I think of mmo's as world simulators, so if people run out of things to do in a month or two and are bored, its the game's fault for failing to live up to the expectations of the genre.

If finishing all the quests 'finishes' the mmo, then it wasn't much of an mmo.

The community and world should provide the bulk of the content. If the game doesn't support that then the game is a failure, imo.

Originally posted by uidCaustic

Been playing since about 3 days after release.  I have a lvl 28 sniper ( 200 armormech, 190+ gathering skills, lvl 23 valor ) and a lvl 12 marauder ( 300 slicing ).  I enjoy, ENJOYING games instead of the rushing to the end to be "bored" with the other "31337" "n00b hating" "pro-gamerZZz".

It's a simple idea, play for a few hours when you get home from work, spend time with your girl/boyfriend/wife, cook and enjoy dinner, get some house work done, play for a few more hours... theeeeennnnn goto bed!

Or rush to the end of the game and blame BioWare for your failed life choices.

Whichever you prefer.

I actually like your comment. Although, this won't apply to everyone. But I understand it perfectly. Level progression is not something I would wanna do for 2 months to get to the end game, so I agree with what you said.

I for one haven't played SWTOR yet, mainly because BioWare decided to block IP addresses of my country (Iran), and lock up Iranian gamers who love MMORPG out of SWTOR. I don't want to bore you with my whining about the issue and say that the people who want to play SWTOR are actually those who pay for a legal copy of it and subscribe to the game using gamecards and stuff, so I skip this part and go to my personal experience with my early days of WoW which happened to be during the TBC era.

LOL at all the 'walked to school barefoot in the snow up hill both ways' crowd here. Yeah, your generation was SO much better..... :rolleyes:

/getoffmylawn

This guy obviously had no clue about themeparks, he even said hes a sandbox player.  The reason people rush to endgame now in WoW is because leveling isnt fun after your first max level, its boring and stupid.  I found SWTOR's leveling to be very fun and just hit cap like an hour ago but im hoping that replay value stays with all characters [ which is should because unique storylines and new decisions. Bottom line is- Unless You make leveling stupid fun and add much more content to it then the current gen of themeparks have, there will always be content locusts.

@ dredphyre

Yes, our generation was so much better. Thank you for acknowledging it!

Originally posted by kakasaki

@ dredphyre

 

Yes, our generation was so much better. Thank you for acknowledging it!

 

Probably went to the beach because no one was playing Bingo anymore...

Originally posted by Paradigm68

I think of mmo's as world simulators, so if people run out of things to do in a month or two and are bored, its the game's fault for failing to live up to the expectations of the genre.

If finishing all the quests 'finishes' the mmo, then it wasn't much of an mmo.

The community and world should provide the bulk of the content. If the game doesn't support that then the game is a failure, imo.

 

I think this is the problem with most current MMOs - they make no pretense to being a virtual world.

Seriously, isn't the persistent world, with a persistent community in that world, the most defining feature of an MMO, in contrast to other RPGs?

Game designers spend millions of dollars to design worlds where hundreds or thousands of players all coexist, and the only thing they can come up with to take advantage of that burgeoning e-society is gear grinds in instances?  When boiled down, that's all that most themepark MMOs provide.

Regarding the article, I agree that leveling speed, and pacing in general (including the pacing on instance rewards) is too fast.  Still, I think back to the release of Aion, where one of the biggest complaints was that it leveled too slowly.  Go figure.

The article sums up my feelings pretty well.

This game was another perfect example of how creating a scenerio in which my characters feel totally disposable by offering insanely fast levelling speed, very little content and zero challenge leads to me quickly feeling it's also a  disposable game.

I'm not tied to my level 50 battlemaster. He's of  very little worth to me and I didn't get to spend much time with him before running out of things worth doing.  I hardly even got to play this character before he'd seen all the operations & flashpoints on hard mode (where available) and was dripping in the best gear available.

Now what? I bit the bullet and tried making an alt, and toughed it out to 36 before I was convinced the game had nothing more to offer me. I was just playing through most of these quests just a week or two ago, that's a bit too soon to swallow them all over again.

Perhaps if there was the option of a less forced path of progression open world dynamics would suffice as content and encourage me to carry on. But there isn't. The world clearly only exists as a place for them to drop their click 10 jug stories in, not for me to adventure in. Plus you'd be shooting yourself in the foot in terms of crafting and companions if you dared to stray from the story they're forcing on you.

It's amazing the lengths themeparks go to creating content only for it to pale in comparison to games that had less linear paths and far less content yet managed to keep me coming back for years due to simple open world dynamics, interactions and the fact they were worlds I could have *MY* adventures in. The dynamics inherent in an open world mmo (pre-instanced/no forced path) would be a great thing to see revisited with modern technology.

This game absolutely proved to me without a doubt that MMOs in which I can have my own experiences that lead to great stories in and of themselves are far better than ones that strictly force you to play through someone elses story; even when that story is provided by the so called kings of rpg story.

Story as the fourth pillar is clearly not a sustainable form of content for anyone intending to play the game as a long term hobby and also failed to make me feel he was *my* character, to be honest it felt like I was renting him. 

It's a shame. I wasn't as over the moon about SWG as some of its true and dedicated fans were, and yet I got NINE months out of that one.

Can we go back to having good MMOs now?

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by Paradigm68

I think of mmo's as world simulators, so if people run out of things to do in a month or two and are bored, its the game's fault for failing to live up to the expectations of the genre.

If finishing all the quests 'finishes' the mmo, then it wasn't much of an mmo.

The community and world should provide the bulk of the content. If the game doesn't support that then the game is a failure, imo.

 

 

I think this is the problem with most current MMOs - they make no pretense to being a virtual world.

Seriously, isn't the persistent world, with a persistent community in that world, the most defining feature of an MMO, in contrast to other RPGs?

Game designers spend millions of dollars to design worlds where hundreds or thousands of players all coexist, and the only thing they can come up with to take advantage of that burgeoning e-society is gear grinds in instances?  When boiled down, that's all that most themepark MMOs provide.

Regarding the article, I agree that leveling speed, and pacing in general (including the pacing on instance rewards) is too fast.  Still, I think back to the release of Aion, where one of the biggest complaints was that it leveled too slowly.  Go figure.

For me the problem with Aion was, yes levelling took a long time, but I was only aware of it because I was spending the entire time walking down a predetermined hallway path of repetative tasks.

I can say with certainty that if the game world was open and allowed for me to progress outside of their predefined path, by exploring, adventuring, hunting and delving into dungeons, levelling speed wouldn't have been on my mind.

To be honest I didn't even mind that it was slow, I minded that it was a slow walk down a long tedious hallway. 

Originally posted by Dredphyre

LOL at all the 'walked to school barefoot in the snow up hill both ways' crowd here. Yeah, your generation was SO much better..... :rolleyes:

 

/getoffmylawn

You don't know the half of it. We didn't tell you about the wolves because your school psychologist didn't think it was a good idea.

Originally posted by Laserwolf

Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.

I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended.  How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?

 

 

You know you don't have to come to this article with an agenda.  Skill based systems are not better or worse; its just a different style.

Originally posted by Angier2758

Originally posted by Laserwolf

Skill-Based instead of Level-Based = Problem Solved.

I played UO near constantly for at least 4-5 years. There was no "end-game" because the game never ended.  How can an MMO released 14 years ago get it so right while every MMO released now does it wrong?

 

 

You know you don't have to come to this article with an agenda.  Skill based systems are not better or worse; its just a different style.

There isn't an agenda there. It's not an agenda simply because you disagree with it or make an inference there.

The truth is that there wasn't an end game to Ultima Online. I defy you to find one. Not to mention you weren't pigeon holed into sticking with a single character you made years ago.

Originally posted by Wodge

You read my mind.  Devs need to move the emphasis from "endgame" (read: "Raiding") and focus on all the other stuff.  

I really emphasise with you on the topic of striving for awesome gear.  I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what my Rift or Old Republic characters are wearing, but i know my EQ1 Iksar Beastlord is wearing a Phase Spider Carapace, Lodizal Shell Shield, Waning Light Katar, Trak Bracer and JBoots, and I haven't played in years.  Theres no identity any more, its just a treadmill of incrementally better equipment with forgettable names.

 

Because EQ had the best item system in place. You could make use of all the gear you collected on all your characters. Except for the no-drop stuff; which I wished were tradeable at that time. (but for reasons on how PVP worked on some of the servers (Rallos Zek anyone?) it made sense to have some no drop gear so players wouldn't lose all their gear when getting killed by other players.)

items like what you mentioned plus the infamous "Fungi Tunic" were not overpowered, but very useful for leveling up a new character and actually had worth and value because those items were rare and provided beneficial value to the player (health regen, combat procs, beneficial buffs on click, etc), due to the god awful 4hr spawn time with a chance of the named mob spawning or a regular npc spawning in his place made those items that valuable and sought after.

Not everyone could sit there forever camping the mob for hours on end, people back then respected other players who were camping a mob and waited in line to camp it next when that player left. Sometimes people would attempt to kill steal, but it wasn't worth it if you didn't know when it spawned exactly because you would of had to know when it was last killed exactly. Sometimes because of peoples schedules especially early in the morning the spawn was free for grabs. A lot of the time people logged out around the spawn just to check if the spawn was free.

Another aspect, trains to zone, when mobs aggro'd you regardless of your level even if it's con level to you was gray actually chased you across the zone until you zoned out. The mobs would then stay there for awhile, confused where you went and would either walk back to their spawn points or attack other nearby players. Those mobs who walked back were still available to get attacked, we had no (Evade, Evade, Evade, Evade) and weird super speed back to their spawn points like we do now.

Then the player controlled economy was pretty fun before they implemented bazaar's (auction house). People gathered in the commons tunnel posting what they were selling in chat. Was a very social and special environment, players dueling, showing off their characters, little visual trinkets, etc. Really made the experience even for how boring it could have been. Because you had no prices to match up with what others were selling the same item at, it became more of a bargain type of situation, where you could negotiate prices even trade coin + other valuable gear for the item you were wanting. Sometimes because there was no bazaar, people could really work the market by buying low and selling high at different times of the day.

These are some of the memories I remember from my beginning experiences of MMO'ing mainly with EQ, even though there were some annoying parts and hard grind issues with leveling the overall atmosphere of the game and the life it had socially was very effective in accomplishing that goal.

Would you rather take a long ass train ride through the desert, where you might see 1 or 2 amazing sights?

Or would you rather take a ride half that distance, but through a place where you see something that floors you at least twice as much?

The content they make in today's game is quality, not just bullshit filler like in the old days.  If you really prefer the original EQ questing to a game like SWTOR you're batshit insane, I'm sorry.

And I also guaranfuckingtee you will not be writing an article about this when GW2 comes out even if you level at the exact same rate as today's game.  Why?  Because it's f2p.  

I know it's probably asking a lot,  but I would just love to see the new generation of MMO Gamer experience some of the things that I did in the dark ages of MMO's.  The things that keep me searching for that fix. That feeling of actual fear for my character as I'm exploring a new area.  The feeling of accomplishment when I finished my Soulfire quest.  Or that feeling of placing my fire gem in my peerless atlan claw for the first time on Darktide.  Or discovering my level 3 stamina to mana after countless fizzles and bags of spell components.  There is no sense of real accomplishment any more and it makes me sad that I may never experience that again in any MMO.

But enough of nostalgia.  I haven't seen one person mention ArcheAge in this thread yet.  If you haven't looked at it yet,  I advise you to do so.  This game may be the light at the end of a very long tunnel that I've been looking for.

Originally posted by xenogias

I would say the article is offbase somewhat. The devs arent listning to the "vocal minority" on this one. They are listening to the majority.  You may not like it but thoes of us that enjoyed old school MMO's are the minority now. The only proof I need is to say look at WoW and virtually every MMO since WOW. They make massive amounts of money. Sure they all fall off because people either go back to WoW or simply dont play an MMO but most of them have a big following still. Not big in WoW terms but they still have a player base.

You can talk badly about f2p all you want but the model CLEARLY works or companies wouldnt use it. Look at Turbine. AC was a great, great game and pretty successfull in its time. But now, if they had not gone f2p with D&D and LOTRO they would have gone under as a company. But with there f2p model they have made bucketloads of money.

 

As for AC memories I'll never forget failing something like 20 compound bows before finally making mine. Was a great, great day. I'll never forget the story arcs either. One of the best and I think most hated ones was the shadow spires and BZ :)

 

Here's the problem, you think you're the majority... but you're not... you're actually the minority. The majority of people have jobs, have school, have lives, and have committments.  I don't say this to be slanderous towards you but I am merely saying that these people have a lot of other things to do.  The vast majority of SWTOR's gamer base isn't even Level 50 yet.  There might be 10% of the population that are Level 50 (maybe).

People who play MMOs generally feel that their subscription fee entitltes them to new content, as if their subscribing is payment for more content, it's not.  Your subscription is a fee for using their server's bandwidth.

While leveling speed is part of the issue ... I guess I'm a hardcore player if I hit the Rift level cap in 2 weeks? The issue is really the challenge.

MMOs have become mind numbing, clicking fests where time invested = accomplishment.  That's what's boring.  You don't need to think about leveling up or gear or anything.  Leveling naked in a number of MMOs is a totally valid path and that's not right.

Im just disapointed in the beta testers wtf did they do i would like to know ,pvp sucks unbalanced abd totally usless graphic bugs , skill lags etz i mean wtf .. this game could be rly good perhaps it will in future but by then noone will play it .

Same story as with most of other new mmos that came out latley

What a horrid, horrid article.

It postulates that these locusts somehow ruin the game by going too fast, while at the same time acknowledging that these locusts are tiny in number.  If the rest of the population is going at a normal pace, what's the problem?

Oh really, the devs are listening to these locusts at the exclusion of everyone else?  Then why is it that every new game that comes out takes less and less time to level to max?  If they were listening to these locusts, people would be complaining about the how long it takes to level, and not the other way around.

What a sham.