Originally posted by templarga

As much as it pains me to say it, I am going to try the 14 day trial of Star Wars Galaxies and see if I can enjoy it. It is the last time I played a game that I enjoyed the world so maybe I can find some enjoyment in it.

 

NOOOO!!! Don't do it!!!!

The entire game has been turned into a "kill the same mob for NINE MONTHS to get a rare drop, so you can kill another kind of mob for six months to get another rare drop", and a "who can spend more RL $$ on TCG to get better items".

Groups won't even probably take you into instances unless you've completed about a year's worth of "collections" to become a viable member of the group.

AND....every time you think you've done it....you're finally "up there", they will change the whole game on you.

And this doesn't change at all if you just want to be a crafter either....you will still need hundreds of millions of credit in resources, rare jewelry and cybernetics (achieved by running instances with a combat toon, and collections grinding) to just be able to compete, and you will almost NEVER make a profit from even the most cutting edge product.

Just wanted to warn you....not derail the thread....don't waste your time on today's SWG. It's a horribly mind-numbing time-sink designed to keep you chasing the carrot on the stick.

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

I have to disagree completely with this one.  Knowing the lore helps me to become immersed in the game.  It gives meaning to otherwise meaningless quests.  90% of MMO's are the same thing, it's the World that attracts people.  It's behind the excitement for Aion.  Sure, it plays a lot like WoW... but it's a new world, it's new lore. 

I agree with the OP and many of the sentiments expressed by the others so far. When I started out in EQ I was busy doing things and doing things with people around me and discovering the world that was around me. Yes I was trying to level to get the next set of spells and to improve myself but it was never the sole goal of logging on. It was more a by product of exploring and playing with other people and later with guildies. This world even with loading screens felt like a world with scary monsters out there ready to go boo and attack you and frequently kill you. I am probably not the only EQ player to be wandering along and have a mob jump out of nowhere and scare the hell out of me. But, even once I approaced the level cap and started raiding with my guild getting loot or killing the bosses it all still felt like I was in a world and not a game.

I didn't really leave EQ so much as many of my friends moved to EQ2 and then to WoW and I moved along with them. I played EQ2 for a bit before WoW came out and it had much of the same feel as EQ naturally and was a lot of fun but there was so much hype and interest in WoW that I started it along with a lot of guildmates when it was released.

WoW brought back a lot of the fun and intensity and all of us were enjoying ourselves. Then came TBC and the changes started. Don't get me wrong as I still think WoW is great game and can be a lot of fun but the difference betwen EQ and WoW is that in EQ you get a lot of people together and they interact together where as in WoW they get a lot of people together who don't really interact as a group all that much. The beginning of the end for me and many of my friends was the reduction in the sizes of raids. I understand why this was done but the part of MMORPG that made things fun was the MMO part. Not that simply there are a lot of people on the server but that there are a lot of people in your raid or your guild or your activity.

Now in WoW there is so much solo or small group activities from doing the dailies to gaining achievements. And, I find it depressing that people feel the need to be the first to the next level cap or to be the first to take down a boss. The accomplishment is not solely in achieving the end result but in the journey to the end and the people you meet along the journey and WoW has lost a lot of that. Sure there is a lot to do in WoW and much of it is fun but is repetitive and feels a bit unfullfilling.

I am sure that a big part of this is nostalgia and that fact that I am older than I was when I first started but a lot of it too is that the games have changed to accomodate a mass market and people who are looking more for MMOGs and not MMORPGs.

I'm not sure that such a time will happen again. I suspect that part of what made Everquest into Evercrack was a combination of the game, the people and the period of time that the two came together.

Shame really.

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

Well, that is blatantly false. User generated content is ALL Second Life is about. I hate that game, but world changing IS the game. Granted, that game isn't the "norm" for MMO's. But with the very definition of MMO changing daily, there is no reason an immersive world cannot be combined with good gameplay. I hope they aren't mutually exclusive concepts.

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

 

I have to disagree completely with this one.  Knowing the lore helps me to become immersed in the game.  It gives meaning to otherwise meaningless quests.  90% of MMO's are the same thing, it's the World that attracts people.  It's behind the excitement for Aion.  Sure, it plays a lot like WoW... but it's a new world, it's new lore. 

And another poine to add is the whole "money" thing, I would say that they would be more money with a "world" type of game instead of a "game" type of game. (exluding WoW)

The only real example I have is my own experience.

I play'd FFXI for 2.5 years, and only skimmed the top of the game, still had soooo much I could do and so many places to go it wasn't funny, and half the zones I had been to i'd only seen about 60% of them, I eventualy had to quite because it was consuming to much of my life.

I also play'd WoW for around 6 months. in that time I had leveld my main to 67, and had another 2 alts that where 46 and 39. I had seen 99% of the map/zones. the only thing I hadn't really seen in detail where about 1 zone in the outlands and a few high level instances. and then I quite because I was bored.

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So while WOW is a great game and i'm not faulting it, from my own experiance it seems that "worlds" keep people longer then "games" which would mean more of a monthly fee for longer.

(Side note, I knew a guy in FFXI who had play'd since it had come out, and his time meter had just rolled over 372 days when i quite....that is a freakin lotta time on one game)

skip mmo for a moment and play might and magic part 6, 7 and 8.

Originally posted by Senadina

Originally posted by templarga

I agree with an above poster. The last time I felt like I lived in a world was at the launch of DAOC.

I also briefly felt this way at the launch of WOW, until Blizzard really strated going the instanced PVP route.

Its funny though this is the reason I cannot bring myself to really enjoy LOTRO. I feel like its a game when it should be a world. Of all the IP's out there, LOTR is the one that should be the most world like.

 

And I feel the exact opposite. I log in just to be in that world. I love the feel of LoTRO. Last time I felt like that was EQ1.

On the other hand, there are games I have to force myself to load because the world is so dark. Like Fallout 3. It's a great game, but most of the time the thought of the depressing atmosphere keeps me from playing. LoTRO, on the otherhand, feels warm, and welcoming. Just an opinion.

It's funny how two old school players (assuming your old school since you played EQ1) can have the opposite reaction to LOTRO.

The wierd part for me is that I cannot figure out why I have that reaction to the game and why it doesn't feel like a world to me. Funny you said it is "warm and welcoming" to you because it seems cold and uninviting to me.

Maybe I am just missing the magic somewhere I guess.

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

 

I have to disagree completely with this one.  Knowing the lore helps me to become immersed in the game.  It gives meaning to otherwise meaningless quests.  90% of MMO's are the same thing, it's the World that attracts people.  It's behind the excitement for Aion.  Sure, it plays a lot like WoW... but it's a new world, it's new lore. 

But it doesn't mean anything.  It's just a load of crap on top of your cookie, it doesn't add a damn thing to the generalized quest that you and everyone else in the game is doing.  Your name doesn't go down in the history books because you found someone or killed 10 monsters or whatever, you did the quest, so did a million other people.  So what?  Nothing about the lore makes it special, it just gives you a line of crap to swallow along with your generic mission.

Originally posted by Senadina

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

 

Well, that is blatantly false. User generated content is ALL Second Life is about. I hate that game, but world changing IS the game. Granted, that game isn't the "norm" for MMO's. But with the very definition of MMO changing daily, there is no reason an immersive world cannot be combined with good gameplay. I hope they aren't mutually exclusive concepts.

Second Life doesn't really quality as an MMO anymore than I would consider Sim City or The Sims to be an MMO.  It's a graphical chat room, little more.  It's a place for furries to screw each other.  There is no real game at all, there's no goal, no adventure, nothing but sitting around and entertaining yourself with one hand.

Not a good example, sorry.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

 

I have to disagree completely with this one.  Knowing the lore helps me to become immersed in the game.  It gives meaning to otherwise meaningless quests.  90% of MMO's are the same thing, it's the World that attracts people.  It's behind the excitement for Aion.  Sure, it plays a lot like WoW... but it's a new world, it's new lore. 

 

But it doesn't mean anything.  It's just a load of crap on top of your cookie, it doesn't add a damn thing to the generalized quest that you and everyone else in the game is doing.  Your name doesn't go down in the history books because you found someone or killed 10 monsters or whatever, you did the quest, so did a million other people.  So what?  Nothing about the lore makes it special, it just gives you a line of crap to swallow along with your generic mission.

Any you obviously don't "get it". You're the kind of person that doesn't even read the quest, just clicks "accept" and expects a magic arrow to appear to show you where to go.

The concept of immersion is lost on you. I assume it's because you've never played a "real" mmorpg, or enjoyed making your mark, and building something great in a virtual world.

It's not your fault....don't get me wrong here...you havn't been exposed to games that would give you the opportunities to enjoy what others of us pine for.

And it's a flat-out fucking shame, really. The genre has become such a watered down shadow of itself that it's nothing more than a glorified game of connect-the-dots anymore, with a shiny at the end of the trail and an arrow pointing to the next one.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

 

I have to disagree completely with this one.  Knowing the lore helps me to become immersed in the game.  It gives meaning to otherwise meaningless quests.  90% of MMO's are the same thing, it's the World that attracts people.  It's behind the excitement for Aion.  Sure, it plays a lot like WoW... but it's a new world, it's new lore. 

 

But it doesn't mean anything.  It's just a load of crap on top of your cookie, it doesn't add a damn thing to the generalized quest that you and everyone else in the game is doing.  Your name doesn't go down in the history books because you found someone or killed 10 monsters or whatever, you did the quest, so did a million other people.  So what?  Nothing about the lore makes it special, it just gives you a line of crap to swallow along with your generic mission.

It doesn't mean anything... it means EVERYthing.  Without all of it, what is there to playing a game?  It's hitting keystrokes.  Every game is nothing but hitting keystrokes. 

By your definition, you shouldn't be playing any game, because none of it matters, nothing is deep, there is no immersion.

What are you even doing here?

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Cephus404

The problem is that lore is just background, it doesn't matter in pretty much any game you can mention.  Knowing the lore doesn't make the gaming experience any deeper, nor does anything you can ever do in a game have any impact on the history of the game.  It's all pointless and doesn't make anyone any money so why would any developer ever push a world over a game that people pay a monthly fee for?

 

I have to disagree completely with this one.  Knowing the lore helps me to become immersed in the game.  It gives meaning to otherwise meaningless quests.  90% of MMO's are the same thing, it's the World that attracts people.  It's behind the excitement for Aion.  Sure, it plays a lot like WoW... but it's a new world, it's new lore. 

 

But it doesn't mean anything.  It's just a load of crap on top of your cookie, it doesn't add a damn thing to the generalized quest that you and everyone else in the game is doing.  Your name doesn't go down in the history books because you found someone or killed 10 monsters or whatever, you did the quest, so did a million other people.  So what?  Nothing about the lore makes it special, it just gives you a line of crap to swallow along with your generic mission.

It doesn't mean anything... it means EVERYthing.  Without all of it, what is there to playing a game?  It's hitting keystrokes.  Every game is nothing but hitting keystrokes. 

By your definition, you shouldn't be playing any game, because none of it matters, nothing is deep, there is no immersion.

What are you even doing here?

YEAH!

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Originally posted by x_rast_x
This is the #1 reason I've been playing EvE for so long - I do what I want, not what the devs tell me to do.  For all its failings its still the only MMO that's really nailed the sandbox formula.

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+1

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

The whole game vs world point is something I have been kicking and screaming about for 2-3 years now. The majority of the developers making games (and I mean the people in the trenches, not the CEOs rushing them) either never played any of the first gen MMOs that were more world-like or didn't pay attention if they did. It's either that or their first MMO was WoW and that's all they know. All the folks who have played AD&D (not to be confused with D&D 3.X and on) table top and that know what it means to create a world vs a game are either in management and can't affect the games or are here on the outside with us as gamers.

In my view, WoW was a curse. The MMO genre wouldn't have died without it. It wouldn't have been as popular, sure, but it would have had a far better chance at continuing the production of Worlds versus these "accessible, solo-dominant, marker over npc's head" games.

I definitely agree with this. WoW was a curse on the MMO genre. I know people say "But we have so many more MMO's because of WoW", which is true, but all those extra MMOs are really crappy. I haven't found an MMO I have enjoyed that wasn't released or already in production before WoW came out. That is sad. It's been 5 years. In my opinion, it has been shit pile after shit pile shoveled in our faces, and I would take 2-3 extremely high quality "worlds" over the hundreds of crappy "games" we have gotten.

To be honest, I do not think I would be able to survive in a World-like game, unless it has a decent amount of quests. I need to have a certain drive to accomplish things, and it does make me feel good when I am able to finish a quest or a mission. Exploring a world is good at all, and yes, I would like that in a game, but I have a feeling that I may end up degating it to a secondary activity because I cannot find the drive to do it, as in, something to do when I'm bored or when I'm annoyed because I cannot seem to acomplish a certain quest.

Maybe that is why I ended up getting bored with Second Life after a while. I did not really get much of a sense of accomplishement with it, even though I was busy exploring new places and interacting with people.

WoW was like the release of Star Wars, cue a load of crappy SF films. Or the release of Halloween, cue a load of crappy horror films.

Others in any industry will see success and try to imitate it, usually poorly.

Since you want a world, why are you saying this on a game forum?  There is a world where you can explore and talk to people, it is called the real life.

Another confused individual that takes ideology too far without thinking about it first.  If you want a game to feel like a world, just say it, because what you want seems like something you already have, which is not MMORPG but a life.

Developers should read OP's post. But doubt they'd understand a thing. They can only understand what is written in bank accounts now.

Originally posted by Josher

Nothing about EQ really made it any more of a world compared to WOW besides a bunch of time sinks that were removed or severely lessened to make them palapable.  And if you think having to wait in line in dungeons, wait for a boat for a 1/2 hr or sit around for 5 minutes to regen your mana after every fight makes a game a world, good luck to you and your nostalgic, first game, cherry popping delusions=)

 

Obviously, you didn't play EQ classic.

I don't think we could ever again get that "world" feel from a game that has endless character progression or even a significant amount of character progression.  I know that that is a tough pill for people to swallow but I really do believe it's true.  For a world game we would need a completely different paradigm; different goals and motivators.

Character progression makes worlds impossible because it chops the content up into discrete bits designed for characters of varying power and thus you cannot have a consistent world that makes sense.

Character progression means that ALL content becomes obsolete over time as your character progresses past it.

And character progression means that most people become obsessed with powering up their character to the exclusion of all else.  Anything that even slightly slows down this progression race will be decried as "time wasters" by people, like the one guy who posted earlier, who's sole reason for playing is to max out their character as quickly as possible.

Those earlier games gave a lot of us that world feeling but I don't think we could ever recapture that even if those games were relaunched exactly as they were back in the day.  The thing is; there was a higher percentage of people back then who hadn't yet become obsessed with maxing out as quickly as possible.  The communities were friendlier.  This was all still so new to us that we did spend a lot more time smelling the roses back then.  The games were a lot less linear and that did help immensly but ultimately I think it was the community and the newness of it all that gave it that world feeling back in the early day.  But now, I don't think there are enough of us left who haven't drunk deeply of the progression koolaid so that we could recreate that feeling again in any progression game.

The gist of this is that as long as we're locked into the progression race, burning through soon-to-be-obsolete, disposable content, we'll never have a game that feels like a world.

Originally posted by altairzq

Developers should read OP's post. But doubt they'd understand a thing. They can only understand what is written in bank accounts now.

Do you people hear yourselves, or do you just type out whatever pops into your head with one hand, while the back of your other hand is planred firmly against your thrownback forehead, despair wracking your every fiber as you are subjected to the insuffereable tortures of today's evil capitalist game developers?

Originally posted by Neanderthal

I don't think we could ever again get that "world" feel from a game that has endless character progression or even a significant amount of character progression.  I know that that is a tough pill for people to swallow but I really do believe it's true.  For a world game we would need a completely different paradigm; different goals and motivators.

Character progression makes worlds impossible because it chops the content up into discrete bits designed for characters of varying power and thus you cannot have a consistent world that makes sense.

Character progression means that ALL content becomes obsolete over time as your character progresses past it.

And character progression means that most people become obsessed with powering up their character to the exclusion of all else.  Anything that even slightly slows down this progression race will be decried as "time wasters" by people, like the one guy who posted earlier, who's sole reason for playing is to max out their character as quickly as possible.

Those earlier games gave a lot of us that world feeling but I don't think we could ever recapture that even if those games were relaunched exactly as they were back in the day.  The thing is; there was a higher percentage of people back then who hadn't yet become obsessed with maxing out as quickly as possible.  The communities were friendlier.  This was all still so new to us that we did spend a lot more time smelling the roses back then.  The games were a lot less linear and that did help immensly but ultimately I think it was the community and the newness of it all that gave it that world feeling back in the early day.  But now, I don't think there are enough of us left who haven't drunk deeply of the progression koolaid so that we could recreate that feeling again in any progression game.

The gist of this is that as long as we're locked into the progression race, burning through soon-to-be-obsolete, disposable content, we'll never have a game that feels like a world.

 

I agree. This is the problem that leads to repetative boredom.

I too want a "world", I want it to be a simulation that we can inetract with in many ways. Then I want that wolrd to be filled with fantasy (or sci-fi, or a mix), and then I want deep mysteries to unravel while we all explore that world.

I want that fantasy to be fun and entertaining. Then I want those mysteries to range from many simple, easy to solve puzzles to a few extremely hard to solve, and one major mystery revolving around that one, biggest, baddest evil that plans to conquer all that I love. I don't want repeatable mysteries that anyone can look up on the web. I want mysteries that can be documented and looked up for reference in solving more mysteries. I want a grand design behind it all, and then many unrelated smaller mysteries. I want mysteries that lead to new spells, treasures, and filling in the gaps of the lore. And when the grandest of all mysteries is solved, I want that to take years. And when it is solved, I want the revelation to lead to something massive. And when that's done, I want players to document it all, and move on to a totally new evil behind grand mysteries.

And all the while, I want to be able to "live" in a fascinating world that changes and flows with both the mysteries solved and the players actions, conquests, constructions, and dreams.

This is not too much to ask. It is quite doable.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

I don't think we could ever again get that "world" feel from a game that has endless character progression or even a significant amount of character progression.  I know that that is a tough pill for people to swallow but I really do believe it's true.  For a world game we would need a completely different paradigm; different goals and motivators.

Character progression makes worlds impossible because it chops the content up into discrete bits designed for characters of varying power and thus you cannot have a consistent world that makes sense.

Character progression means that ALL content becomes obsolete over time as your character progresses past it.

And character progression means that most people become obsessed with powering up their character to the exclusion of all else.  Anything that even slightly slows down this progression race will be decried as "time wasters" by people, like the one guy who posted earlier, who's sole reason for playing is to max out their character as quickly as possible.

Those earlier games gave a lot of us that world feeling but I don't think we could ever recapture that even if those games were relaunched exactly as they were back in the day.  The thing is; there was a higher percentage of people back then who hadn't yet become obsessed with maxing out as quickly as possible.  The communities were friendlier.  This was all still so new to us that we did spend a lot more time smelling the roses back then.  The games were a lot less linear and that did help immensly but ultimately I think it was the community and the newness of it all that gave it that world feeling back in the early day.  But now, I don't think there are enough of us left who haven't drunk deeply of the progression koolaid so that we could recreate that feeling again in any progression game.

The gist of this is that as long as we're locked into the progression race, burning through soon-to-be-obsolete, disposable content, we'll never have a game that feels like a world.

 

That is exactly why I hate the majority of "progression" in MMOs today. Levels are the major culprit in destroying the world feeling, and forcing the linear experience. You must go to this area when you are this level, that area when you are that level, and none of it matters once you reach max levels.  It's really dumb. It separates the players  by an arbitrary number floating above their head, it makes many zones completely worthless after players pass that zone's target level. Gear grinds are the exact same thing as the level grinds, just in different clothes. Content becomes useless because you don't need any gear from there any more. Players get separated by their gear. "Sorry, you aren't geared enough for this place". 

I have believed for a long time that the best game design is one that doesn't necessarily offer progression, but just fun game play. Give a brief, interactive and engaging tutorial, and then launch that new player into the world. New players should be doing the same basic things as older players. There should be a wide array of varied things to do to keep people busy. Any form of character progression should not be in a form in which would make content and areas obselete.