Originally posted by zaxtor99

We see it all the time.

A hot new mmorpg launches. And you grab it at your local department store or game store a day or two after its launch day. You've been anxious to try this game forever it seems!

You install it, it updates...

You log into a character creation screen and spend some good time creating your virtual hero. It's "fun" to make his/her stats just as you desire, to make him/her look just like you imagine.

And you lean back relaxing in your desk chair as you log into this new and vast open world.

You don't even move your character for several long seconds as you just take in the graphical beauty that you see. You see NPC dogs and cats scattering about. Amazingly life-like birds flying off of nearby tree branches, and the clouds off in the distance look so real, make you feel as if a real storm is coming in. You have been logged in for just a couple of moments and are already getting sucked in. Wow, just wow.

It isn't until that moment that something else can take you OUT of this virtual masterpiece. It's the sight of seeing other people also logging into this world where you stand in awe. You watch them. All of them. Do they take even a few seconds as you have to look at their new world? To maybe read the help windows showing them how to play the game? Do they even notice that storm on the horizon or the birds realistic manners? The answer to all these questions for every new avatar you see logging in is an almost rudely screaming "HELL NO!".

They all do it. They IMMEDIATELY run for the edge of town. For the first quest in town. They hack away at the level 1 mobs and too quickly try to take down that level 3 mob. They are in a HURRY! RUSH! RUSH! ..get that quest and GO! Get that mob and loot it without even noticing what the heck it is you just looted!! LOOT ALL! SELL! ATTACK! TURN in QUEST!! RUSH! RUSH!

This facet of mmo games today is what truly can kill the mood in my opinion, no matter how much attention to detail the company put into the game. Nobody wants to just 'relax' and have fun anymore. And I don't really understand it. Why do people want to go buy a game like this and spend hours just trying so hard trying to RACE to max level or to RACE to max out their crafting skills? - Doesn't ANYONE out there still want to have FUN and ENJOY this mmo that was in development for the past six years!??

I've been in groups before where people care less about the chat and talk within. They complain that they are leveling up too slowly. But you're having fun! Who cares if we don't the perfect group compilation as you've already figured out. No we shouldn't kick that second mage out rudely just to get a Paladin in here! But nobody listens. The group breaks up because nobody else is happy unless they are gaining at least 67,000 experience per hour. They are gonna skip real life dinner and eat pizza at their computer so that they can be level 13 before 8pm. They've all got it figured out!

{{ Sigh... }}

Perhaps this is one reason why nobody can seem to find that "perfect mmo" any more. Perhaps we ALL have forgotten how to actually take whatever world it is, and actually have "fun". So what if the game doesn't have your idea of the perfect PvP or skill sets. It can still be a heck of a lot of 'fun' if we just allow our mindsets to change a little. Perhaps we don't all need to figure the game out so much that we feel like we have the most perfect avatar with the most perfect choices for advancement and gear. Couldn't we all just learn to kick back, relax, and take in the masterful beauty that we might see within one of these worlds without getting mad at the game because the level advancement is too slow for our taste?

Are we all really becoming mmo power levelers somewhere inside and making these games work instead of a place to enjoy and have fun?

I know people want their style of game. I get that. But it doesn't matter what game I play anymore. Every mmo from Darkfall to Rift is exactly the same. There is a lot of fun to be had in both of these games and all 300 mmo games between them. I really think that most of us have forgotten that aspect. Maybe, just maybe we should change US and how we act/play these games before worrying about how these games need to be more how we want them to be.

That's all I am saying. And I'm talking as much to myself here as anyone else.

Breathe. Look at the detail in those blades of grass blowing in the wind and those rugged snow capped mountains in the distance. WoW. Take it in, slow down, you don't need to be max level by this weekend for crying out loud. Let's learn to PLAY and have something called FUN again in all these amazing new worlds we have available today huh?

Just a random thought.

- Zaxx

 Dear Sir -

I 100%, whole-heartedly, without-a-doubt agree with what you are saying here.  You are the type of player I wish to group with.  Will you be playing SWTOR?  If so, we need to hook up on the same server.  By the way, do you play RIFT?  I have a guild called <Days Of Yore> http://doy.guildlaunch.com which appears to fit right up your alley.  Our motto is "WE DO NOT RUSH".

PM me!

To the OP:

That is a sad destiny that Genre is heading to as a whole. End-game is major part of all new MMORPGs despite it being only the sorry 10% of the game. I dont know how, but communities of today's MMORPGs started to care very very much about capped-out levels and gear, about Gear Score or w/e, about many achievement as possible, about having most possible things in shortest time. Hence the complaining about lacking of endgame, and about to little stuff to do on max level.

Like some guy above said it all about the score, or having as many digits as possible, where no one pays any attention to actuall worlds lore, background story, factions, characters or whatever.

On a side note, I had found it defeatening how 95% of community didnt knew about Pandarens untill WoW's MoP announcement, for brightest example. (i know this is a little bit off-topic, but i hope i can prove my point with this)

MMORPG'S  used mean to me, "hey im in this awesome world and look there are all these other awesome people in this world with me..lets see whats going on in that group of people over there".  Now it's "i wish that jerk would stop killing those boars i need them to turn in my one thousand quest for that uber anti-social achievement.

OP is making me nostalgic, and I agree with him/her.

Seems that by the time I've carefully crafted my character, everyone else is at the level cap before I even log in.

There is also the obvious connection between the leveling/end-game impatience and the rise of MOBAs and other lobby-based games. Both are legitimate modes of play, of course, but for a UO vet like myself, I despair seeing the living worlds replaced by waiting room parlours.

Originally posted by nerovipus32

MMORPG'S  used mean to me, "hey im in this awesome world and look there are all these other awesome people in this world with me..lets see whats going on in that group of people over there".  Now it's "i wish that jerk would stop killing those boars i need them to turn in my one thousand quest for that uber anti-social achievement.

Well said :).

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by nerovipus32

Developers need to stop focusing on end game content and appeasing the small percentage of players that run it and instead create more lateral content.

I agree.

The entire concept of "end game" is just a side effect of trying to graft a standard SPRPG campaign and leveling system (which must be finite) onto an MMORPG.

Resulting in a game then ends up so top-heavy in terms of population levels, that the main game gets ignored in favor of the level-cap oriented endgame?  Hence the perception that the game actually begins at level-cap and the mentality that the game itself is to be rushed through as a mere tutorial?

---

Originally posted by MMOPlaya
Dear Sir -
I 100%, whole-heartedly, without-a-doubt agree with what you are saying here.  You are the type of player I wish to group with.  Will you be playing SWTOR?  If so, we need to hook up on the same server.  By the way, do you play RIFT?  I have a guild called <Days Of Yore> http://doy.guildlaunch.com which appears to fit right up your alley.  Our motto is "WE DO NOT RUSH".
PM me!

---

Thank you for your kind compliment.

However I played RIFT during its Beta stages and while it had amazing graphics and all, I did find that game even more mainstream then even World of Warcraft. While I could have fun in a game like RIFT with the right friends/people, I prefer a more old school mmo personally. The only game I currently play is Darkfall which I consider the closest thing we have today to a modern version of Ultima Online. I have had a ton of fun in Darkfall to be honest. :-)

- Zaxx

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Mendel

There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.

 

Originally posted by Creslin321

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...

I agree, I was oversimplifying it.  I think you are right that questing was done with the motivation of reducing the grind as well.  In fact, I remember loving questing when it first game out, I thought it was amazing.

It wasn't until a while after that I realized what it had done to the game.

 

 

At first there was a lot more group questing too though. EQ2 in particular was largely group questing. But eventually the players(majority) asked for less group requirements.

I like questing, but I think its becoming a little too simplified. The quests should be longer, the new 1-60 quests on WoW are actually done nicely with phasing, they have a large story arc and usually end with some kind of boss fight. Its not perfect, but its better.

Group questing has its own problems though.  Namely it's very difficult to find a group of people that happen to be similar to your level, happen to be at the same point in a quest chain, and just happen to be online and in the same area at the same time.

As for phasing...if you're going to do this, then why not just make it an SPRPG or CORPG?  That's essentially what phasing is moving towards.  You only share the world with people that you happen to be at the same point in the quest line with.

IMO, quests should not be tied to the PLAYER.  They should all be tied to the WORLD.  When a quest is complete, it's complete for the whole world.  Sure, it can repeat later, but you won't have any of this nonsense where 10 players are waiting in a line to wipe out the same gnoll camp.

I totally, totally agree with the idea that quests are tied to the world, not the player.  That's bugged me forever.

And tieing the quest to the world would work much better for group quests  Much like the communal quests in games like Warhammer, only much more difficult and far less frequent.

Imagine the following.  One day, the town crier begins announcing a 'traveler advisory' -- an unusually high number of wolf prowling around the local community.  And the wolves come in all varieties of challenge levels -- they threaten not just newbies but veterans -- packs of 2-30 wolves roaming together.  Two game days later, the wolf spawns increase and the town council starts offering a bounty on wolf pelts -- money and XP for wolf pelts of various quality.   Merchants fear for their lives and close all their shops.  Groups of wolves rampage around the town and try to kill the NPC merchants if not opposed.  The third or fourth game day, news comes in from an outlying farm of large numbers of wolves gathering.  The other outlying farms need to be notified.  The wolf leaders need to be opposed.  Once some number of game days pass (or a very high number of wolves are killed by the community), the event ends and life returns to normal.

An 'event' like this could spawn several world-level quests -- the bounty,  go warn the Barable farmhold, go warn the Murchanson farmhold,  help protect the shepherds as they move their sheep from the high fields into the barns, fight the wolf leader, etc.  Each quest is a once per world.   The concerned councilman will send 1 person to warn each outlying farm.  If they aren't back in a specific time, they will re-issue the quest to someone else.  They NPC guards will want extra wood collected for bonfires, and the local NPCs will want wood themselves.

But, like I've said many times before.  Ideas are easy; implementing them isn't.

I once played a game where average-time-to-cap was measured in years, even decades.

I once went an entire year without gaining a level, and had a blast doing it.

And yet I do not see powergaming as inherently evil.  It's a simple taste preference.  They paid their bucks, more power to 'em, enjoying themselves how they like it best.

Being adaptable is much easier than trying to force other people to follow your rules of gamer ethics.

Originally posted by Mendel

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Mendel

There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.

 

Originally posted by Creslin321

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...

...

Group questing has its own problems though.  Namely it's very difficult to find a group of people that happen to be similar to your level, happen to be at the same point in a quest chain, and just happen to be online and in the same area at the same time.

As for phasing...if you're going to do this, then why not just make it an SPRPG or CORPG?  That's essentially what phasing is moving towards.  You only share the world with people that you happen to be at the same point in the quest line with.

IMO, quests should not be tied to the PLAYER.  They should all be tied to the WORLD.  When a quest is complete, it's complete for the whole world.  Sure, it can repeat later, but you won't have any of this nonsense where 10 players are waiting in a line to wipe out the same gnoll camp.

I totally, totally agree with the idea that quests are tied to the world, not the player.  That's bugged me forever.

And tieing the quest to the world would work much better for group quests  Much like the communal quests in games like Warhammer, only much more difficult and far less frequent.

Imagine the following.  One day, the town crier begins announcing a 'traveler advisory' -- an unusually high number of wolf prowling around the local community.  And the wolves come in all varieties of challenge levels -- they threaten not just newbies but veterans -- packs of 2-30 wolves roaming together.  Two game days later, the wolf spawns increase and the town council starts offering a bounty on wolf pelts -- money and XP for wolf pelts of various quality.   Merchants fear for their lives and close all their shops.  Groups of wolves rampage around the town and try to kill the NPC merchants if not opposed.  The third or fourth game day, news comes in from an outlying farm of large numbers of wolves gathering.  The other outlying farms need to be notified.  The wolf leaders need to be opposed.  Once some number of game days pass (or a very high number of wolves are killed by the community), the event ends and life returns to normal.

An 'event' like this could spawn several world-level quests -- the bounty,  go warn the Barable farmhold, go warn the Murchanson farmhold,  help protect the shepherds as they move their sheep from the high fields into the barns, fight the wolf leader, etc.  Each quest is a once per world.   The concerned councilman will send 1 person to warn each outlying farm.  If they aren't back in a specific time, they will re-issue the quest to someone else.  They NPC guards will want extra wood collected for bonfires, and the local NPCs will want wood themselves.

But, like I've said many times before.  Ideas are easy; implementing them isn't.

Good post, we're obvioulsy on the same wave length :).  What you describe is basically my greatest dream for quests as well.

But as you say, I think we're probably a while away from getting that.  That said, I do think that GW2 is moving in the right direction with dynamic events.  It's not perfect, but it's progress!

Originally posted by Icewhite

Being adaptable is much easier than trying to force other people to follow your rules of gamer ethics.

Not a rag on you personally, but to the comment in general...it's funny...because almost all players now try and force their style of play on the smaller majority of us who ask for even one MMO that has old school features in them.

They are selfish too...because they gripe why we'd want something like that that has longer advancement curves and death penalties...and tell us how craptastic it is and how whatever said game we have hopes for being like that better not be or THEY won't play it. Instead of basking in the glory of the dozens of games that cater to their preferred style already and letting some have even one smaller niche MMO that caters to them, they want ALL of them to be like what they want and disregard or flame anyone who wants otherwise and tell us to comform or gtfo.

I know personally if all MMO's to date were long on advancement and had death penalties with meaning, etc, and these basically single-player RPG wanna-be MMO models  we have currently were the minority and a small crowd asked for one MMO to cater to them...I'd give them my blessing. Why? Because I am not greedy or selfish, and have plenty of them to choose from for me to play as it is (If this scenario were the case). But most players now rush through each MMO trying to outdo everyone else and burn themselevs out fast on them...so they are constantly unsatisfied and searching for the next MMO to race through in their futile hopes of being "1st" or the best and most famous (Or pathetic depending on how you look at it). There for, don't care what anyone else wants. Especially if it is something that may take them longer to be top dog in. It's sad.

And even the smaller crowd who want old school type MMO features would still earn a company profit that took the chance. There are PLENTY of players looking for this type of game.  Just not the stupid large profits all companies are blinded into trying to get following WoW's model more than likely...hence the billion cookie cutter MMO's we have today....and failing for the most part might I add.

Originally posted by Creslin321

IMO, quests should not be tied to the PLAYER.  They should all be tied to the WORLD.  When a quest is complete, it's complete for the whole world.  Sure, it can repeat later, but you won't have any of this nonsense where 10 players are waiting in a line to wipe out the same gnoll camp.

I completely agree.

Originally posted by Icewhite

I once played a game where average-time-to-cap was measured in years, even decades.

I once went an entire year without gaining a level, and had a blast doing it.

And yet I do not see powergaming as inherently evil.  It's a simple taste preference.  They paid their bucks, more power to 'em, enjoying themselves how they like it best.

Being adaptable is much easier than trying to force other people to follow your rules of gamer ethics.

I don't think it is out of line to ask that a game or two cater a bit to the casual, let's relax and enjoy the journey, gamer.  Games cater to the raider, the soloist, crafters, even the PVP crowds.  I don't want to change their game style, like you said, if they enjoy that style, good for them.  But asking for a game to provide different experiences for those that want out-of-the-ordinary game experiences doesn't seem like an extreme thing.

I just want to point out in todays mmo's there's not really anything fun related for lower leveled players so some try and level as fast as possible to get to the fun content.

Also like other players have said, once you make a tenth toon you've already seen the "beauty" of the game nine other previous times so you just want to level up to the good stuff!

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by Creslin321

...

The design may contribute but it's not the only factor to consider. If anything the Themepark ideal should have players taking their time reading the stories, learning lore, seeking an understanding of what's going on in that world, etc... Yet the average player's opinion is story isn't important, at least the vocal player's opinions.

If that's the consensus it's not the Devs fault, as they try and give you a connection to the world. If players truly think the only thing that matters in an MMO is reaching end-game to raid or PVP the fault lies with them, not devs. It seems in a lot of cases this is the underlying factor of why they rush to endgame, as they don't enjoy anything but those two activities.

Just look at the responses above one guy didn't take the time to read any of the OP, yet rushed to comment as if he had to. Another states he only has a half an hour to play, as well as he's being charged so he rushes through these games. If this is the average player mentality what else could be the result but a bunch of people rushing around? And how does that fall into the devs lap as being at fault pertaining to this issue?

IF anything older MMO's gave you more of a reason to get to end-game because in a lot of cases you really couldn't do much until you were capped, besides grind out mobs or trash craftables.You weren't building a city or tackling interesting content until you were at the level to be able to do so. New MMO's actually give you multiple activities to take part in on your way up. Yet people still rush through because they are conditioned to think the game starts at end-game.

 

 

A few things here...

First, AAA MMORPGs have to make so many quests that each individual quest typically winds up being incredibly droll and repetitive.  I usually just skim them...they just aren't interesting.  And the fact that you're doing a single player quest in a shared world means that your quest will never actually change the world (unless you have phasing) making it even less interesting.

Second, how is "learning about the world" through quests and such any different than what you could do in a single player game?  I don't think it's different at all, in fact I think it's inferior to a single player game because in an SP game your quest can actually affect the world.

I just don't think MMORPGs should be about everyone having their own instanced quest line and being the hero of their own little pocket dimension.  As I said in my previous post, the WORLD is what makes an MMORPG unique, but devs seem to rail against this concept.  They try to just "force" a traditional single player quest line into the shared world instead of actually trying to utilize the shared world to make a good game.

You only replied to one tiny segment of my post though, there's a lot more to what i said than the subject of questing systems.

Originally posted by Goatgod76

They are selfish too...because they gripe why we'd want something like that that has longer advancement curves and death penalties...and tell us how craptastic it is

I would just point out that the old games with those features still exist. :shrug:

Originally posted by Razeekster

I just want to point out in todays mmo's there's not really anything fun related for lower leveled players so some try and level as fast as possible to get to the fun content.

Also like other players have said, once you make a tenth toon you've already seen the "beauty" of the game nine other previous times so you just want to level up to the good stuff!

So a question for you...

...if you're on your tenth toon - how much good stuff was there actually?

Perhaps if there was actually good stuff - you might only have one or two toons?  Or you might have more, but none of them at the level cap?

There is a quirky cycle there:

• Must get to endgame, that's all that matters.  This other stuff is boring.
• Endgame is kind of boring.  I'm going to roll another toon.
• Man, this stuff is so boring.  Must get to endgame, that's all that matters.
• Dev's put less work into the start and middle.
• Endgame is kind of boring.  I'm going to roll another toon.
• Man, this stuff is even more boring.  Must get to endgame, that's all that matters.
• Endgame is kind of boring.  I'm going to roll another toon.
• Dev's reduce the time it takes to get to endgame.
• Man, glad this is faster - cause this is so boring.  Must get to endgame, that's all that matters.
• Endgame is kind of boring.  I can't roll another toon.  This game sucks.  There's nothing to do in the game.

I just think its two different play-styles, I've done both personally and they both have their advantages and disadvantages. But thinking about the percentages of people in the world, I would suspect more people would have the RUSH RUSH mentality (evolutionary trait?) than those who want to take the slow road and smell the roses along the way. So I think games are catered to the RUSH RUSHers because they are the majority.

If you want a non-RUSH RUSH game, Indie, small market and older games are good choices... OR play with a group of friends with the same ideals as you. My problem is my friends are all RUSH RUSHers and I'm not. But I like playing games with my friends so I tend to RUSH RUSH with them and I don't enjoy the games as much as I could because its not my play-style.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by Hedeon

someone placed a singleplayer game in your virtual world m8

 

This..

 

It's sad really, you are playing a singleplayer game with "lobby" chat with others until you get to max level then it's multiplay.

MMORPG is dead MSPC ( Massivly SinglePlayers Chat) is born.

Yep I agree.  It's funny because there was a thread for "why are you interested in MMORPGs?"  And one poster said that they were interested because MMORPGs let them chat with people while they played...

Couldn't this just be accomplished by integrating an IRC client into a regular RPG?

Tagging this response for later use in future "There's no socializing/community" threads.

I was thinking of buying Skyrim for my PS3 next week, but after thinking about it and for the exact reasons that I started this thread, I would be much wiser to wait a day or two after it launches and buy the game used for $20 less on Craigslist, hehe. Afterall, imagine all the people that will beat the game in a matter of days and be "bored" with it, even though the devs say over 300 hours of content is packed into the game.

- Zaxx