We can only feel bad for The Elder Scrolls Online, which hinted that they would follow GW2.  Oops?

And before anyone jumps on me, there will be that "been there, done that" effect to any game.  Frankly, I've seen GW2, and I'm not going back to that game style, it's boring, and anti-MMORPG.

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by IfrianMMO

I think all of us mmo veterans miss the same thing.

-The communities that were forged in those small, tight mmos, where your name and actions had a value, and where each player was important and needed. because the journey was long, difficult, and required friends and partnership.

But then the crowd that hated mmo´s or had no actual time to play them decided they wanted to be part of the cool crowd too,  the devs took notice of the chances at big $ and there we go.

Nowadays mmorpgs are not mmorpgs, and are played by people who detest what mmorpgs truly are.

 

The old MMOs were kinda like the small pub at the corner, where everyone knew you; now it is replaced with a giant shopping mall.

The man speaks the truth.  Things were just more personal then.   If you needed someone to help you then someone (or a group) would take the time and go out of their way to make sure you got yours, even if success wasn't guranteed.  They would do this for you because they were probably in a similar situation at one time or another.  There was still some nasty stuff going on and extreme competition, etc.  You know, pubs have fights sometimes.  How many times do you see fights and other nasty stuff in a mall?  You can pick out exactly what you want to look like, be instantly transported anywhere in the world, have enough money to buy virtually any items, etc.  It's soooooooooooooo dull

A community will never exist if you don't depend on each other.

A community fails if:

-you can solo anything

-groups are made by the game instead of the players

-there is no penalty if you fail

-there is no good written chat system in place

-you can port everywhere in the world instantly, no sense of danger that requires codependence

-you allow players to multibox

-you take the players out of the world by building cities everywhere

Most current MMO are single player games with multiplayer aspects, not MMO.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

-there is no good chat system in place

Why are we so unimaginative about in-game communications? Are we really tethered to conventional chat systems? Frankly, having to stop what I'm doing and read or type something into a chatbox is annoying and certainly detracts from immersiveness.

Why can't I select another player, who's within a realistic distance from me, and speak audibly to him or her? Most of us own microphones, so that shouldn't be an issue. When grouped, we'd all be able to communicate audibly.

Wouldn't this add to a sense of community? It would certainly quiet the legion of smart asses that seem to suck up so much bandwidth on convention chat systems.

"Worldwide" communications would be done via in-game newspapers.

Maybe I'm in la la land technologically, but I still think we should be thinking outside the box.

Originally posted by Simphanatic

Originally posted by CalmOceans

-there is no good chat system in place

Why are we so unimaginative about in-game communications? Are we really tethered to conventional chat systems? Frankly, having to stop what I'm doing and read or type something into a chatbox is annoying and certainly detracts from immersiveness.

 

Why can't I select another player, who's within a realistic distance from me, and speak audibly to him or her? Most of us own microphones, so that shouldn't be an issue. When grouped, we'd all be able to communicate audibly.

 

Wouldn't this add to a sense of community? It would certainly quiet the legion of smart asses that seem to suck up so much bandwidth on convention chat systems.

 

"Worldwide" communications would be done via in-game newspapers.

 

Maybe I'm in la la land technologically, but I still think we should be thinking outside the box.

 

Second Life has that ability... You enter an area and you hear people talking to each other, via mic.  Real voices.

Originally posted by asmkm22

Eve also has really uncompelling gameplay for a lot of people, in terms of "combat," and exploration only seems to be rewarding to a very particular kind of person.  For everyone else, it's just one starfield after another, with different color suns.

To each his own then. My experience with EVE has been the complete opposite. And as for exploraton, I think EVE has the best possible mechanic for that type of gameplay, by far.

Originally posted by Karteli

Second Life has that ability... You enter an area and you hear people talking, via mic.  Real voices.

Ick. I just puked a little in my mouth. But thank you for pointing out that it's technologically feasible.

Originally posted by Simphanatic

Originally posted by Karteli

Second Life has that ability... You enter an area and you hear people talking, via mic.  Real voices.

Ick. I just puked a little in my mouth. But thank you for pointing out that it's technologically feasible.

Yup it is.

It's not that anyone is unimaginative though for not implementing automatic mic voice.  I'd say all the games coming out are designed to be "kid friendly", which is not what MMORPG's used to be.

MMORPG's curled their tails up and went that way, not because those games are better, but because there is more money to be found.  F2P conversions might make this worse.

Originally posted by Simphanatic

type something into a chatbox is annoying and certainly detracts from immersiveness.

 

Why can't I select another player, who's within a realistic distance from me, and speak audibly to him or her? Most of us own microphones, so that shouldn't be an issue. When grouped, we'd all be able to communicate audibly.

 

An elf sounding like a burly guy through the mic is not immersive for me, nor is a dog barking through the mic, or an orge with a little kid's voice. Or that one guy we all know who won't shut off his music in the background.

Mics totally kill immersion for me.

I have never found typing to be annoying, unless the game is too fast.

Actually I should have added that on that list, a fast paced game detracts from the community.

I believe part of the reason Everquest had one of the best communities, if not the best, of any MMO to date, is likely it's slow-paced gameplay which allowed for chat sessions.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

An elf sounding like a burly guy through the mic is not immersive for me, nor is a dog barking through the mic. Mics totally kill immersion for me.

I have never found typing to be annoying, unless the game is too fast.

Actually I should have added that on that list, a fast paced game detracts from the community.

I believe part of the reason Everquest had one of the best communities, if not the best, of any MMO to date, is likely it's slow-paced gameplay which allowed for chat sessions.

Good point! And then there's that other thread about all the guys who play females. :P

I've nothing wrong with pace of game, PvP and grouped operations probably should be fast-paced, but the game world I'm craving will NOT focus exclusively on combat. There MUST be lots of things to do besides, and I don't mean just a cheesy, half-assed crafting system.

Originally posted by Karteli

We can only feel bad for The Elder Scrolls Online, which hinted that they would follow GW2.  Oops?

 

And before anyone jumps on me, there will be that "been there, done that" effect to any game.  Frankly, I've seen GW2, and I'm not going back to that game style, it's boring, and anti-MMORPG.

I'm just curious if that phrase was intentional or not, lol?   Cause I find it funny that I see that title under so many level 80's in GW2 ... 

Originally posted by Magiknight

Originally posted by Threatlevel0

Originally posted by Simphanatic

The OP mirrors my sentiment EXACTLY.

 

The problem as I see it is that so many MMOs are little more than websites providing us with varying carrot and stick quests, where PvP and economy are little more than second thoughts.

 

SWTOR wasn't a bad game, when compared to anything else on the market, it just didn't deliver on the promise of an open world that would give us more than other similar games. Even though I've since tried a few other MMOs, SWTOR really was a nail in the coffin insofar as my long-term MMO participation is concerned.

 

In short, I want a gaming world that can be a destination in and of itself. I want to live in that world, not merely do a series of stale, constrained quests. Before I ever invest my time and money in another MMO, it absolutely must meet these criteria:

1. Have a dynamic, player-influenced, open environment
2. Possess a fluid, impactful economy that is not at all affected by infusion of real-world money
3. Provide meaningful player professions intrinsic to the economy
4. Furnish recreational venues that players can engage in when not in combat or working
5. Give players the opportunity to construct residences
6. Have non artifical, open PvP -- the world should be a risky place
7. There must be a player-regulated system for penalizing gankers, scammers, and other evil doers
8. Quests/missions are ok, but should not be a central focus of the game world (I'd prefer to see them as a starting point to game play -- a world introduction -- certainly not a destination)
9. Community is not a factor because if the foregoing are executed properly community will follow

Unless I see all these in an MMO I'm not bothering with it. I am just fine reading books; watching movies; or, gawd forbid, playing the latest Sims 3 expansion.

 

That should be the list for any MMORPG Manifesto in my opinion.

 

 I'm still appalled that all the new 'mainstream' MMO's are almost solely focused on story, personal stories, cinematics, voice-overs, or perhaps I should just call it the "Fourth Pillar" now.  If I want a story I to am just fine reading my books or watching shows.  If I wanted to become immersed into an RPG world that is what I thought MMORPG's would be there for. 

 

 Being immersed in an RPG world and having a good story are not exclusive.  However, 95% of the games that have attempted to create stories have made game worlds that are not immersive.

I agree.  I never said they were.  I said, "MMO's are almost solely focused on," to highlight their importance on story filled with voice-over or cutscenes over making an immersive world.  

Any MMO though with personal stories that take players constantly out of the MMO world into their own instances though make no sense to me in MMO design. 

Originally posted by Elikal

Sigh. For a very long time I was really, really interested in MMOs. I followed the development of each of it, and tried a lot of them. But among the DOZENS of MMO I play, I can only say of three of them, that I played them a long time. Everquest II, SWG and LOTRO. Those were the only MMOs I actually played years.

Now they are all more or less old. So maybe I too changed, but I can't help to think that MMOs changed and most important the community changed. If I recall these three MMOs and the dividing factor compared to the other MMOs, in EQ2, SWG and LOTRO I found an active community. (Lotro speaking of the first 2 years here.)

Ever since then, I never have been in a MMO more than a couple of months, 3-4 at best. And that is not satisfactory. Not at all. All these short-term MMOs I more or less played like a single player game, only that the single player aspect of a MMO is MUCH worse than a real single player game. Overall, I see that as a game itself, MMOs are relatively bad games. All of them. For some reasons MMOs never really unfolded their true potential, and I mean NONE of it. All of them are/were more or less crappy, broken, limited and half-baked; only sometimes the setting, sometimes the community, sometimes a few features kept me for a while. Like the 4 months I played my two mains in SWTOR to max, going through 2 story arcs. Or my 3 months in WAR for the RVR.

But overall... MMOs are just a very basic and mediocre form of games, compared how far the other types of computer games evolved. They are also all of them singleminded, like focussed on one or two strengths and totally neglecting the other.

 

Now I sure will come here regularly, follow the ongoings, but after the GW2 letdown (entirely personally speaking!), that after 1-2 months I already feel I have seen enough of it, I see that my time where I was a vivid MMO gamer simply comes to an end, and I feel my aspirations are again more wanting good single player games. Games with a real start, middle and end; games with a real purpose and structure. RPGs, strategy games, adventures, maybe some action games too. I feel I enjoy them nowadays so much more. And it's sad. But I simply cannot find a real community and I just can not join a Guild anymore! I was in many guilds, those of the three MMOs mentioned had the best, but the guilds today... I don't feel I fit into them anymore. They have either too eager powerplayers, too young people with a different focus on life, or they are mere chat channels where nobody ACTUALLY does something together. And I simply have no will to make guild hopping, chosing a new guild every 2 weeks.

It's a pity. I miss the experience I had in the years I played SWG and EQ2 especially. But ever since, I never found that again. And each new MMO just let me down more. SWTOR was a really bad experience which left me scarred and GW2... sorry but for ME at least it is so limited and so quick to bore me. I do not blame the game, I know after SO MANY flops and halfassed MMOs I just can't take it anymore. And as I said, the days where MMO gamers were a small, tight knit community are just gone forever. Now it's a mass market for millions, and that just doesn't work for me.

You ain't gonna get rid of me here, but I kinda had to make a statement for myself here. ;)

I can relate to this, it even is effecting my single player games.

The things that bought me into this hobby all that time ago are no longer fashionable and so the games are steadily getting less and less fulfilling to me. I mean, some of the newer titles still appeal, I like the look of Dishonoured, but in the main I buy all my stuff from indie devs on Steam (because they seem to make the older style of games a lot of the time, like Legend of Grimrock and others) and GoG, oh and from notable devs/ publishers like Telltale Games and Paradox. I am also playing more and more PnP games online with stuff like the Roll20 virtual tabletop.... just getting back to what hooked me in originally, before I was seduced with fancy gfx and industry buzzwords, I guess. Rediscovering what I loved in the first place.

I am not done with PC gaming, I think I have just accepted that the current trendy thinking in game design in the main isn't what I am looking for.

I need my games I think to be... nerdier then then modern mass market allows.