Originally posted by Grimm666

Originally posted by Treblesum81

• A compelling and regularly advanced main story with lasting appeal (If this can be influenced by the player base, then so much the better). By regularly, I'm hoping for a least every other month, though I would settle for often enough that I don't run out of the new content a long time before the next update happens.
• New enough so that there are plenty of people to engage with along the leveling path or structured in such a way as to eliminate the need to power level just to participate with everyone else.
• Primarily PvE but with the option for PvP beyond one or two instanced arenas which end up having hour long ques just to participate.
• A community that isn't completely sectioned off into guilds / alliances that make the game seem like a high school with all of its cliques.
• A lack of grinding at end game. If I reach a point where the story / adventure quests die off and I'm left doing "daily missions" to grind one form or another of currency / faction reputation, I'm going to get bored and quit within a few days.

I'd actually go against the grain and say GW2 would not fit your desires based on this list. The storyline is static with your characters able to make a few branching decisions to alter some quests (the main choice is which of 3 factions you want to join, which will likely give you 3 storylines, likely consisting of between 15-30 instanced quests each). PvP is all instanced and for the big PvP zone (known as World vs World vs World), there is a cap of 400 players per server, which may be hard to get into if you choose an overpopulated server. The community is heavily sectioned off by guilds, even though you can join as many as you like, there is no evidence of a "server-wide" community, especially given the limited in-game chat tools. Finally, end-game PvE is based around repeating dynamic events in the high-end zones and running dungeons for tokens to trade in for cosmetic gear. I fully intend to play Guild Wars 2 and I sunk over 1,000 hours into the first one, but I also bought it with the intention of it being a game to keep me entertained for 1-2 months before moving on.

 

I think the game which may best suit you at this point is The Secret World. While I have zero interest in this game myself, the developers are promising monthly content and story updates (they've delivered so far, but they're only 2 months in), the game is still fresh and leveling is relatively non-linear (more gear based than XP based), so there should be a decent population to play with. The game is primarily PvE, but the PvP it does have is instanced and apparently not that enjoyable based on the forum feedback. The community is smaller, which may make it more intimate and friendly. End-game currently involves building out your "skill wheel" to allow you more variety in your builds, lore exploration, repeating quests/missions and dungeons and will include raids in the future. There's also a decent number of "investigation" quests which will test your puzzle and logic skills (assuming you don't cheat). Maybe not your perfect game, but it's on sale this week for $25 on Amazon. Be forewarned the game has a sub and a cash shop (mostly cosmetic items)

I'm currently downloading the trial of Secret World. I had originally ruled it out due to mixed reviews and the fact that its apparently pretty buggy. Reviews are subjective and bugs can be fixed, so I guess I'll see how things pan out. I'm not a huge fan of the idea that the only pvp availabe is through some areas which according to the reviews have long wait times and can be very unbalanced, but I'm hoping this won't prove to be a game killer, since I'm not only interested in pvp.

On a seperate note, if you're description of GW2 is accurate, I know I won't like it. I much prefer open world to instances and only just barely tolerate those instances when they are a part of a much larger world. I know they serve a purpose, but in my view they have always been a way for the devs to force a certain playstyle on the players while at the same time limiting the level of social play that can be used.

Just to point out, I didn't really discuss the actual gameplay of either GW2 or TSW. Personally, the reason I like GW2 is I find the combat mechanics are enjoyable and the dynamic event system allows for some great spontaneous group events. The majority of GW2 is open world but it is driven more by the dynamic events around you. If you're unlucky (or the system in later levels is poorly designed), you might be wandering for a long time before you see events and if you're lucky, you'll be running from crazy event to crazy event non-stop with all sorts of friends and strangers.

I also disliked TSW's gameplay because combat felt shallow and unresponsive and I couldn't get over my character being a mute that everyone manages to spend 5+ minutes talking to. That said, the story I saw was great (better than GW2 on average in the early levels) and they definitely got the spooky atmosphere downpat.

I guess the point of my posts is that you should keep your expectations for all games low and you may be pleasantly surprised. If you go into a game expecting the True Messiah, you're bound to feel disappointed, if not hurt and betrayed. Expect a number of current GW2 fanatics to pop up about 30-60 days from now talking about how awful the game is because the developers lied about player housing or how the game at max level has no content (I've been following MMOs way too long...)

Originally posted by Grimm666

Just to point out, I didn't really discuss the actual gameplay of either GW2 or TSW. Personally, the reason I like GW2 is I find the combat mechanics are enjoyable and the dynamic event system allows for some great spontaneous group events. The majority of GW2 is open world but it is driven more by the dynamic events around you. If you're unlucky (or the system in later levels is poorly designed), you might be wandering for a long time before you see events and if you're lucky, you'll be running from crazy event to crazy event non-stop with all sorts of friends and strangers.

I also disliked TSW's gameplay because combat felt shallow and unresponsive and I couldn't get over my character being a mute that everyone manages to spend 5+ minutes talking to. That said, the story I saw was great (better than GW2 on average in the early levels) and they definitely got the spooky atmosphere downpat.

I guess the point of my posts is that you should keep your expectations for all games low and you may be pleasantly surprised. If you go into a game expecting the True Messiah, you're bound to feel disappointed, if not hurt and betrayed. Expect a number of current GW2 fanatics to pop up about 30-60 days from now talking about how awful the game is because the developers lied about player housing or how the game at max level has no content (I've been following MMOs way too long...)

I just can't do the low expectation thing. In a world where time = money and neither grows on trees (if you'll forgive the mixed metaphores), I have no desire to throw away both on a game that doesn't keep my attention for all that long. This is one of the resons I rarely play single player titles unless they are designed around infinite replayability (Civ series, Sim-X Series, Tyccon X Series)... All too often I find myself dropping $40-$50 on a game that I beat in a weekend and then am left with very little residual gameplay. Though MMO's will generally hold more content which takes longer to complete, wheny you combine the box price of the game with a few months of access, you're looking at $100+, and if you stick with it for any length of time, the total price of the game can really add up. I think for that kind of money, its fair to have high expectations. I know the modern answer to all of this has been the concept of free-to-play and/or freemium games where you trade expectations of content and updates for the option for complete non-investment of funds. I do think this is a good idea to keep you occupied while you're waiting for something better to come down the pipe, but my honest experience with these is that you reach a point due to the lack of content updates where the game becomes nothing more than an overglorified chat room that no amount of money spent would revitalize.

As I've said before, I know I have high standards, and I'm willing to accept the possibility that what I want just doesn't exist, but I also wholeheartedly believe that low quality, low content games exist because we as a player base have never really stood up and said "give us this stuff or we won't play your game at all". Instead, we drool over a game for months or years while they develop it, then buy it and play it for 30-60 days before getting fed up and moving on, which probably gives the developer enough money to justify the cost of development and move on. If we all upped our standards, we might get something worthwhile as a reward. That all being said though, I really doubt any of it will happen... Things are working too well the way they are, and, even though there are some notable precidents to look back on, the amount of input required from a development house to keep something like AC going for years on end is hard to justify in a business climate where the "next big thing" is always less than a year away so to remain competitive, you've got to have something in the works to counter it.

Originally posted by JoeyMMO
What you want hasn't been released yet. August 25th for early access, Actual release on the 28th. The name of the game: Guild Wars 2.

You know the honest question I have for everyone offering GW2 as the best option is will there be regular content updates? I've been looking for an answer to this one, but mostly I've only been able to find references in the comments sections of various articles to some content updates for the first version. As I've laid out before, if the game isn't going to have a compelling storyline and regular content updates, I'll tire of it very quickly, which then tells me I shouldn't bother with it in the first place.

On a side note, I did read something today that best exemplifies my desires. In a discussion of GW2 vs. SWTOR, the author mentioned that the ultimate goal of a lot of MMORPG's these days is to race to the level cap so you can join in all of the scheduled raids and events. This is the antithesis of my gaming style. Lower level caps are ok, but if the end game content is raids, I won't enjoy it. I am an adventurer in MMO's so if I run out of new stuff to explore I get bored, which is also the case if the main end game activities revolve around scheduled events / raids. Sure these might be fun once, but for me, once is enough.

Originally posted by Scot
There was a thread about regular content updates in GW2 on here. As I said there no MMO has done regualar content updates of the sort most players seem to demand, ever. Lotro did well in its first two years mind you, but I don't think it would have done enough to appease the content hungry locusts we have today. So I really can't see GW2 pulling this off, they will not have the money to fast track the development needed to a timescale that suits todays players.

I guess AC was unique in this aspect then, since it was monthly for more than a decade. That being said, they rarely actually added anything new, it was just regular story updates with various associated changes to the game world that were fairly minor. I guess that speaks to the power of a good plot: if you tell a good story, you can satisfy a lot of people for a very long time without having to roll out massive expansions all the time.

Honestly if you are after a Fantasy MMORPG you are going to be hard pressed to find anything that even remotely compares to Everquest 2. You cant beat the graphics, content, game play, feature set and its one of the best F2P cash systems I have seen and I have seen many. From your typical PVE hack and slash to extremely in depth stories with instance changes, actor dialog, etc to the crafting system that you can do rather than adventure and which can possibly kill you in the process to the building of your own dungeons for others to play and earn points or owning houses, keeps etc and decorating them, the game aspects are immense. The downfall of EQ2 is the player base is fairly small and this is, in my experience, by in large due to the inaccurate information disseminated by the general MMO public as well as lack of marketing on behalf of Sony. Get on the Freeport server and find a guild and 92 levels later you still will have content. Even if it involves chronoing down and going back to lower content with the challenge all preserved. Anyhow, its worth a try and you simply can not beat this game. I came back to this game after about a decade away from EQ1 and it already had a mark against it in my book because I was very displeased with sony. After about 130GB of downloads and trying MMOs for months on end I finally broke down and tried EQ2. I about fell out of my chair. Hands down best fantasy (possibly any) MMORPG on the market, period.

PS. No matter what you play its going to repeat. Life is the same way. It just happens.

Originally posted by Treblesum81

Originally posted by JoeyMMO
What you want hasn't been released yet. August 25th for early access, Actual release on the 28th. The name of the game: Guild Wars 2.

You know the honest question I have for everyone offering GW2 as the best option is will there be regular content updates? I've been looking for an answer to this one, but mostly I've only been able to find references in the comments sections of various articles to some content updates for the first version. As I've laid out before, if the game isn't going to have a compelling storyline and regular content updates, I'll tire of it very quickly, which then tells me I shouldn't bother with it in the first place.

 

On a side note, I did read something today that best exemplifies my desires. In a discussion of GW2 vs. SWTOR, the author mentioned that the ultimate goal of a lot of MMORPG's these days is to race to the level cap so you can join in all of the scheduled raids and events. This is the antithesis of my gaming style. Lower level caps are ok, but if the end game content is raids, I won't enjoy it. I am an adventurer in MMO's so if I run out of new stuff to explore I get bored, which is also the case if the main end game activities revolve around scheduled events / raids. Sure these might be fun once, but for me, once is enough.

For this bit: I can't really do much else than direct you to the update notes of the original game (Linkage: http://www.guildwars.com/support/gameupdates/), they've done a good job of updating content/pushing out new content since launch. Of course, if you're a hardcore player, no game developer can keep up in pushing out new content. But taking all things into account, I'd say they've done a good job in the past, with a number of free content updates as welll as paid ones. As for GW2 itself, devs have said they'll be dropping in new content (=dynamic events most likely) all over the world regularly. Also, the amount of content currently in at launch is...a lot. Factor in upcoming expansions (we know there will be expansions), and you should have plenty of content to go for. If you burn through it before next expansion, remember that there's no sub fee. Nothing stops you from putting the game down for a while, and coming back at no additional cost (other than expansion pack) at a later date.

As for this bit: This is not what GW2 is about. There is no reason to rush to level cap, as your level gets scaled downwards when you return to lower level areas. That way, you will never outlevel any areas, and even the starting zones maintain some challenge, as you won't be able to one-shot the mobs. At level cap, the entire world is open for you, and meaningful in terms of experience and loot (you always get level-appropriate loot even if you're in low level areas). There are dungeons and gear grind in some form, however the grind is purely cosmetic. You'll do just fine with that max level armor set you can get from a vendor or crafters, dungeon armors won't provide any statistical advantage over the more common armor sets.

I would say GW2 or TSW.  I think GW2 will have more staying power than TSW.  While TSW has a lot of quests with good story it feels like a game that will not keep you for the long term like GW2 will however it is still a great experience.

GW2

Personal Story: The personal story is interesting.  Each choice you make branches the story in a different way so that there are thousands of possible personal story branches.  You can also join people in their personal stories so that you can experience different stories without creating new characters.

Story in dynamic events: The dynamic events are in the open world and have more story than many people realize.  Some people go in and kill stuff then leave, but if you stay around often times the NPCs involved will continue on with their lives and you see their story unfold.  That often leads to new dynamic events.  See this video it shows it well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CyqGJHTjes&feature=channel&list=UL

Open world: GW2 has the most open world content I have seen out of any game. I would say 95% of the game is open world. Personal story and some dungeons are instanced, but there is a lot of great open world story and open world dungeons as well.

Updates: They said they would continuously relersae new content.  There is no specifics about this yet though.

TSW

Story: TSW has the best story I have seen in any MMO so far.  It is definitely its strength.  The main quest line is made of instances in the world though so it is not a story that is experienced with others.  However there are tons of other great stories which you can experience in the open world.

Updates: They have committed to monthly updates and so far they have done so.  The first month had 6 new missions and a bunch of other content.  This months update looks similar.

Again like many people I would recommend GW2 for you. Your main reasons is that you want a game that lasts with regular updates.

Well GW2 is perfect for you. It has a huge world to expore, PvP for hardcore and casual. There is down leveling so you can always go back to lower levels and it'll still be tough and fun for you. The devs has stated an area might have 100 Dynamic events now, years from now it might have 300. 

They've also said they'll be tweaking Dynamic events regularly. So even if you had done a DE multiple times it might have a different ending. There are tons of achievements and things to hold your attention. Jumping puzzles, mini games etc

You also do not want grinding , again this is perfect for you. The leveling in GW2 is scalar, that means level 40-41 will take about the same time from 79-80 which is about 1.5 hours (according to Anet). Since there isn't any gear grind for "Uber" gear, you won't be forced to "grind" rather you can choose if you want cosmetic upgrades. Don't get me wrong, it might still be a grind (dungeon gear) but YOU aren't forced to grind. In other MMOs if you don't keep up the latest tier of gear you're quickly left behind.

THE BEST PART? You only need to pay a $60 fee one time to play it, no sub fee. In a Q&A , a dev stated "All content created by our live team will be free to play" 

Hijacking the thread into a war between TSW and GW2 is a bit lame.

AC was quite unique, but as you said it rarely made big graphical changes. So mobs would change, or an event would start somewhere. But there was a lot of story behind it and the story determined where players wanted to be. Imagine trying to sell that to the player graphic addicts of today. You would be laughed at by the industry and ranted about on forums.

MMO’s now require no imagination to play and so do not inspire it in their players. Its rather like the difference between a book and a film.

Give TERA a try...you might be surprised. Even in spite of the negative comments this reply is gonna get! Personally I am loving it and have been playing since release and still am (only lvl 34) Not a power lvl race to end cap kind of guy...And for me to play a single MMO for this long is something I havent done in a long time. What with TSW and GW2 looming right around the corner and I am presently content and not interested in another game right now. And I really wanted to play TSW at some point before they go and dumb it down like so many games these days tend to do.

GW2 while i'm sure to end up being a good game for some reason I'm just not interested and not buying into all the hype.

Originally posted by Scot

Hijacking the thread into a war between TSW and GW2 is a bit lame.

AC was quite unique, but as you said it rarely made big graphical changes. So mobs would change, or an event would start somewhere. But there was a lot of story behind it and the story determined where players wanted to be. Imagine trying to sell that to the player graphic addicts of today. You would be laughed at by the industry and ranted about on forums.

MMO’s now require no imagination to play and so do not inspire it in their players. Its rather like the difference between a book and a film.

You know most games nowadays have a great graphical basis to support something like what AC did, its just a lack of imagination on the part of the devs and probably also a loathing on their part to mess with the world they've already built. In AC, when a big change in the story brought a change to the world, players would log on after the patch day to find a whole town leveled, or built, or alien structures dotting the landscape. Even though they were fairly small changes in the grand scheme of the game world, they were enough to give context to what was going on in the game and give everyone something new to explore. Even though newer games are much more graphically complex, I doubt it would take much to blow up a town or build a new volcano into the landscape and then build a whole new story and set of quests around it. Instead, it seems like most, if not all, modern MMO's are build around a 100% static landscape that the devs are unwilling to change in any way. Even when a major game update is put out, they are almost always centered around adding new territory while leaving the original game world as it always was. I'm not sure why they do this, though I'm guessing its somewhere between the cost of making changes to the game world and trying to keep the overal game experience the same for every new player. The latter was always a problem with AC because veteran players had lots of interesting stories about past world events that the new players would just never get to experience. I know this eventually really discouraged new players joining the game, but the way I always saw it, you'd still be able to participate in new world events, and after a couple of years, you're not really going to get many new players anyway. When all is said and done though, I think that the modern MMO community could easily get into that kind of story based game that requires you to have an imagination and a committment to see where each new plotline goes. Sure there would be the "raider" types that wouldn't want to participate because they wouldn't have a real end game to be uber, but they are not the entire community.

On a different note, I did go ahead and try TSW since they have a free 3-day trial and, while the story is interesting, the game is just too faulty for me to have an interest in playing. I didn't feel like I was playing an MMO so much as a single player game which just happened to have other people there. Add in to that the graphics glitches which are everywhere, and a weird combat model where your character just ends up standing in front of a mob not reacting while it takes a long time to kill them with a gun (no offense, but if you're going to have a modern or future shooter, you can't expect a mob to take 4-5 point blank blasts and still be attacking... Instead combat needs to be much faster paced with more damage going both ways more quickly), and you've got a game which just won't work for me.

Anyway, it seems like GW2 might be worth a try, though I'm still very skeptical about what sort of content these dynamic events are really going to have. Right now, Rift has dynamic events all over the place in the form of zone invasions, and aside from giving everyone something to kill, they carry absolutely no weight in relation to the storyline and winning / losing them has absolutely no effect on anyone other than providing some rewards if you win. If this is what the makers of GW2 are planning on doing with their DE's, and DE's are primarily what they are going to be updating, I doubt the content updates will be worthile for me. That being said, at least its going to be FTP after you've bought it, so if it goes sour after a couple of months, I'm not out more than the purchase price, too bad I'll have to wait for them to offer a free trial of some sort before I'm willing to plop down the $60 for the game, which, if it follows certain other releases timetables means that I might not get a chance to even try it for 6 months to a year.

Sadly, I'm starting to believe what some of you have said that nothing exists, or will exist in the near future, that is going to live up to what I want from a MMO. Sure different games have parts of what I'm looking for, but I'm not about to start playing 3-4 different games with 3-4 different subs just to get a whole set of gaming needs filled. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should just try putting together a development house to build the game myself so that in 5 years it finally exists (as if that would ever work...).

The concept of world changing events did not disappear from the MMO designers building blocks. But it was hit by the problems of making alterations to ever more graphically intensive games. This has been talked about by the guys who did Dwarf Fortress, it is a lot easier to scrap and rebuild when your game is in Ascii code!

But the other factor is that world changing events and easymode do not go hand in hand. The easymode way is to make them like Rift did, they are short term events, having local effects, often linked to dailies.

If you are going to do real world changing events it effects the flow of gameplay, and easymode design hates anything that effects gameplay. When that town gets reduced to rubble what happens to the quest givers and NPC vendors? Todays players just would not be able to handle it: Can’t finish your quest for a couple of days until the town is rebuilt? OMFG get on the forums and complain, send in a help request every day until the devs sort it!!!!!

Even doing something like changing the route you need to use to get from A to B would now be seen as causing frustration in players, as is any sort of puzzle. Anything which might cause confusion or delays is ironed out of the modern ezMMO. So having world changing events which necessitate players to do some reading before the go online or even just have ask what is going on in general chat is avoided. The game play is casual and becoming ever more casual, won’t be long before your five year old brother will have no problems playing an ezMMO.

Originally posted by Scot

Hijacking the thread into a war between TSW and GW2 is a bit lame.

AC was quite unique, but as you said it rarely made big graphical changes. So mobs would change, or an event would start somewhere. But there was a lot of story behind it and the story determined where players wanted to be. Imagine trying to sell that to the player graphic addicts of today. You would be laughed at by the industry and ranted about on forums.

MMO’s now require no imagination to play and so do not inspire it in their players. Its rather like the difference between a book and a film.

And we pen and paper players always said you needed little imagination to play a MMO, even before AC came out.

Really not a good argument, if you want to imagine things there are better ways than not so great graphics. AC did have other good points though and gameplay Vs graphics is always a hot topic.

I can play a fun game with bad graphics but I dont make excuses for it. Computer games is just a different medium.

I have to disagree with the whole EVE has no storyline bit. I wager EVE has the best storyline out of any MMO because it's all playermade and constantly changing from one day to the next.

Once you get involved in the 0.0 storylines, you get hooked on what the game has to offer. It's not so much about what the devs want you to experience as it is the outcomes of interactions with other players/groups.

I understand that you're mainly after PvE, so that's probably why you couldn't get into EVE.

I honestly feel like I should set up an EVE recruitment program here. So many people that would love EVE simply don't get to experience what it really has to offer because they don't end up in the right corp.

Originally posted by Scot

The concept of world changing events did not disappear from the MMO designers building blocks. But it was hit by the problems of making alterations to ever more graphically intensive games. This has been talked about by the guys who did Dwarf Fortress, it is a lot easier to scrap and rebuild when your game is in Ascii code!

But the other factor is that world changing events and easymode do not go hand in hand. The easymode way is to make them like Rift did, they are short term events, having local effects, often linked to dailies.

If you are going to do real world changing events it effects the flow of gameplay, and easymode design hates anything that effects gameplay. When that town gets reduced to rubble what happens to the quest givers and NPC vendors? Todays players just would not be able to handle it: Can’t finish your quest for a couple of days until the town is rebuilt? OMFG get on the forums and complain, send in a help request every day until the devs sort it!!!!!

Even doing something like changing the route you need to use to get from A to B would now be seen as causing frustration in players, as is any sort of puzzle. Anything which might cause confusion or delays is ironed out of the modern ezMMO. So having world changing events which necessitate players to do some reading before the go online or even just have ask what is going on in general chat is avoided. The game play is casual and becoming ever more casual, won’t be long before your five year old brother will have no problems playing an ezMMO.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Scot

Hijacking the thread into a war between TSW and GW2 is a bit lame.

AC was quite unique, but as you said it rarely made big graphical changes. So mobs would change, or an event would start somewhere. But there was a lot of story behind it and the story determined where players wanted to be. Imagine trying to sell that to the player graphic addicts of today. You would be laughed at by the industry and ranted about on forums.

MMO’s now require no imagination to play and so do not inspire it in their players. Its rather like the difference between a book and a film.

And we pen and paper players always said you needed little imagination to play a MMO, even before AC came out.

Really not a good argument, if you want to imagine things there are better ways than not so great graphics. AC did have other good points though and gameplay Vs graphics is always a hot topic.

I can play a fun game with bad graphics but I dont make excuses for it. Computer games is just a different medium.

Originally posted by helthros

I have to disagree with the whole EVE has no storyline bit. I wager EVE has the best storyline out of any MMO because it's all playermade and constantly changing from one day to the next.

 

Once you get involved in the 0.0 storylines, you get hooked on what the game has to offer. It's not so much about what the devs want you to experience as it is the outcomes of interactions with other players/groups.

 

I understand that you're mainly after PvE, so that's probably why you couldn't get into EVE.

I honestly feel like I should set up an EVE recruitment program here. So many people that would love EVE simply don't get to experience what it really has to offer because they don't end up in the right corp.

Is it just me, or does this editor really not allow placing reply text in between multiply quoted messages without manually recoding the html tags for the whole post?

Anyway, I agree that a big part of the problem is that game designers attempt to cater to the lowest common denominator when dealing with their potential player base. A lot of players want ex-mode, and so they make easy mode games. Unfortunatly, this is basically creating a "race to the bottom" so to speak for the level of game quality, at least in my opinion. Sure, the graphics are getting really great, and there is plenty of uber gear to be ground out for bragging rights, but the real substance of the MMORPG is being excised to the point where there isn't actually any point in worrying about the story anymore because it has no effect on you and you have no effect on it and the only real decisions you have to make deal with your character build and what they look like with all their gear on. I understand that this is a dollar driven decision, as it would be bad business for a company to sink the kind of money it takes to develop a heavy hitting MMORPG while only targeting it at a niche market. You need at least some of the ez-moders to come buy the game and pay some subscription fees in order to make the game profitable enough to have justified its existance. After participating in this convorsation for a while though, I'm starting to think that its the player base thats to blame more than the devs. Sure, I would love to see a renaissance of the real RPG built into MMO form, but even if it was developed, it would have to be seriously hyped to catch the attention of the masses, and then the devs would have to throw down the gauntlet and tell the people who want the game dumbed down to go suck an egg to have even a slight chance of preserving the RPG part of the game.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not mr. RPG. I've never played on an RPG-only server, and I don't play in an RPG style, but that doesn't mean I don't care about the story. I too used to play pen and paper RPGs (Primarily Cyberpunk, but a few forays into D&D and  Mechwarrior), and still would, but for lack of the requisit other players and hours of free time needed to get everyone together, get set up, and then work your way through the story the GM came up with for that night. The key, more than anything else, for a game like that was always the story... If you didn't have a good story, the game amounted to a group of people sitting around a table talking and nothing more. While MMORPG's are only the latest version of this (I still play the legend of zelda occasionally on an emulator) they are the first since those tabletop games that actually allows for more than just you or maybe one other person to participate. The sad thing is that it seems like the player base as a whole just isn't iterested in that aspect of the game anymore. I have a feeling this is the result of the newer generations of players never really experiencing that play style. If they've never had to follow the story and make decisions based on it which then affect the next part of the story, that concept then becomes foreign to them and ultimately uninteresting.

In response to another thing you've mentioned, I really believe that the idea that the increasingly complex graphical environment is a reason not to chance that environment is a red herring. The issue, I'm guessing, is that the art designers are not building the game from the ground up to be modular, or at least not very modular. Sure it was much easier in a game like AC where there were maybe 100 models of each type of environmental object for the entire world, but that doesn't mean the same ease of alteration can't be achieved with some good front end planning. That being said, I think the second point about players pitching a fit if something changed and they weren't expecting it is a much more valid argument. Because the MMO market has become fairly saturated with titles, the publishers need to keep a death grip on every possible paying customer, so if blowing up a town and moving the NPCs to a nearby tent camp (all of the NPCs were still available the day after patch in that AC event, not even a 30 second run from the original location) is enough to cause a player to threaten to leave the game, they probably wouldn't risk it. On the other hand, that was what was so great about AC and what kept the world populated for so long. Patch day was like christmas, with tons of players running around all over the place trying to figure out what was new and where that plot line was going in the new month. When the town was blown up, everyone wanted to know why and what had happened, which led to a 6-month story line that culminated in the town being rebuilt and an invasion being repelled. Sure, there's no easy mode there, but the fun was in the search and exploration rather than just killing a bunch of new mobs and winning some uber loot / bragging rights.

@helthros

I'm not an EVE carebear as you seem to have assumed. I started way back in Dec. 2004 and have been an "on again, off again" player since then with about a solid 5 years in game. Of those 5 years, I've lived in nullsec for the last 3, would PvP on a daily basis, and have been an active member of a great PvP corp and have participated in the Northern Coalition, though that was back when they actually owned most of the north. That all being said, life was always very repetetive, and while a very few ops did get into heavy terriroty contests or do some real behind the lines black ops, the vast majority was little more than roaming aound looking for some pew pew. So while, yes, there is a story built by the players (as I've pointed out in my op), you have to be a member of a major corp / alliance / coalition  to even think about participating in that story. And, as I'm sure you know, joining one of the majors often comes with all sorts of nasty strings or time obligations, depending on who you decide to throw your lot in with, and thats completely ignoring the black marks you can get against you if you happen to pick the wrong one... cough... cough... goons... cough... And all of that is predicated on if you can get in at all, don't forget, people don't trust people in that game, so the big names don't just hand out membership like its candy on Halloween.

I'm not saying I don't like EVE, after all, I keep coming back time after time. It has great potential if you get yourself into the right situation, the problem is getting yourself into that situation. Not only that, but even the best ship replacement programs keep you running through isk like water, so if you're not PvPing you're almost always grinding isk (running incursions is the epitomy of repetetive grinding, no matter how you try and slice it). The end result is a game where you have to work to make money to buy ships so that you can work for your corp losing those ships so that you can have some semblance of the word play fitting into all that work.