Originally posted by DerWotan

also if people actually think CGI movies and well made rendered animations are showing the real game they only have to blame themselves for it.

MMORPGS aren't FPS why is that so hard to understand?

 I'm not talking about CGI and pre-rendered cutscene animations.  I'm talking about gameplay, read the original post again.  I describe mass amounts of people fighting a big boss.  Surely you have seen those advertisements especially on MMORPG.com.  Right now it's Rift that's doing it for their Free week.

And what is this notion that "all MMO's have to be boring till the end, if you want fun gameplay all the way through play an FPS."  Where is that coming from?  I want to play an MMORPG all the way through and enjoy awsome combat and bosses all the way through.  Why does FPS always come up?

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

So you download the MMO, jump into gameplay and are all excited, make your character, jump in and it's so....boring.  The content they show you in the advertisement you don't get to see for over a hundred hours of playtime, and possibly just as much money to get you there too when it comes to a free MMO.  I've been suckered many times, havn't really paid but I've put many hours into a free MMO just waiting for it to get good, and it never seems to.

So you want to...start the game capped?  Not sure you'll find a lot of support for that position.

I think the OP just wants a game that is fun out of the box, and thats something a lot of games seem to not understand.

We shouldnt have to grind for 200 hours before the game becomes enjoyable to play. It should be enjoyable from level 1 and on.

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

So you download the MMO, jump into gameplay and are all excited, make your character, jump in and it's so....boring.  The content they show you in the advertisement you don't get to see for over a hundred hours of playtime, and possibly just as much money to get you there too when it comes to a free MMO.  I've been suckered many times, havn't really paid but I've put many hours into a free MMO just waiting for it to get good, and it never seems to.

So you want to...start the game capped?  Not sure you'll find a lot of support for that position.

I think the OP just wants a game that is fun out of the box, and thats something a lot of games seem to not understand.

We shouldnt have to grind for 200 hours before the game becomes enjoyable to play. It should be enjoyable from level 1 and on.

 Finally somebody who understands.

But apparently the others on this thread believe that we're silly for wanting that, we should just go play an FPS.

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

What I was really saying is why can't the game have you using awsome abilities against big awsome monsters and have the game be fun right out the get go.

Again, you're asking "why can't I see the best content immediately".

Answer:  MMO is not FPS.

 My God you have an imagination, but let me get this straight...

So your saying that all MMO's have to start with boring skills and boring bosses...because that's an MMO, your not allowed to see good stuff till the end.  That's an FPS.

Is that what your getting at?

  They have been institutionalized by the aging, and stagnant, industry.  Having been fortunate enough to play a few MMO's that actually try to go for the headshot right out of the gate...I can say this "ideal" is absolutely incorrect.  There is a place for that aspect of progression.  That place should not be, "every damn game" as it is now.  Even WoW began to add skill variety at lower levels to make more interesting early game.  Nevermind the fact WoW tried to have some pretty awesome stuff to do early game anyway.  Hell, level 10+ you could charge into a volcanic pit to bust a demon in the chops.  That pretty much owned every other game I've played to 10.  By 20 you could murder legions of dinosaurs and druids before taking down a massive, hulking incarnation of living nature. 

  I digress, my point is...there is never an excuse for breaking the rule of fun and then falling on outdated and horribly illogical excuses to make it look better.  Bad design is bad design.  Might not be a bad ideal to really review MMO combat from the ground up anyway.

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

What I was really saying is why can't the game have you using awsome abilities against big awsome monsters and have the game be fun right out the get go.

Again, you're asking "why can't I see the best content immediately".

Answer:  MMO is not FPS.

 My God you have an imagination, but let me get this straight...

So your saying that all MMO's have to start with boring skills and boring bosses...because that's an MMO, your not allowed to see good stuff till the end.  That's an FPS.

Is that what your getting at?

You keep asking why you can't have awesome abilities and fight the awesome bosses the day you start playing the game.

Yes?  We agree, first quote up there?  Is that not what you've said, several times?

And the answer is that progression-based games start out with fairly boring, simple, easy-to-learn tasks and a simple array of skills to learn.  The reason for this is New Players--really new, not MMO vet in a new game--and the game's learning curve.  Teach a total newb what all these abilities do, how to deal with banks and NPCs and a hundred minor mechanics, how to navigate, how to kill a boar without getting killed.

Following the baby-steps early content, you get the progression content.  Get bigger, get tougher, new abilities, learn those new abilities, get better equipment, become generally more capable.  This is the basic premise behind MMO (and single-player RPG) design.  A series of small short-term goals.  This is what MMOs are all about.

You want to skip the intro and progression content and go directly to the big boss and the awesome abilities.

You want a FPS game.  Really.

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by DerWotan

also if people actually think CGI movies and well made rendered animations are showing the real game they only have to blame themselves for it.

MMORPGS aren't FPS why is that so hard to understand?

 I'm not talking about CGI and pre-rendered cutscene animations.  I'm talking about gameplay, read the original post again.  I describe mass amounts of people fighting a big boss.  Surely you have seen those advertisements especially on MMORPG.com.  Right now it's Rift that's doing it for their Free week.

And what is this notion that "all MMO's have to be boring till the end, if you want fun gameplay all the way through play an FPS."  Where is that coming from?  I want to play an MMORPG all the way through and enjoy awsome combat and bosses all the way through.  Why does FPS always come up?

 Yep, thats pretty much how EVERY commercial works for ANY product.

Pretty much in EVERY mmo you start out with basic skills, basic armor, basic weapons.

You ussually wont get the flair till higher up.

But since you mention rift, when you reach lvl 6 , you know.. when you leave the starting area, you have pretty much the basic skills you will be using the remainder of the game.

Heck think of yourself, did you expect to be a shakespear on the very first day at school?

Did all those women make rush for you deeply in love when you used your Axe deoderant?

And again, its NOT false advertisement, its not even deceptive.they showed the better parts of the game, you know.. whats normal in advertisement.You just arent getting everything right off the bat..

Like I said before did you ever seen a commercial where the guy eating his sportlife chewing gun crapped his pans because it gave him diarea instead of getting the women flock all over him?

It's not free (all the time), but Rift is the only game I've played that's really been like what you're looking for - heavy action right from the start. You might not run into it in levels 1-10, but I remember jumping into my first raid around 10+, with spells everywhere, massive mobs, tons of different abilities being used - all at an early level.

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  I digress, my point is...there is never an excuse for breaking the rule of fun and then falling on outdated and horribly illogical excuses to make it look better.  Bad design is bad design.  Might not be a bad ideal to really review MMO combat from the ground up anyway.

I agree with you.  But you'll note the OP (incorrectly) decided that all games everywhere do a crappy job on leveling content.

The basics of the game design remain the same, whether the companies execute them well, or not.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

What I was really saying is why can't the game have you using awsome abilities against big awsome monsters and have the game be fun right out the get go.

Again, you're asking "why can't I see the best content immediately".

Answer:  MMO is not FPS.

 My God you have an imagination, but let me get this straight...

So your saying that all MMO's have to start with boring skills and boring bosses...because that's an MMO, your not allowed to see good stuff till the end.  That's an FPS.

Is that what your getting at?

You keep asking why you can't have awesome abilities and fight the awesome bosses the day you start playing the game.

Yes?  We agree, first quote up there?  Is that not what you've said, several times?

And the answer is that progression-based games start out with fairly boring, simple, easy-to-learn tasks and a simple array of skills to learn.  The reason for this is New Players--really new, not MMO vet in a new game--and the game's learning curve.  Teach a total newb what all these abilities do, how to deal with banks and NPCs and a hundred minor mechanics, how to navigate, how to kill a boar without getting killed.

Following the baby-steps early content, you get the progression content.  Get bigger, get tougher, new abilities, learn those new abilities, get better equipment, become generally more capable.  This is the basic premise behind MMO (and single-player RPG) design.  A series of small short-term goals.  This is what MMOs are all about.

You want to skip the intro and progression content and go directly to the big boss and the awesome abilities.

You want a FPS game.  Really.

  Repeating that line isn't actually making an arguement.  If his point is to skip the dung-filled into of most MMO games...then an FPS is not the answer.  An MMO that requires less intro is the answer.  Or a more visually stimulating and rewarding intro.  City of Heroes is a pretty good example, at least on Villain side.  The intro of that involved busting out of a prison.  While slinging bullets, fireballs, and possibly jetpacking over gates and buildings.  Awesome game.  D&D felt pretty good too, but I'm bias on that so I won't swear by the honesty of this.

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

So you download the MMO, jump into gameplay and are all excited, make your character, jump in and it's so....boring.  The content they show you in the advertisement you don't get to see for over a hundred hours of playtime, and possibly just as much money to get you there too when it comes to a free MMO.  I've been suckered many times, havn't really paid but I've put many hours into a free MMO just waiting for it to get good, and it never seems to.

So you want to...start the game capped?  Not sure you'll find a lot of support for that position.

I think the OP just wants a game that is fun out of the box, and thats something a lot of games seem to not understand.

We shouldnt have to grind for 200 hours before the game becomes enjoyable to play. It should be enjoyable from level 1 and on.

 Finally somebody who understands.

But apparently the others on this thread believe that we're silly for wanting that, we should just go play an FPS.

Games are fun out of the box, they become more interesting as you progress though.

But again since you mention Rift, getting to the point where you have access to pretty much all the class-soul defining skills takes under 30 minutes.

Getting to the max lvl 1-5days played, depending on how knowlageble you are of the game.

What you are discribing is not deception. The game just isnt your cup of tea.

I dont like the taste of  7up so did the advertisement deceave me?

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by slicknslim88

So you download the MMO, jump into gameplay and are all excited, make your character, jump in and it's so....boring.  The content they show you in the advertisement you don't get to see for over a hundred hours of playtime, and possibly just as much money to get you there too when it comes to a free MMO.  I've been suckered many times, havn't really paid but I've put many hours into a free MMO just waiting for it to get good, and it never seems to.

So you want to...start the game capped?  Not sure you'll find a lot of support for that position.

I think the OP just wants a game that is fun out of the box, and thats something a lot of games seem to not understand.

We shouldnt have to grind for 200 hours before the game becomes enjoyable to play. It should be enjoyable from level 1 and on.

 Finally somebody who understands.

But apparently the others on this thread believe that we're silly for wanting that, we should just go play an FPS.

I have to agree with "them" if they mean they dont want to see something as epic as you will see after a hundred hours played. If your first encounter is some epic demigod it means you need to have that kind of encounters all the time or the "epicness" and fun goes downhill pretty quickly after the launch. Movie trailers show big explosives and cool car chases but rarely the movie begins with the mushroomcloud. Having mushroomclouds every 30 seconds from the beginning in the movie makes it just as boring as no mushroomclouds at all, imo.

Enjoyment in the game should come from somewhere else in the beginning than just a huge epic "end of the world" god encounter :)

Originally posted by Gishgeron

 Repeating that line isn't actually making an arguement.  If his point is to skip the dung-filled into of most MMO games...then an FPS is not the answer.  An MMO that requires less intro is the answer.  Or a more visually stimulating and rewarding intro.  City of Heroes is a pretty good example, at least on Villain side.  The intro of that involved busting out of a prison.  While slinging bullets, fireballs, and possibly jetpacking over gates and buildings.  Awesome game.  D&D felt pretty good too, but I'm bias on that so I won't swear by the honesty of this.

You are proposing that MMO companies make newb-unfriendly games (and many MMO vets make the same proposition).  For a company making a game, however, that basically amoumts to cutting your own throat.

CoV's intro did not involve bosses, and you had exactly two abilities on your bar at the end of it. 

That isn't what the OP asked for.  He asked for awesome bosses with the player having awesome abilities.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  I digress, my point is...there is never an excuse for breaking the rule of fun and then falling on outdated and horribly illogical excuses to make it look better.  Bad design is bad design.  Might not be a bad ideal to really review MMO combat from the ground up anyway.

I agree with you.  But you'll note the OP (incorrectly) decided that all games everywhere do a crappy job on leveling content.

The basics of the game design remain the same, whether the companies execute them well, or not.

  Almost all games DO fail on leveling content.  Those that do NOT fail, merely succeed by comparison.  When you compare a single player game (console or otherwise) against MMO gaming, it becomes even more clear.  The single titles really try to push the bar on how awesome early game is.  Rental weighs into that, a bad early game equals massive sales lost.  The standards are much higher in that market.  The bar there has long been pushed.  MMO's are much younger, and had far less forward motion until the recent years.  The market is still being felt out, but its resisted from a design point.  Bear with me.

  In both markets, money is the driving force, (obviously).  For solo games, that means really pushing every ounce of fun into the game from the word go so that you are competitive.  The MMO market operates AGAINST that logic because if you can gate the fun, the player must pay longer.  Men in suits aren't dumb to this.  Its a fine line that must be walked, but its not a sign of good design in any way or form.  The very pricing model for MMO gaming is forcing it to be stagnant.

  In short, the genre is actually geared against fun.  Its not as obvious now as it once was...but the stigma will remain attached until we detach ourselves from it.  We must admit there is fault in the design core.  Early game should be amazing.  It should melt your mind with its dazzling array of goodness.  As should every inch of the design.  This is not the case.  Worse, it is advertised in complete disregard of that.  That is the point of this whole thing.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Gishgeron

 Repeating that line isn't actually making an arguement.  If his point is to skip the dung-filled into of most MMO games...then an FPS is not the answer.  An MMO that requires less intro is the answer.  Or a more visually stimulating and rewarding intro.  City of Heroes is a pretty good example, at least on Villain side.  The intro of that involved busting out of a prison.  While slinging bullets, fireballs, and possibly jetpacking over gates and buildings.  Awesome game.  D&D felt pretty good too, but I'm bias on that so I won't swear by the honesty of this.

You are proposing that MMO companies make newb-unfriendly games (and many MMO vets make the same proposition).  For a company making a game, however, that basically amoumts to cutting your own throat.

CoV's intro did not involve bosses, and you had exactly two abilities on your bar at the end of it. 

That isn't what the OP asked for.  He asked for awesome bosses with the player having awesome abilities.

  The problem I have with your stance is that I can, as an uneducated member far removed from the inside of the industry, think of at least one solution without even trying to develop it in any way.  Offer a slightly larger skillset, but with greatly reduced challenge in early bosses.  Then provide a Hard Mode with increased rewards to these bosses to engage the higher tier player.

Originally posted by Kuinn

Enjoyment in the game should come from somewhere else in the beginning than just a huge epic "end of the world" god encounter :)

I can agree with that.  It's possible to make some fairly epic intro missions, CoV's intro mission was not bad.  But before you got to that Breakout mission, you had roughly half a dozen really minor "learn how these buttons work" missions for the new kids.

That's a pretty fine line to walk; some baby-steps stuff, and then an "epic" first mission when the new toon has only a very few abilities.

MMO vets find baby-steps early content simple and boring.  There's nothing really surprising about that.

But that content has to be in the early game somewhere.

It's funny how you guys (aside from the OP) think it's normal for MMORPG's to suck for the first 1-50 hours of gameplay. When you go on a date do you tell your her/him "sorry, but we have to be bored for the first 30 minutes, then we can have fun"?

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  The problem I have with your stance is that I can, as an uneducated member far removed from the inside of the industry, think of at least one solution without even trying to develop it in any way.  Offer a slightly larger skillset, but with greatly reduced challenge in early bosses.  Then provide a Hard Mode with increased rewards to these bosses to engage the higher tier player.

And as I said upthread, most games do indeed fail to some degree or other on their early content--but then most of us can't think like a confused, lost New Player any more.

I'm a fan of skippable tutorials (like CoX)--you can start the game at L6 if you're a vet and you want to skip the baby steps, and I have no issue at all with that.  WoW overhauled their entire first release of the game to include some new capabilities and more interesting quests, that works for me too.  Even the shortcut to a "veteran" character at mid-level (see: Death Knight) doesn't bother me much.

But you can't ever forget about the new players that don't have so much MMO experience that they can jump straight into a new game and figure out what they need to do without instructions.

There's a giant boss fight in Guild Wars 2 while you're still level 1. The whole game is jam packed with dynamic events; exploding bridges, towns on fire, giant dragons etc. Even your level one abilities light up the screen with effects. Is that what you're looking for? I'll pass. Maybe its a generational gap. I just don't feel the need to be bombarded with actiony stuff all the time in my mmos. Fighting Games are my favorite genre. I love fast paced combat and action. But in an mmo? No thanks.

Originally posted by Tazlor

It's funny how you guys (aside from the OP) think it's normal for MMORPG's to suck for the first 1-50 hours of gameplay. When you go on a date do you tell your her/him "sorry, but we have to be bored for the first 30 minutes, then we can have fun"?

 We dont, and its highly uncommon for mmos to DO suck till lvl 50(or what ever the cap is). Most games offer new skills fairly fast and ussually betwine 10-30 minutes you do have access to the base abilities of the class. Later on you still get some new ones, though most are either alternative or upgraded skills.

What is deceptive is the Tittle and the way the OP discribes the problem. The game nor the advertisement arent the problem.

The game just is NOT his taste. There a difference.

Same principle applies to Cola and 7up, I dont like 7up. I can post a symulair thread as the OP about that.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  The problem I have with your stance is that I can, as an uneducated member far removed from the inside of the industry, think of at least one solution without even trying to develop it in any way.  Offer a slightly larger skillset, but with greatly reduced challenge in early bosses.  Then provide a Hard Mode with increased rewards to these bosses to engage the higher tier player.

And as I said upthread, most games do indeed fail to some degree or other on their early content--but then most of us can't think like a confused, lost New Player any more.

I'm a fan of skippable tutorials (like CoX)--you can start the game at L6 if you're a vet and you want to skip the baby steps, and I have no issue at all with that.  WoW overhauled their entire first release of the game to include some new capabilities and more interesting quests, that works for me too.  Even the shortcut to a "veteran" character at mid-level (see: Death Knight) doesn't bother me much.

But you can't ever forget about the new players that don't have so much MMO experience that they can jump straight into a new game and figure out what they need to do without instructions.

  No, you certainly cannot.  I wouldn't think to argue against that.  But most of the gameplay is heavily based on trying to get you to stick around until the fun begins.  You have to realize that the console market has new players as well, and I cannot recall one in recent years that failed in early game as badly as most MMO's do.  Clearly there is separation there in design that we aren't seeing, and I'm placing all bets on the pricing model being at its rotten core.