General Discussion

I think that too many MMOs nowadays stress that all of the good stuff - the meat of the MMO, the point at which one would begin to have fun playing the game - comes in the end, and that it's "worth it" to stick around and try to level a character up to the level cap. Very few MMOs actually offer something exciting when it comes to progression.

Take WOW, for example, which I recently dropped after trying it for about  3-4 weeks. While the game has a lot going for it, it ultimately doesn't respect the low-level, struggling newbie. By this, I mean that I found the progression through the first 22 levels pretty dull; VERY repetitive quests, grind, and some instancing. And that's pretty much it. After realizing that I am bored by the game, I decided to drop it.

Now, many people would ask me, "You're judging a game after playing only for a couple of weeks? After getting to level 22? You don't know anything about it!" Well, maybe I haven't gotten up to level 70 to experience the "fun" parts, but to me, getting there (or at least attempting to) was, well, painful. So why shouldn't I simply stop? Why should I endure the climb of boredom just to get to the top and only THEN begin to play?

This ruins the idea of an MMO being a game by definition (i.e. fun and engaging). A good game provides excitement and interest along the way rather than save it all until the end for the ones who are "devoted" and "patient". A good game hails the beginner, and guides him or her to greater glory.

For this reason, I think that most MMOs (especially the Asian grinders ) select for a gamer population that likes to endure and struggle through boredom just to get to that high point. I'm not saying that games should be easy or constantly have trivial rewards: In a game, one ought to be rewarded for progress and patience. But one also should be given a better glimpse of the "fun" that's ahead.

So many people drop games after being bored for 2, 3, 4 months, or even longer, simply because they keep hoping that the game will become fun again soon, only to sometimes be disappointed. I don't think that this kind of outlook is healthy or right.

Any thoughts?

Yes and it's to make you play.

I'm going to create a new topic and see if anyone wants to rank them, and linke discussion to yours.

that is exacly why we need skill box based sandbox MMORPGs where you can actually do something worthwhile the whole time.

UO/SWG(pre-pub-9) those are the kind of games that alow you to do something at all times.

hell even in EVE online you are not useless at low levels, (granted you are used as bait most of the time )

but you can also serve as a miner aid, you can carry ore from place A to B, you can do many things before you are actually battle worthy.

the ONLY game MMO i found was fun to level up was LOTRO. hell the 14 days was so much fun that i bought the game and subbed after the 3rd day. it is still level based but i joined with a RL friend, (that might have some part to play into it.) other than that all the upcomming games i see are grind to reach the cap then grind to be the best.

sure it takes skill and organization to down a raid boss, but it takes far more skill to have a full all out war between to player factions and loosing the war  might mean loosing more than you can afford, but hey who cares, you had fun getting there in the first place. so why not start again and this time make it better.

Originally posted by UbinusCol

I think that too many MMOs nowadays stress that all of the good stuff - the meat of the MMO, the point at which one would begin to have fun playing the game - comes in the end, and that it's "worth it" to stick around and try to level a character up to the level cap. Very few MMOs actually offer something exciting when it comes to progression.

Take WOW, for example, which I recently dropped after trying it for about  3-4 weeks. While the game has a lot going for it, it ultimately doesn't respect the low-level, struggling newbie. By this, I mean that I found the progression through the first 22 levels pretty dull; VERY repetitive quests, grind, and some instancing. And that's pretty much it. After realizing that I am bored by the game, I decided to drop it.

Now, many people would ask me, "You're judging a game after playing only for a couple of weeks? After getting to level 22? You don't know anything about it!" Well, maybe I haven't gotten up to level 70 to experience the "fun" parts, but to me, getting there (or at least attempting to) was, well, painful. So why shouldn't I simply stop? Why should I endure the climb of boredom just to get to the top and only THEN begin to play?

This ruins the idea of an MMO being a game by definition (i.e. fun and engaging). A good game provides excitement and interest along the way rather than save it all until the end for the ones who are "devoted" and "patient". A good game hails the beginner, and guides him or her to greater glory.

For this reason, I think that most MMOs (especially the Asian grinders ) select for a gamer population that likes to endure and struggle through boredom just to get to that high point. I'm not saying that games should be easy or constantly have trivial rewards: In a game, one ought to be rewarded for progress and patience. But one also should be given a better glimpse of the "fun" that's ahead.

So many people drop games after being bored for 2, 3, 4 months, or even longer, simply because they keep hoping that the game will become fun again soon, only to sometimes be disappointed. I don't think that this kind of outlook is healthy or right.

Any thoughts?

 

Everyone enjoys complaining about it but what are you suggesting to put in place of it? Don't mistake this for asking you what you "think" is a perfect MMO either. I just want to know what you plan to substitute the 1 to 69 content with?

What if everyone started at level 70? Everyone would be on an equal playing field aside from gear differences. If gear didn't exist you may as well be looking to play an FPS game that just happens to be on a much larger battlefield. The combat in an FPS is vastly superior in design to the majority of the MMO's out there.

Some people don't enjoy MMO's because of the combat or gameplay. They do it because they have friends that do it. They do it for the social interaction and enjoyment of accomplishing something with others. It makes the gameplay somewhat easy to overlook and as long as it isn't very tedious or annoying than it will satisify most players. These are your social casual gamers - combat is almost irrelevant.

Than another style of gamer which has a high expectations for game balance, a lot of difficult content, quality graphics and gameplay. They are much more picky about what type of game they play as well. For example, some do not like levels or classes that limit abilities (WoW for example) and would rather just have a selection of skills to choose from to define their characters and not be forced into a heavily instanced/questline, such as UO. These are the achievers and "powergamers" with a competitive spirit. They want to do everything you can do and get everything you can get. They also probably enjoy PvPing or racing to be the first (acquire gear or being the first to do anything).

I would think the mass majority are a mix between these two types - some favor one more than the other and some completetly reject one type. I would have to say, the first type seems to have the most fun and usually the most fun to be around. Although, the second type tends to be more successful to some degree.

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

the ONLY game MMO i found was fun to level up was LOTRO. hell the 14 days was so much fun that i bought the game and subbed after the 3rd day. it is still level based but i joined with a RL friend, (that might have some part to play into it.) other than that all the upcomming games i see are grind to reach the cap then grind to be the best.

I completely agree! In fact, before playing WOW I played LOTRO for 5 weeks and then got peer-pressured by RL friends to switch to WOW. I really enjoyed leveling, and think that it was a mistake to try WOW now that I look back on it.

Anyway, I just got back to LOTRO yesterday! WOOT! I created a Lore-master, and already it's more fun in the first 5 levels.

I'd say Guild Wars is pretty fun in this respect, except that some people don't consider it an MMO. IDK, I do...

Not all games are like this. Just because "WoW did it", doesn't mean that's the way it is. In fact, it's one of the biggest flaws of WoW, among other blatant stupidity.

Originally posted by DT-Dyne

What if everyone started at level 70? Everyone would be on an equal playing field aside from gear differences. If gear didn't exist you may as well be looking to play an FPS game that just happens to be on a much larger battlefield. The combat in an FPS is vastly superior in design to the majority of the MMO's out there.

Some people don't enjoy MMO's because of the combat or gameplay. They do it because they have friends that do it. They do it for the social interaction and enjoyment of accomplishing something with others. It makes the gameplay somewhat easy to overlook and as long as it isn't very tedious or annoying than it will satisify most players. These are your social casual gamers - combat is almost irrelevant.

Than another style of gamer which has a high expectations for game balance, a lot of difficult content, quality graphics and gameplay. They are much more picky about what type of game they play as well. For example, some do not like levels or classes that limit abilities (WoW for example) and would rather just have a selection of skills to choose from to define their characters and not be forced into a heavily instanced/questline, such as UO. These are the achievers and "powergamers" with a competitive spirit. They want to do everything you can do and get everything you can get. They also probably enjoy PvPing or racing to be the first (acquire gear or being the first to do anything).

I would think the mass majority are a mix between these two types - some favor one more than the other and some completetly reject one type. I would have to say, the first type seems to have the most fun and usually the most fun to be around. Although, the second type tends to be more successful to some degree.

I'd say that the low level cap in Guild Wars has its advantages. Maybe you don't start at level 20, but it doesn't take a long time to get there. One could add more role-playing elements and have things like titles serve a more practical purpose (rather than just give bragging rights). These chances would please both the social casual gamers and the powergamers that you mentioned, IMO.

I'd also put in a more seamless environment, something like what LOTRO has. LOTRO's balancing of instances and integrated environments would also be good (as it has more instances than typical MMOs but also has the integration that defines* what an MMO is).

*using this term carefully

You do know of course that you are typecasting yourself squarely into the instant gratification corner.  Players like you need to go play FPS games,   MMO's are just not your style.

The problem with MMO's today, they are starting to listen to all the whiners who want everything now.

An excellent example is Funcom's recently released AoC.  They made leveling far to easy so that literally anyone could zoom to high level, just fast to satisfy the instant gratification crowd, only it backfired on them, since they have all these high level players now with little to do.

I agree that to many games are simply a grind to the end game