My opinion is that it's all connected to the power shift from skills to items. 

In UO a sword was a sword, the character swordmanship skill made the difference.

Most of the modern MMO are items based and even in the one where skills are more important, items have still a big weight.

Cause of this everything that is preceding the level cap is perceived as a waste of time, since will be just useless in some levels.

Tera makes a perfect example: in the capped CBT people were farming a lvl 20 istances like the items there were the most desirable of the game, now that the level cap is gone most people will try to find a group for just some minutes and then run the istance once before moving on or they will just skip it. 

Who would to invest time to get something perceived as temporary when you can rush to the cap and invest time in obatining something with a long life spam.

The purpose of the game was to have a slower progression.  Using the excuse that the quests are not high quality isnt a good point.  90% dont care about quest text and those who do certainly are not the type to just race to endgame.  People who dont rush are the kinds of people who actually read the quest text, since it takes time doesnt result in additional xp nor does it drop loot.

When are people finally going to get sick of the mad rush past the content to endgame?  Do people who moan about endgames lack of "content" realize they rushed past what they are looking for?  If people are tired of farming mobs, doing quest, and the endgame isnt what entertains them anymore...isnt it time to find a new type of game to play or a new hobby?  No ones forcing everyone to play a mmorpg, theres plenty of games that lack everything that is complained about in these game.  Just sayin...

I bought this game blind, encounted no crashes or issues downloading (must be the windows vista i use, again never had an issue with that either)  I dont get excessive lag.  I find the combat diffrent enough to be enjoyable, complicated enough to be exciting at times.  I like the locked animation skills...i thought i wouldnt but it makes timing and dodging viable.  Having quake combat is intense, i had my fair share in darkfall, but ended up being a a finger and wrist dexterity contest, i play rpgs for the thinking and strategy, this combat blends both i think.

Yeah at times it does feel flat a bit, yes im getting sick of the asian fantasy just as much as im sick to death of western tolkien+D7D fantasy derivativs, yes the quests are not professionally done and people comming from swtor will find this hard to get use to.

Its enjoyable however, and i did choose this over playing GW2, not because i wanted specifically to play this game but because i specifically didnt want what gw2 was offering (and apparently deliverd in the open beta).

Its diffrent, it has some beautiful scenery, its combat either you love it or hate it.  Play this one for diffrent combat and nothing more and youll love it, simply for the fact your not tab targeting though a macro the entire duration of the game.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by mmoguy43

Ok so it was just you because I had the opposite experience. Another case where I read your post as if you were trying to make it sound like fact but it was your personal opinion, my mistake.

It's not just me.  It's also thousands of other veteran gamers who tried early MMORPGs and thought they were a joke (then went back to playing games where their $50 gives them a variety of experiences instead of a dull, repetitive, endless mob grind.)

Dull repetitive mob grinds are the opposite of good game design.  Forcing players to repeat things excessively is something a designer only does when their content is limited and there's no other option.

...or when their payment model is subscription-based and they want to sucker level-obsessed players into staying subscribed.

So it's either a tragic inevitability or greed, but it's very obviously not something the designer or players wanted.  Games wouldn't magically be amazing just by increasing the Required XP a hundred times.  Quite the opposite: they'd become worse.

Thousands that didn't like them? For all we know there were thousands that did like the oldschool games much more.

What dull, repetitive mob grind? It wasn't dull when it was new. It may seem dull now though. Looking back at any mmo it will look dull. Mob grind, questing, and early implementations of dynamic events will all become dull. Doesn't exacly make them bad. I'm not avocating bringing back old designs only playing in the longer term. Isn't that what MMOs should be? Long term persistant games... or do you really want them to have the playbility lifespan of a Singleplayer game?

I KNOW I would have enjoyed SWTOR more and played longer if XP gain was 20% slower. I could complete all the content on every planet and gear wouldn't be outdated so quickly so rewards would feel more rewarding. Making XP take 100 times longer would be stupid and is a completely unrealistic example.

Originally posted by mmoguy43

Thousands that didn't like them? For all we know there were thousands that did like the oldschool games much more.

What dull, repetitive mob grind? It wasn't dull when it was new. It may seem dull now though. Looking back at any mmo it will look dull. Mob grind, questing, and early implementations of dynamic events will all become dull. Doesn't exacly make them bad. I'm not avocating bringing back old designs only playing in the longer term. Isn't that what MMOs should be? Long term persistant games... or do you really want them to have the playbility lifespan of a Singleplayer game?

I KNOW I would have enjoyed SWTOR more and played longer if XP gain was 20% slower. I could complete all the content on every planet and gear wouldn't be outdated so quickly so rewards would feel more rewarding. Making XP take 100 times longer would be stupid and is a completely unrealistic example.

But we do know.  The discrepancy between the hundreds of thousands of early MMORPG players and millions of current MMORPG players is not purely one of marketing and genre growth.  It's a matter of content density -- of enough new experiences sprinkled over the 100+ hours of gameplay to keep the game interesting.

As for the mob grind, it was still dull when it was new.  At least for anyone who played any sort of games prior to MMORPGs to know the rate of new experiences a game should offer to be acceptable.  Note that the genre blew up bigger and bigger at the moments it became more gamelike (EQ and WOW.)

As for your ToR comment, that's great.  But you have to realize you're virtually alone in thinking slowing the rate of leveling will make a game better.  Most players see right through to how shallow that is (literally no game depth added whatsoever) and will jump to a game which consistently offers them more experience variety.

Originally posted by Axehilt

But we do know.  The discrepancy between the hundreds of thousands of early MMORPG players and millions of current MMORPG players is not purely one of marketing and genre growth.  It's a matter of content density -- of enough new experiences sprinkled over the 100+ hours of gameplay to keep the game interesting.

 

Take World of Warcraft out of the picture for a minute.

Going by *sustained* subscriptions...whats the most popular MMORPG of all times in the west?

Everquest

Most popular MMORPG of all time in the East?

Lineage

And don't say there was no competition for EQ.  DAoC, AC, UO, AO...thats PLENTY of competition.

More people clearly try the newer MMOs, look at the huge first month spikes of Rift, AoC, WAR and SWTOR.  How many stay past those first few months?  3 of those games lost over the population in the first year and SWTOR is extremely likely to make it 4 for 4 if it hasnt already.  The last game that was able to sustain over 250k in the east for even two years was LOTRO.  The biggest post EQ success story in the east is EVE...which was released 9 years ago, before WoW.

Yes, there are more MMORPG players now.  And to attribute to anything but genre growth is absolutely ridiculous.  if the games were better, people would stick around more than 2 months.

Originally posted by teakbois

Originally posted by Axehilt

But we do know.  The discrepancy between the hundreds of thousands of early MMORPG players and millions of current MMORPG players is not purely one of marketing and genre growth.  It's a matter of content density -- of enough new experiences sprinkled over the 100+ hours of gameplay to keep the game interesting.

 

Take World of Warcraft out of the picture for a minute.

 

Going by *sustained* subscriptions...whats the most popular MMORPG of all times in the west?

Everquest

 

Most popular MMORPG of all time in the East?

Lineage

 

And don't say there was no competition for EQ.  DAoC, AC, UO, AO...thats PLENTY of competition.

 

More people clearly try the newer MMOs, look at the huge first month spikes of Rift, AoC, WAR and SWTOR.  How many stay past those first few months?  3 of those games lost over the population in the first year and SWTOR is extremely likely to make it 4 for 4 if it hasnt already.  The last game that was able to sustain over 250k in the east for even two years was LOTRO.  The biggest post EQ success story in the east is EVE...which was released 9 years ago, before WoW.

 

Yes, there are more MMORPG players now.  And to attribute to anything but genre growth is absolutely ridiculous.  if the games were better, people would stick around more than 2 months.

Yeah, this is sort of how I feel about it, if today's games are so full of "experiences" why do players try them out then quickly flee in droves leaving them barren wastelands?

I think its due to the lack of challenge that sends them on their way, there's just nothing to hold their interest in the long term.

Originally posted by Crunchy221

 

When are people finally going to get sick of the mad rush past the content to endgame?  Do people who moan about endgames lack of "content" realize they rushed past what they are looking for?  If people are tired of farming mobs, doing quest, and the endgame isnt what entertains them anymore...isnt it time to find a new type of game to play or a new hobby?  No ones forcing everyone to play a mmorpg, theres plenty of games that lack everything that is complained about in these game.  Just sayin...

They will stop to rush to endgame when the game won't resolve about endgame content and gear farming.

Since Tera is a geargrind based game of course players are encouraged to rush to endgame and start to geargrind the 5 endgame dungeons.

I mean when we were discussing about how the quests were lacking most of the people replied "well who cares? the quests are just a mean to an end"

The game itself encourage you to go to the endgame and fully enjoy the game. Do not forget that you can only do Battlegrounds and Rifts at max level.

As long as there are gearbased games with exclusive endgame there will be players that rush to endgame.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Yeah, this is sort of how I feel about it, if today's games are so full of "experiences" why do players try them out then quickly flee in droves leaving them barren wastelands?

I think its due to the lack of challenge that sends them on their way, there's just nothing to hold their interest in the long term.

Today's games provide varied experiences, but they're light on new experiences.  New gameplay patterns are necessary for a game to be fun, and if too few of a game's patterns are genuinely new the game is probably going to fail to entertain for very long.

A lack of new experiences is just part of the larger issue of all these clones failing to exert enough game design muscle to create interesting, fun gameplay. 

Ya I remember how long it took to level in DaoC and EQ.  It fucking sucked 10 years ago and it would suck now if games were like that.  That's why WoW hit it so big among MMO fans.  The quest flow was unique for the time and it felt like leveling was fun again.

Now the WoW formula is the grind. Collect quests/do quests, repeat and developers are afraid to break from it.  Even GW2 is the same shit with a different paint job. 

I don't care if it takes a year to fully level a character as long as the journey is fun and not the same thing over and over.  But if that game exists I've never heard about it.

In Conquer Online (which is purely grind) I almost got level cap of 2nd reborn lvl 132 after 3 years of playing. They raised the level cap to 140 which would have taken another year haha...games are so easy now at leveling. I am 42 on Tera now and I have barely gotten to play because of finals coming up next week. 18 more til cap haha think about if I had spent every waking hour playing like some of these people.

I think many people are catching onto the idea that leveling is pointless. Skill based systems are the future.

The irritating irony of it all is that once these ADD players get to max level in just a few days/weeks (after complaining it took them "so long to level"), they then start to complain there's nothing to do and/or leveling is too fast. There's no pleasing an ADD player.

Me, I want some old-school-takes-a-long-time-to-level MMO content to come out. If skill based only advancement is the answer, then bring it.

Originally posted by Indol

Many people have lost their minds. They've replaced fun with completely mindless competition.

 

For instance, i was watching a guy streaming Tera recently and both he and his guildmates had been playing non-stop for around 2 or 3 days in an effort to get level 60 server firsts for their respective classes. I caught them towards the end of their run and by that time they were complaining of nausea and exhaustion while moaning about how torturous it was.... They voluntarily turned the game into a torturous experience rather than just playing the game for fun. It's pretty mind boggling.

 

Narcissism is so common these days that it has officially lost it's classification as a mental disorder. It is considered 'normal' now. Think about that....

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention that when they finally did reach level 60 there was barely a celebration. Mostly it was just more moaning and complaining before they went to pass out. What was the point?!

Nailed it! Thought this was a great post.

Hadn't heard about the Narcissism thing though, although I suspect it's related to Generation Y (Y do I need to work? Y isn't everything just handed to me? etc etc) You know who you are.....