One of the saddest days was when they canceled development of UO2 :(

Originally posted by Interesting

The virtual world simulation,  "live the game", the persistent world, although dinamic, ever changing, ever evolving world is the most decried, capperclawed, despised, ignored core element of an MMO these days.

Its hard to explain how such core idea slowly and misteriously disintegrated to give place to the empty shells of games advertised nowadays.

 

 

Because that should never be the core in the first place. People want entertaining content, NOT games. Here is a polll essentially speak to it. MMORP GAMES are moving towards what people want and what they find fun.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001630.php

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Damn, well that's harsh! We probably won't be seeing each other playing the same MMO then, because I prefer FF's linearity to Oblivion's "sandbox" experience.. but yeah, at least we would have the option to choose unlike now (imo).

Yeah, I'm not a real fan of games like Tomb Raider and FF where you are set on a predetermined path and your main task is to figure out what one action is allowed next in order to let you progress. To be fair, the art and general gameplay of the FFs that I tried was very nicely done and had they been interactive stories rather than CRPGs I probably would have had some of them in my Top Ten list of video games.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Interesting

The virtual world simulation,  "live the game", the persistent world, although dinamic, ever changing, ever evolving world is the most decried, capperclawed, despised, ignored core element of an MMO these days.

Its hard to explain how such core idea slowly and misteriously disintegrated to give place to the empty shells of games advertised nowadays.

 

 

 

Because that should never be the core in the first place. People want entertaining content, NOT games. Here is a polll essentially speak to it. MMORP GAMES are moving towards what people want and what they find fun.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001630.php

So what? People demand stupid things. Liek it or not, free will, or not, what person THINKS he needs and likes and what he ACTUALLY need and likes can be two completely different things. I mean, come on, when your back hurts from the fall, you want someone to get rid of the pain, not to fix your back with a good ol' knee!

 Lobotomist, Terranah , Khalathwyr, ... you guys make www.mmorpg.com more interesting, thanks.  

Originally posted by Interesting

reserved.

 

Great topic to discuss "for once and for all for the hundred thousand time" what Massive means:

 

First, MASSIVE is an adjective wich describes the scale of demographic density (its worlds we are talking about)

NUMBER OF PLAYERS IN THE SAME WORLD (each instance/room/shard/server/whatever means you use to separate players from each other IS a world by this concept, using instances/rooms to segregate players is an attempt to bypass the requisite of massive scale of number of players, this is through an theleologic and historic interpretation)

In short, the number of players in the same world HAS TO BE MASSIVE IN ITS SCALE. And it cant be considered massive if a server hubs xxx instances/rooms of a limited/capped number of players. It defeats the purpose of MASSIVE, this is cheating and we as an evolved community of players cant allow that to be kept pushed through our throats anymore.

Second, MASSIVE also describes the scale of time. WHAT?

Its massive in a sense of PERSISTANT WORLD, its lasts forever, its persistant, thats the sense of "persistant world". A world that exists regardless of your character presence.

Massive also describes the  (scale of time and therefore EFFORTbecause without effort spent nothing evolves from inercy, if there is evolution it has to be effort/action/energy whatever you wanna call it), spent by the PLAYERS in that PERSISTANT WORLD. It determines the need for character evolution over time, MASSIVELY (yeah, and the grind you all talk about is a by product, side effect of developers inability to provide an entertaining experience while the effort/time is being done to satisfy the massive requisite of providing evolution in that persistant world)

Third, since the number of players in the SAME world (not of the same game, neither in the same room/instance) has to be massive in scale, it also determines that the size of world has to be massive to allow that number of players.

From that we extract that MASSIVE also describe the scale of size of such persistant world.

So to have a MASSIVE game you have to satisfy the requisites of number of players, time and effort spent and size.

Those requisites were satisfied by the first MMORPGs, being derived from UO school or Everquest school of design decisions.

AND ARE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN IN TODAYS GAMES BUT THEY DO STILL USE THE SLOGAN "MMORPG", "MMOFPS", "MMO" for their games just because its a popular way of getting cheap advertising space in the thousands of gaming websites and communities, through the word of mouth they get people to test their product/service, but they only get that by false advertising a "massive" game that in reality is not.

This pisses me off and the ignorance of new players regarding what massive really means is recurrent every day in every board about "MMOs". Thanks Lobotomist for the opportunity to discuss this - again.

 

Well the word massive is ever changing just like the english language. massive = really big. its simple. as for the rest of your post, i didnt bother to read it. Im sure its a copy and paste job telling us how you have mastered the skills of the search engine...

now ive played UO too ,and yes ive seen and played  pre trammel also . But UO had its flaws too and im not talking bout the bugs and lags the game had in its early stages . Ever asked yourself what brought Trammel ?  Now i wonder what t your answer to that will be ... im 100% sure the word carebear will fall .

UO was damn good no question , but it isnt , never was the holy grail

I totally agree with the point the OP is trying to make.
Sad but true, the genre is turning to shit in my opinion. I just wish that companies would stop calling all these crappy games, Warhammer, APB etc MMOs.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Interesting

The virtual world simulation,  "live the game", the persistent world, although dinamic, ever changing, ever evolving world is the most decried, capperclawed, despised, ignored core element of an MMO these days.

Its hard to explain how such core idea slowly and misteriously disintegrated to give place to the empty shells of games advertised nowadays.

 

 

 

Because that should never be the core in the first place. People want entertaining content, NOT games. Here is a polll essentially speak to it. MMORP GAMES are moving towards what people want and what they find fun.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001630.php

The problem with your theory is:

1) There is a constantly growing number of people who are sick and tired of game play as defined by the Theme Park design of today's games.  There are new people on this board daily who came from WoW, are sick of WoW, and are looking for something new or more challenging.  This does not include LOTRO, Aion, Conan, etc.

2) Many people who are stuck in Theme Park games now have never played a good sandbox game since there hasn't been one out since UO or pre-cu SWG. No one knows how many of these people would gravitate towards a sandbox MMO because there isn't a decent one out for them to try.

3) Many of these AAA theme park games that have been coming out for the past several years have TANKED big time.  It's not just because of their state at release, it's also because they have nothing to offer the genre but more of the same.  If people want more of the same, they just end up going back to WoW where the game is polished.

4)  I HATE where the mainstream games are going now.  I'm not the only one, and that number will continue to grow as the Theme-park concept grows more and more stale at a cost of $15 per month.

Originally posted by CoffeeGrunt

now ive played UO too ,and yes ive seen and played  pre trammel also . But UO had its flaws too and im not talking bout the bugs and lags the game had in its early stages . Ever asked yourself what brought Trammel ?  Now i wonder what t your answer to that will be ... im 100% sure the word carebear will fall .

 

UO was damn good no question , but it isnt , never was the holy grail

Nobody said it was.  It was used an an example of an open world game where the user forges his/her own adventure without having to strap into the shallow, scripted theme-park ride of today's games.  SWG was a mess too as far as games go, but it gave everyone so much freedom to create their own content and adventure in the Star Wars universe that the player base didn't care.  Sure it didn't appeal to everyone, but you also cannot compare it by today's WoW influenced numbers. There weren't that many MMO gamers when SWG was in it's 'prime'.

What does MMORPG mean today?  Ok, I'll give it a try.

Let's see....

Min Maxers On Rails Pay Good

Do I win?

never played SWG but ive played UO  and from that  example i can say (stated that before ) it wasnt all that shiny .

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The problem with your theory is:

1) There is a constantly growing number of people who are sick and tired of game play as defined by the Theme Park design of today's games.  There are new people on this board daily who came from WoW, are sick of WoW, and are looking for something new or more challenging. 

...then when asked if they actually accomplished anything difficult in the game, they say they soloed to 70 and expected it to be hard when it was never designed to be, ignored every dungeon, never bothered trying to rank high in the arenas, and never did any of the difficult acheivements.  I'm not saying ALL people, but the common excuse to WOW being easy is because these people played the easy way.  They avoided everything difficult because it wasn't rammed down their throat.  As if they'll every be happy with anything;)

These same people will just complain about the next MMO, and the next and the next.  Darkfall is hard and tedious, everything peopel "loved", hehe.  You don't see millions knowcking down those doors.  Millions weren't knocking down SWG's doors either.  They didn't care for Pirates, Dark&Light, Ryzome or Eve(300k+ unique account my foot)  Almost everyone playing the game is 2 boxing by now.  Thats where all the new subs are coming from.

Theres always a market for sandboxes but its no bigger than it ever was.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Sandboxes (a.k.a Virtual World Simulations) started to fall out of favour 10 years ago when EQ launched.

The majority wants a game to play, not a new world to live in.

With the return of the story-driven immersive gameplay promised by TOR, I'm very happy with the direction the genre is heading in. I understand that not everyone feels the same, and that opinions don't get changed on forum posts but meh; your negative viewpoint demanded a positive rebuttal.

I'm not happy yet. TOR SOUNDS like it will be fun. Just like many other games. I thought Vanguard was going to be fun till I did the beta.

Then I didn't even want to be in the beta for WAR becasue the beta sometimes spoils the game when it releases IMO, and wow I was really disappointed by that one. Sounded great. RvR AND cool quests taht all players can participate in without even being ina group? That's going to be really fun!

Not so much, cause everyones dont' PvP in instances, which are fun, for about a month and then you're bored to death with them.

Will the multiplayer dialog and being able to hire NPCs result in really fun grouping, or will it be a solo fest sort of like playing a Single player RPG where you can chat with other players and see them run by now and then? I don't know.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The problem with your theory is:

1) There is a constantly growing number of people who are sick and tired of game play as defined by the Theme Park design of today's games.  There are new people on this board daily who came from WoW, are sick of WoW, and are looking for something new or more challenging. 

...then when asked if they actually accomplished anything difficult in the game, they say they soloed to 70 and expected it to be hard when it was never designed to be, ignored every dungeon, never bothered trying to rank high in the arenas, and never did any of the difficult acheivements.  I'm not saying ALL people, but the common excuse to WOW being easy is because these people played the easy way.  They avoided everything difficult because it wasn't rammed down their throat.  As if they'll every be happy with anything;)

These same people will just complain about the next MMO, and the next and the next.  Darkfall is hard and tedious, everything peopel "loved", hehe.  You don't see millions knowcking down those doors.  Millions weren't knocking down SWG's doors either.  They didn't care for Pirates, Dark&Light, Ryzome or Eve(300k+ unique account my foot)  Almost everyone playing the game is 2 boxing by now.  Thats where all the new subs are coming from.

Theres always a market for sandboxes but its no bigger than it ever was.

I don't know if you are aware of this, but only something like 1-5% get into the endgame content to any serious degree.  As you people here love to point out when we talk about sandbox games; people have better things to do than waste their times with the requirements for raiding.

Choosing a half-ass game like Darkfall as your argument against sandbox games is retarded. Also, there weren't millions of available players back when SWG was out.  MMO's were fairly new 6 years ago, and the vast majority of today's gamers were not online gaming then.  Also, SWG required a fairly decent gaming computer to play (because it was never optimized and the engine sucks).  WoW requires the specs of a $5 calculator, which is one of the main reasons for its success.  You cannot compare SWG's sub numbers to today's numbers.  It was a completely different point in the evolution of the internet, computers, and online video games.

Read my other points in the post you quoted above if you want to have a valid argument about this.  It would also help if you learned more about the state of gaming 5+ years ago.  As I stated, most of the people who are playing MMO's now were not around then, and their VERY FIRST MMORPG was WoW.  All they know is WoW and the other wow clones at this point, because they haven't played a decent, modern sandbox. For you to say that none of those people would enjoy a sandbox game is ludicrous. Sure, the majority will prefer mouth-breather games, but that number will decline as people get sick and tired of the same old scripted gameplay in every MMO they try. This is clearly already starting to happen.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The problem with your theory is:

1) There is a constantly growing number of people who are sick and tired of game play as defined by the Theme Park design of today's games.  There are new people on this board daily who came from WoW, are sick of WoW, and are looking for something new or more challenging. 

...then when asked if they actually accomplished anything difficult in the game, they say they soloed to 70 and expected it to be hard when it was never designed to be, ignored every dungeon, never bothered trying to rank high in the arenas, and never did any of the difficult acheivements.  I'm not saying ALL people, but the common excuse to WOW being easy is because these people played the easy way.  They avoided everything difficult because it wasn't rammed down their throat.  As if they'll every be happy with anything;)

These same people will just complain about the next MMO, and the next and the next.  Darkfall is hard and tedious, everything peopel "loved", hehe.  You don't see millions knowcking down those doors.  Millions weren't knocking down SWG's doors either.  They didn't care for Pirates, Dark&Light, Ryzome or Eve(300k+ unique account my foot)  Almost everyone playing the game is 2 boxing by now.  Thats where all the new subs are coming from.

Theres always a market for sandboxes but its no bigger than it ever was.

If there is an easy way, then the game is easy.

It's only hard, if there is no easy way, duh.

Otherwise, the game isn't hard, you're just making crap up on your own to make the game seem hard. I could play a FPS shooter with one eye closed to make it harder but I wouldn't do taht eitehr.

I suspect that console gaming will murder MMO if they continue down this road.  OP, you are absolutely correct.  And in a FPS, console will always dominate!

Originally posted by AllNewMMOSuk

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Indeed. Interesting post.

But let me quote Paul Barnett , at this year E3.

This is what he said to question about where he sees MMO's heading in next years:

"We are not going to see MMOs as we know them today. Instead it will just be games with multiplayer connectivity.
in fact term MMO will become thing of the past."

 

He is on to something.

 

Most of upcomming MMOs are in fact this.

RPG games, or Shooters. Where developers said:

"We know MMO games sell more , and earn more. Let just create internet server structure in our games!"

 

Basically , they are Multiplayer Enabled games - not Massively Multiplayer games

 

 

And I am just waiting for SWTOR to be a final example of this trend. And flagbearer of this sad trend

 

Anyone that quotes Paul Barnett (an utter fool and idiot) is just losing credibility for anything else they type. That guy knows nothing about games and there is a reason why WAR has been on a constant downslide from the moment it was released.

You'll get no argument from me about what you stated about PB. The issue, as I see it, is that all the key players in these bigger name companies making MMOs think pretty much on exactly the same lines. It's evident in the types of MMOs being released. That and shareholders are the driving force behind development, not polish and out of the box thinking. There've been a scribble or two here outside of the box, but only enough to entice the blinded by hope crowd into thinking a new title is truly something new and different. The indy company...a few of them had designs on making a triangle or circle, but they don't have the money the box companies do. Thus, production value is such that it drives people away.

Vicious, vicious seemingly never-ending cycle we are in.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by MindTrigger

The problem with your theory is:

1) There is a constantly growing number of people who are sick and tired of game play as defined by the Theme Park design of today's games.  There are new people on this board daily who came from WoW, are sick of WoW, and are looking for something new or more challenging. 

...then when asked if they actually accomplished anything difficult in the game, they say they soloed to 70 and expected it to be hard when it was never designed to be, ignored every dungeon, never bothered trying to rank high in the arenas, and never did any of the difficult acheivements.  I'm not saying ALL people, but the common excuse to WOW being easy is because these people played the easy way.  They avoided everything difficult because it wasn't rammed down their throat.  As if they'll every be happy with anything;)

These same people will just complain about the next MMO, and the next and the next.  Darkfall is hard and tedious, everything peopel "loved", hehe.  You don't see millions knowcking down those doors.  Millions weren't knocking down SWG's doors either.  They didn't care for Pirates, Dark&Light, Ryzome or Eve(300k+ unique account my foot)  Almost everyone playing the game is 2 boxing by now.  Thats where all the new subs are coming from.

Theres always a market for sandboxes but its no bigger than it ever was.

I'd wonder if it had the production value and funding that all these themepark games get if it wouldn't be experiencing a different fate. Not one of the games in that paragraph that you list was done by a AAA, big name company. SWG doesn't count as SOE has proven they can run any effort into the ground. Would be interesting to see what a top-line company could do.

Few good point here so far:

1. Releasing MMO with sameish game mechanic as WOW will always fail. Since once player realise its all same he will return to WOW that is more polished and has more content and bigger community.

This was proven many times so far.

2. Sandbox gaming got hijacked by hardcore PVP game design philosophy. And poorly developed titles.

Simply there is not even a case to prove sandbox gaming would be popular. Last such AAA title was SWG that never had a chance to grow. And on other side there is example of most hardcore PVP game EVE. And such games can not appeal to mainstream. And than you have games like Darkfall that are plainly just under developed.

I never had an idea why Darkfall was supposed to be a good idea in the first place ... no mater how well it would have been developed.

The last thing I heard about it was people running around naked in order to not get robbed in PvP. Well, I guess that makes sense if gear doesnt matter anyway ?

But thats certainly not a game I am eager to play.

Pre-Tram UO, especially in the beginning w/o guildstones, was literally hands down the best mmo design ever. Mmorpgs if they are even going to compete with UO would definately be post-tram, the carebare land of crappy rule systems and the beginning of the end for a true moneys worth experience.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Sandboxes (a.k.a Virtual World Simulations) started to fall out of favour 10 years ago when EQ launched.

The majority wants a game to play, not a new world to live in.

With the return of the story-driven immersive gameplay promised by TOR, I'm very happy with the direction the genre is heading in. I understand that not everyone feels the same, and that opinions don't get changed on forum posts but meh; your negative viewpoint demanded a positive rebuttal.

My GOD you are naive. How many MMO's have promised to do this or that and have actually delivered? The most you'll get from TOR is some pretty cutscenes with dialogue trees. The same cutscenes and dialogue trees that EVERY OTHER PLAYER will see. 

Amen, OP. Amen.

Originally posted by leshtricity

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Sandboxes (a.k.a Virtual World Simulations) started to fall out of favour 10 years ago when EQ launched.

The majority wants a game to play, not a new world to live in.

With the return of the story-driven immersive gameplay promised by TOR, I'm very happy with the direction the genre is heading in. I understand that not everyone feels the same, and that opinions don't get changed on forum posts but meh; your negative viewpoint demanded a positive rebuttal.

My GOD you are naive. How many MMO's have promised to do this or that and have actually delivered? The most you'll get from TOR is some pretty cutscenes with dialogue trees. The same cutscenes and dialogue trees that EVERY OTHER PLAYER will see. 

Hmm. How many MMOs have promised a properly written story-driven progression? Well, none have.

If there's one thing that Bioware can do properly, it's tell a story. A quote from a recent interview:

James Ohlen: To give you an example, in your standard MMO you have a single person doing the quests. He writes it up, he scripts it, he places it in the world. It’s one guy.

But with us, we have a writing team, we have scripters who script it, we have designers who are very good at doing all the cinematic angles and all the animations… so we basically have three times the size of the team for implementing a quest.

And yes, the quests are a lot more intensive than in other games.

That ain't pie in the sky as far as I'm concerned; Bioware is one of the few delveopers who I trust to do what they say they are going to do. They've a tremendous track record with turning out polished and high-quality story driven RPGs.

As for other players getting the same questlines, I've no problem with that. They're free to make their own choices (the same as mine or different) and I don't play MMOs to feel like a unique snowflake.