Originally posted by raistlinm

The genre has been growing for what twenty years? And simply because it isn't growing at the rate that it used to that somehow makes you or the op right?!?!?

Trust me if every game developed was made like UO or SWG there would be little to no growth we certainly wouldn't have pop culture hits like WOW most of the people I know who are avid gamers hate the old mmorpg genre as evidenced by all the friends I got to try SWG who went running away from it.

Don't get me wrong I loved SWG for a time but games built like that are basically like making a fine wine in the alcoholic beverage market fine wine is good but I'm certainly not so uptight that it's all I'll drink.

Were you actually replying to my post?

I assume not, if you thought my post in any way validated the OP's claims.

I believe what the OP is trying to say is that the genre as we once knew it, the MMORPG,  is in his words, seemingly 'dead'. We  see games catering very heavily to solo players and not to groups or communities, hence losing the MMO (Massive, Multiplayer) part of the original genre. On the other hand, we see games absolutely destroying the RPG features of the original MMORPGs such as DAoC, EQ and UO (Living world, multiple distinct roles, immersion), in favour of stuff like instancing and only combat-oriented games. If you take WoW in it's current state, it has been stripped to the bone in terms of RPG elements. The complexity of its quests is one indicator.

Ultimately, the games we currently see don't exactly come under that original definition of the term MMORPG, though there are no rules describing how the term can be defined, or how it should be used. It would be better of course if we could more clearly define the boundaries of the genre, but for now that is unlikely to change.

Originally posted by Torrent41

I believe what the OP is trying to say is that the genre as we once knew it, the MMORPG,  is in his words, seemingly 'dead'. We  see games catering very heavily to solo players and not to groups or communities, hence losing the MMO (Massive, Multiplayer) part of the original genre. On the other hand, we see games absolutely destroying the RPG features of the original MMORPGs such as DAoC, EQ and UO (Living world, multiple distinct roles, immersion), in favour of stuff like instancing and only combat-oriented games. If you take WoW in it's current state, it has been stripped to the bone in terms of RPG elements. The complexity of its quests is one indicator.

 Ultimately, the games we currently see don't exactly come under that original definition of the term MMORPG, though there are no rules describing how the term can be defined, or how it should be used. It would be better of course if we could more clearly define the boundaries of the genre, but for now that is unlikely to change.

What MMORPG doesn't involve a lot of grouping though?  Every MMORPG which allows plenty of solo still has a ton of grouping.

On the RPG side, every single MMORPG behaves exactly like every videogame RPG ever made, so the idea that they're somehow less "RPG" is nonsense.  In many ways they're closer to classic videogame RPGs than they've ever been!

Originally posted by Foomerang

 

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Originally posted by austriacus
Yes im aware of all of those and i play most of them.

 

But you seem to be asking for activities that gota be learned and mastered through time and the games you mention are if implemented to mmorpgs just minigames.

And i know you feel that people should concentrate in virtual worlds on some parts of the game and not all of them but in general people wana do everything and when they feel they arent performing as well as others they feel that the game is screwing with them.

And im sorry but in a game of opportunities where mines are atacked sometimes and only for that period of time theres the material that mine produces, then people need to pay attention all the time to the game otherwise you lose oportunities.

 

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It can be done and has been done to some extents many years ago in various games. Console games are branching out more this way as well. I think we have a difference of opinion on mmorpg design philosophies and thats fine.

We do but if it makes you feel any better i hope from the bottom of my heart that you and your segment of the community get the game you are looking for, you all seem to be suffering a lot in an absence of it.

Ironically I spend most of my online time doing group pve or group pvp on those so called single player mmorpg.

True story, besides the 1% of the time I took to level my Wow character, I spend the rest 99% not playing by myself.

I have hope for Archeage.

Today XL games has posted a new video, this ones shows what the new areas look like in full Cry Engine 3.  Jake Songs maid avatar goes on a little tour of ArcheAge.  The video also says there will be a new NPC race(They look like smurfs) and you can now build a beach house. Build a beach house, throw a party!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQJhHESnDlg&feature=youtu.be

But its all not just "Sims" type of things

Here is a trailer on skills, if you mix them like conjurer(wizard skills)/wild skills (ranger skills)you can have flaming arrows or create walls to kill enemies with your bow.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKpIpDjW6k0&feature=youtu.be


This trailer is about boat building. When you carry heavy objects like lumber you need to carry them in a backpack. Wearing a backpack really slows your movement down and a ganker can steal the loot inside, so go with friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60cythzt_5E&feature=youtu.be

This trailer shows off the Nuian (Western Humans) starter area and it's surrounding castles/towns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVM8Fpw8Im8&feature=youtu.be

Here's some water game play "release the Kraken"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLEq725gIqE

So much more on youtube also...

Can only hope that when/if it gets here they don't "Westernize" it too much.

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Originally posted by Foomerang

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Originally posted by bhug
giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit

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Thanks for that. However, this is about the genre in regards to the games themselves, not the money they generate. There is a difference. There are countless examples of things that have lost their soul and make crap tons of money.

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12.7.27
NOWHERE in my post did i say "giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit"
as you misrepresent above
i.e. the actual post ("giant graphs" replaced by links)

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Originally posted by bhug
subscriptions
link1

genre
link2

clarify what you mean by "this genre is dead" because the #s (as of March 2012) show that OPINION is nonsense ref

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If you are going to slant a quote from another post to support your biased and prejudiced pov (Point of View) do that by commenting on that post, not by misrepresenting what was SAID in that post and lying by affixing Originally posted by bhug in this case as evidenced from the actual post, it is not what i posted rather it is your troll agenda driven interpretation in that you claim i posted "giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit."

Much like when presented actual numbers showing the MMORPG genre is alive and doing well (+20 Million subscribers and +5 to 10 million ftp users in other MMORPG games that are not reflected in the 'subscriber' chart) your OP (below) is largely your facts based on opinion. I demonstrated your 'opinion' are unfounded, what it was is your dissatisfaction with the current models that characterize MMORPG. It is NOT that the MMORPG genre is DEAD as this thread title also misrepresents (hence troll label).

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originally posted by Foomerang100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.

If you were to tell me ten years ago that this is what MMORPGS would be like, I would have never even bothered to get involved.

MMO versions of old console games from a decade ago. Thats what we have right now. The irony is that console games today are actually more open and diverse than these so called mmorpgs.

Its a shame. I have faith in indie devs, as always. But the AAA mmo devs have really led the genre astray as of late. I wonder if it will ever get back on track.

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12.7.27
to say gaming has continued to advance since the late 1940s is an understatement.
From green oscilloscope (tic tac toe and tennis/pong) to 2D arcades (Donkey Kong, Mario Bros) that had a never ending appetite for quarters to 1970s 3d platforms (Atari, Nintendo) to todays 2 to 5 Tflop double and quad linked gpu PC over 1 to 10 GB/s broadband.

This certainly is not the 8 bit sprites on 10 to 12" crt, more like 1080i out to +50 " TV media centers or 2 and 3 portrait (vertical) LCD/LED moniters.

There are many genres in gaming and MMORPG is a small nich market i.e. shooters, adventure, platform, rpg, puzzle, simulations, strategy, sports, fighting, dance, horror and hybrid blends.) Puzzle/card 44%, sport/strat/racing 21%, MMORPG 16%)
Make no doubt about it, gaming is about revenue streams, esp since UO, EQ and WoW demonstrated online gaming they can bring in 10 to 20 BILLION dollars a year. Add to that todays shift to a Free to Play (ftp) model, (hence the apparent declining subscription MMO graphic in the previous post) well mkt driven economics dictates expect things must change for an IP (Intellectual Property) to maintain viability.
If you just want to present your opinions or views write a book, or pamplet; if you want to offer something others will pay and continue to pay for it has to keep the interest of those users. And of course governments want to get in on a cut of that money!

Next consider us$100 to $300 controller/console vs us$1000 to $3000 keyboard/mouse PC, maybe you can see why more than half of gamers use (subpar relative to PC) consoles that offer instant action at a relatively affordable price. There is no shortage of decade long debate in the PC vs Console who is losing war. (2011 revenues PC us$11.6 B, console $8.2 Billion)

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Originally posted by bhug

12.7.27
NOWHERE in my post did i say "giant graphs and pie charts showing massive profit"
as you misrepresent above
i.e. the actual post ("giant graphs" replaced by links)

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Originally posted by laokoko

Ironically I spend most of my online time doing group pve or group pvp on those so called single player mmorpg.

True story, besides the 1% of the time I took to level my Wow character, I spend the rest 99% not playing by myself.

Exactly.

The only time i am not in a group when i play WOW, is when i am waiting for the dungeon to pop, or doing AH/crafting.

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by laokoko Ironically I spend most of my online time doing group pve or group pvp on those so called single player mmorpg. True story, besides the 1% of the time I took to level my Wow character, I spend the rest 99% not playing by myself.

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Exactly.

The only time i am not in a group when i play WOW, is when i am waiting for the dungeon to pop, or doing AH/crafting.

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grouping to do what? combat.
crafting to enhance what? combat.

Originally posted by laokoko

Ironically I spend most of my online time doing group pve or group pvp on those so called single player mmorpg.

True story, besides the 1% of the time I took to level my Wow character, I spend the rest 99% not playing by myself.

Not playing by yourself is not the same as an MMO. Playing in small groups of 4 random people that the game pairs you with, that you will never talk to again even if you want to, does not make a game massively multiplayer or encourage social aspects in a game. Not hard to understand.

Originally posted by Foomerang

100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.

If you were to tell me ten years ago that this is what MMORPGS would be like, I would have never even bothered to get involved.

MMO versions of old console games from a decade ago. Thats what we have right now. The irony is that console games today are actually more open and diverse than these so called mmorpgs.

Its a shame. I have faith in indie devs, as always. But the AAA mmo devs have really led the genre astray as of late. I wonder if it will ever get back on track.

I applaud you sir, and I completely agree. I've been wanting to write something like this for ages now, but you've saved me the trouble. The MMO genre is indeed dead; players have been thoroughly conditioned to desire and require convenience, ease of use...games in which you are no longer adventuring in a world, but "enjoying content".

Best MMOs I ever played; Everquest, EVE Online. I pretty much think everything else has been crap, except for maybe The Secret World. Overall though...it's all dung, and absolutely nothing in the pipe for the next 3 years and more has me excited in the least.

It's not "MMO burnout", it's really a case of the games themselves being utter and complete shyte.

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

Not playing by yourself is not the same as an MMO. Playing in small groups of 4 random people that the game pairs you with, that you will never talk to again even if you want to, does not make a game massively multiplayer or encourage social aspects in a game. Not hard to understand.

And your definition of 'what an MMO is' should be the 'end all be all'?

How many people should I be grouped with so it fits your 'massively multiplayer' definition?

The topic has been done to death already, to someone like me, this genre is more alive than ever before. To another it might be 'dead' to them cause they don't like the games in it.

That's fine, people have different taste.

To the poster abov, if I don't like Jazz, would it be fair if I say a Jazz Album is 'shyte'?

I don't think so, not my taste =/= bad quality of said game

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

Not playing by yourself is not the same as an MMO. Playing in small groups of 4 random people that the game pairs you with, that you will never talk to again even if you want to, does not make a game massively multiplayer or encourage social aspects in a game. Not hard to understand.

And your definition of 'what an MMO is' should be the 'end all be all'?

How many people should I be grouped with so it fits your 'massively multiplayer' definition?

 

The topic has been done to death already, to someone like me, this genre is more alive than ever before. To another it might be 'dead' to them cause they don't like the games in it.

That's fine, people have different taste.

 

To the poster abov, if I don't like Jazz, would it be fair if I say a Jazz Album is 'shyte'?

I don't think so, not my taste =/= bad quality of said game

The GENRE is at a bad place. Just because you like the ONE type of game its churning out, doesn't mean its a good time. What if suddenly the entire video game market made only Racing Games? Racing fans would love it, but no sane person would claim that the genre is doing well. Especially if all those racing games tanked and destroyed the companies that made them, like the last 6 years of WOW clones have done to Funcom, Mythic, NCsoft, and Bioware.

And its not about how many people you group with. There was a very specific kind of game in mind when massively multiplayer was coined. It referred to games that had thousands of people on the same server, being able to interact and play together all the time, in a virtual world.

Running tiny instances with 3 other people is not massivly multiplayer. That's called a dungeon crawler, the Diablo genre.

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

The GENRE is at a bad place. Just because you like the ONE type of game its churning out, doesn't mean its a good time. What if suddenly the entire video game market made only Racing Games? Racing fans would love it, but no sane person would claim that the genre is doing well. Especially if all those racing games tanked and destroyed the companies that made them, like the last 6 years of WOW clones have done to Funcom, Mythic, NCsoft, and Bioware.

And its not about how many people you group with. There was a very specific kind of game in mind when massively multiplayer was coined. It referred to games that had thousands of people on the same server, being able to interact and play together all the time, in a virtual world.

Running tiny instances with 3 other people is not massivly multiplayer. That's called a dungeon crawler, the Diablo genre.

Oh really?

The 'GENRE' is in a bad place cause you only see 'ONE type of game'?

*Looks at the left hand side of THIS WEBSITE*

Ummm.. we are on the same site right? MMORPG.COM?

Different types of MMOs are coming out and came out.

My type (WoW clones) are the biggest MMO type but not the only one so I'm happy.

Why aren't you?

It always makes me laugh when someone points to the money being made and says 'MMO's are not dead.'

In forestry natural forests have been replaced by planted ones. They don't look like the old forests, they don't have the same tree species sometimes. But they still make a lot of money for the landowner.

This has what has happened to MMO's, the old genre is dead; but a new one has been planted by companies wanting to cash in on multiplayer online games. They still call them selves MMORPG's or MMO's. I call them ezMMO's.
 

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by laokoko

Ironically I spend most of my online time doing group pve or group pvp on those so called single player mmorpg.

True story, besides the 1% of the time I took to level my Wow character, I spend the rest 99% not playing by myself.

Not playing by yourself is not the same as an MMO. Playing in small groups of 4 random people that the game pairs you with, that you will never talk to again even if you want to, does not make a game massively multiplayer or encourage social aspects in a game. Not hard to understand.

Than maybe those people should call it a lobby game instead and not calling it single player mmorpg.  Since I obviously isn't playing by myself.

The only reason I said what I said, is 2 post above me someone is referencing lobby games as single player game.  Which I dont' understand.  Since in all those proclaimed single player game, I was always doing mostly group content after I level to max level.

Originally posted by Roenick

The real issue is they are taking the MMO out of MMORPG games. No one talks to each other outside of a few instances or if you're lucky enough to be a in a tight knit guild in a game that still has guilds.

We're all now special snowflakes with our own AWESOME epic quest where we're the hero.

Bring back the world where you are just a spec of dust on the large map. Where you could could travel for 20+ mins and not run into a soul till you got to a heavily populated town. That was immersion. Not run to X spot kill 10 run to Y spot kill 10 move to next level/area with harder kill 10 of quests.

And even though I plan to GW2 i sense even with their new appoach to run to X and kill 10...it's still the same ole same ole.

I think people would pay/subscribe to an "old school" type of game with modern graphics, but what  developer is going to take that risk?

yea, and why bother? majority of cases you got negative response anyways. and what comes on guilds if you are about to find nice solialized guild they normally have been functioned years and yea might accept new players but you need to be there for awhile usually to even got someone to reply on your comments wich most cases leaves you the feel of outsider and you end up leaving.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

The GENRE is at a bad place. Just because you like the ONE type of game its churning out, doesn't mean its a good time. What if suddenly the entire video game market made only Racing Games? Racing fans would love it, but no sane person would claim that the genre is doing well. Especially if all those racing games tanked and destroyed the companies that made them, like the last 6 years of WOW clones have done to Funcom, Mythic, NCsoft, and Bioware.

And its not about how many people you group with. There was a very specific kind of game in mind when massively multiplayer was coined. It referred to games that had thousands of people on the same server, being able to interact and play together all the time, in a virtual world.

Running tiny instances with 3 other people is not massivly multiplayer. That's called a dungeon crawler, the Diablo genre.

Oh really?

The 'GENRE' is in a bad place cause you only see 'ONE type of game'?

*Looks at the left hand side of THIS WEBSITE*

Ummm.. we are on the same site right? MMORPG.COM?

 

Different types of MMOs are coming out and came out.

My type (WoW clones) are the biggest MMO type but not the only one so I'm happy.

Why aren't you?

Over half the games listed on the left aren't MMOs. Many of them aren't running anymore. Many more of them are from years ago. As of right now, all the AAA MMORPGs coming out are ONE type of game, the WoW clone. And its been that way for 8 years now. And saying they are the biggest is just laughably wrong. If they were the biggest, they wouldn't be merging servers all over the place in just about all of them.

So why am I not happy? Because the last AAA hardcore MMORPG was made in 2007.

Originally posted by Garvon3

 

Over half the games listed on the left aren't MMOs. Many of them aren't running anymore. Many more of them are from years ago. As of right now, all the AAA MMORPGs coming out are ONE type of game, the WoW clone. And its been that way for 8 years now. And saying they are the biggest is just laughably wrong. If they were the biggest, they wouldn't be merging servers all over the place in just about all of them.

So why am I not happy? Because the last AAA hardcore MMORPG was made in 2007.

Vanguard?