and what he creates.  The fact that you're busy with wife, kids, job, should not be the cause for developers to dumb down their games. But it is.  I go back to my original analogy- should all books become graphic novels because you no longer have the time to read them? This is the kind of mentality that stifles the creative process- when developers have to cater to everyone. I don't see how that's right, imo.  If they didn't leave out the detailed and expansive elements in favor of fast-and-furious quests, I wouldn't be bitching.  

And that's the problem. Recentl MMOs aren't made with both our playstyles in mind. They're made for yours. 

Now that is complete BS. Developers of course have to respond to the needs of the target audience. The ones who did that (for example WOW) reap big rewards.

Originally posted by remusus03

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Over 4 years ago Blizzard laughed in the face of mmorpg player , and said : MMO player is not interested in complexity , not in virtual world simulation , nor in sandbox gameplay. MMO player wants to be spoon fed with premade choices , premade classes , and simplistic but FUN gameplay....You dont believe us? Look at our subscription numbers.

WOW went on and became a hallmark , not only of MMO success , but PC game success....

4 years have indeed passed , and proven Blizzard was right.

Developers or utterly failed to make any complex MMO. It seemed that what was possible before (AC,UO,SWG) todays coders just can not do anymore....

Or companies just went and made singleplayer online rpgs with multiplay element (Guildwars , DDO)

SWG was butchered to appeal more to mass market - and so one of the last true MMO was killed.

Years passed....

Vanguard came as the last hope for MMORPG player. Something we dreamed of....turned out to be a scam of drug addict developer

Daddy of MMO genre Richard Garriot  - goes and makes instanced half baked shooter MMO...

and Turbine makes copy of WOW with LOTR skin...


MMORPG genre is bleeding , dying on the ground....

And there goes Funcom with AOC -

It is a FUN game. But everything that MMO stands for is removed....It is just a collection of small areas that can barely hold 50 players in same instance - connected with loading screens. Player interaction is brought to the bare minimum. Exploration is removed.Crafting is a funny minigame. Trading is pointless.

It is still fun game. But it is not MMO. It is not Massive....

But FUNCOM succeds! It is a bestseller !

 

.........

So what are developer companies to do now ? If there was ever doubt , now it is clear

Massive = Failure

Mini Online RPG = Success

 

-------

 

R.I.P Massive

 

 

 

 

 

Heard of EvE-Online? one server 42k players , one system of great fleet battles reaches around 500-600 players...if not Fleet Battles come to JITA   :p , eve started around 2003 june or something not quiet sure but see wher it stands now? still on the TOP 5 and where is WoW?

 

Uh? WOW has 40x more subscribers than Eve. You may like Eve but it is no where close to the commercial successs that WOW is.

A lot has been said but i think it is too early to send AoC to the grave...

AoC weakness will be the console version and the forced PC-Console same world politic, not any in-game bug or lack of content,.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by remusus03
Heard of EvE-Online? one server 42k players , one system of great fleet battles reaches around 500-600 players...if not Fleet Battles come to JITA :p , eve started around 2003 june or something not quiet sure but see wher it stands now? still on the TOP 5 and where is WoW?

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Uh? WOW has 40x more subscribers than Eve. You may like Eve but it is no where close to the commercial successs that WOW is.
Heck, even AOC sold more boxes in the first week than Eve has subscribers. LOTR also has more subscribers.

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I think you missed Remusus's point: Eve is massive in the number of concurrent players online at any given time. Whereas most MMOs disperse their populations across several servers, CCP only has one. When you sign-on to Eve you'll be playing with 20K+ players.

Not to get off point here, but Eve is the only model that makes sense from an FFA PvP perspective. Having an open, congruous environment allows players to create and enforce politics.

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Originally posted by IcoGames
Even EA is delaying WAR based on beta feedback (yeah, I feinted too when I read that).

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Huh? EA actually listened to gamers for once???

Hell hasn't frozen over yet??????