If a game is designed well it will endure through the years.  Sadly, many games are not designed well. 

Also, I think there is a fundamental flaw that occurs even before many games begin, and that is mmos are being designed with gameplay in mind, as opposed to escapism.  Games in general tend to have a short lifespan unless they resonate with the fans, and even then newer iterations come out every year or so to replace those games.  Therefore, modern mmos are really not designed to last beyond a year or so.

In contrast, mmos with escapism as a central focus, ie virtual world or sandbox, encourages gameplay by utilizing a more organic design theory that encourages participation more than the sum of it's parts.  Games like UO, DAOC, SWG, and Eve Online are much deeper and richer experience because it taps into something more intriguing than a simple game ever could.

WOW I think resonated for a different reason.  It became the exception to the rule, but so successful a lot of people in the gaming industry thought it was 'the rule'.   And because of that we've seen a lot of emulation in one direction when we should have been going in another direction...at least some of the time.  Half assed attempts at sandboxes don't count, because as a concept it is like a house of cards and if it's implemented without care or deep thought it comes crashing down.

So I would not blame the players.  But I think the designers and developers are to blame, catering to the gamer market instead of the escapist market. 

Originally posted by pvpirl

 

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Originally posted by r3zs1ckn3ss
In ther early days of games like Guild Wars, WoW, SWG, FFXI

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lol

Actually there where Eq, Uo, Ac and DAoc way before that...

Compared to the slang they threw at mmo fans a few years ago(aoc, war, and such) last 2 years releases where quite good, i enjoyed a 1 time play through in Dcuo, Rift, swtor and Tsw... And Gw2 is just huge and here to stay. 

Problem is people expecting real virtuall worlds, where the current mmos are nothing more but games

Originally posted by r3zs1ckn3ss
In ther early days of games like Guild Wars, WoW, SWG, FFXI, we embraced our MMO's. We understood the flaws here and there but we still played. We appreciated it. These days almost every MMO gets bashed. It'll be the talk of the threads. Then a month or two later the game dies. Is it the companies fault? Sure.....but not entirely. They say that the devs don't listen. Well the community isn't exactly proactive enough to convey the things they don't like about a game. Why did the golden age of MMO's do so well with like WoW for instance? Well we didn't have a vast variety of games like we do now. We embraced what we did have and enjoyed it. But now standards are set and not ONE MMO has lasted AND stood out for a long duration. Many are still around, but the communities for a good amount of them are decreasing or already dead. Sure we all have our own ideas on this and that, but in the end the market doesn't exactly KNOW what players want. They don't exactly sit there and spend their time reading in these forums and others. I like Tera. It has a few things I would like fixed here and there but overall I'm staying for the long haul. But players are decreasing. The community is less active. It's like music these days. People will embrace or rather become infatuated with new artists and the a month or two later they move on to the next new thing. The same with MMO's. I guarantee that the newest most hyped game in development that everyone is talking about is having a lot of people in this mindset of "This game is going to be a WoW killer." "Awe man this one beats all the others blah blah blah." ANd then the $@^% game is nothing more than $20 boxes sitting on the shelf at Gamestop collecting dust. WoW still has a decently active community. But players support the game not just monetarily but voicing their opinions as well. And everyone else should too when it comes to the games they pay money for. Be active. Go to the company sites and provide input. If 100,000 of a game's playerbase has ideas and they all take the time like 5 mins on the internet to provide feedback, most likely they'll be more open to resolve issues and know what the players want. If this offends anyone or people disagree with any of this then oh well. I tend to call it like I see it. So please stop killing games just because you either didn't like it off the bat or you didn't see enough changes in direction because you chose not to be part of an active community.

Let me correct some things for you. At no time has Blizz under the direction of Ghostcrawler ever listened to the players needs. (except this one time when they lost 2 mil subs all at once, and then they appealed to the RPer's with transmog suddenly after 6 years of requests) that's number 1

number 2 games where the community is listened to and the game adjusted have survived just fine. (Rift)

number 3 games with subs are the only ones dying off left and right. And it's only due to the WoW clone-esc genre techniques and the required monthly fee to play. THAT'S ALL. none of this people don't request improvements mess....

most successful launches are met with ignored posts by devs because they let their success go to their heads, so our requests go unheeded

I submitted improvements to every game i've played, in the ten years i've played mmo's none of them were put into a game. simple ui stuff. nothing gamebreaking.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by r3zs1ckn3ss
In ther early days of games like Guild Wars

2005 is rarely considered 'early days' in these parts.  Just, you know, bound to come up.

LOL this is the first thing that popped into my head when I read the OP's opening statement.

GW, WoW, FFXI.... early day MMO's?

In my mind those titles actually started the shift and decline of the MMO genre.

UO, EQ, AC, DAoC those were early day MMOS. These games laid the groundwork for the above mentioned titles to come along and screw it all up.

Since we all know MMO's started with WoW... /eyeroll

First off, paragraphs are your friend bud. Please use them.

Secondly, I agree with the vast majority of what the OP said. Regardless of what a lot of people try and swear as truth on these forums, we most definitely had 'less' to work with during the 'golden age' of MMOs. Less games, less features, less players.

This didn't stop some of those games from being amazing, but it's also irresponsible of us, as players, to try and pretend like those games were flawless. Or that we stuck with them for as long as we did because the game was so much better built than everything else at launch.

Those days weren't like that at all. It was simply an environment of few games, even fewer expectations, and an attitude of 'lets see what this has to offer'. The atmosphere has done a complete 180 since. I firmly believe that if we had some of those original games release today, with a reskin, most players still wouldn't support them. They'd either hide behind the excuse of 'well, its just not the same', try and find some excuse to say that the reskin is somehow inferior, or just swear off MMOs altogether.

Many people are still having trouble understanding just how different the landscape of todays MMOs are. The market is saturated with games coming out every year. Heck, how many games did we get hyped about this passed year? TSW, GW2, TSO, PS2, Firefall, War Z, Dust, and I know I'm forgetting about at least a couple other ones. In the past we'd maybe have 2 good MMOs to look forward to in the near future.

Furthermore, most of the games we loved didn't have great starts. But we stuck with them. Furthermore we actively worked with the developers & GMs to provide feedback. Especially in games like SWG. Many of these games had huge bugs, minimal content, and horrible balance. But we didn't care back then. We were just happy to have a world to play in, and watch it grow into something truly impressive. Nowadays? We expect these same games to magically launch in a state closest to our top memories of these previous games. It's just not possible.

Originally posted by itgrowls

Let me correct some things for you. At no time has Blizz under the direction of Ghostcrawler ever listened to the players needs. (except this one time when they lost 2 mil subs all at once, and then they appealed to the RPer's with transmog suddenly after 6 years of requests) that's number 1

number 2 games where the community is listened to and the game adjusted have survived just fine. (Rift)

number 3 games with subs are the only ones dying off left and right. And it's only due to the WoW clone-esc genre techniques and the required monthly fee to play. THAT'S ALL. none of this people don't request improvements mess....

most successful launches are met with ignored posts by devs because they let their success go to their heads, so our requests go unheeded

I submitted improvements to every game i've played, in the ten years i've played mmo's none of them were put into a game. simple ui stuff. nothing gamebreaking.

I've heard these same arguments before, and I just don't see the evidence there.

First off, Blizzard did listen to it's fans, and has continued to do so. In fact you can trace many of the problems of the game down to major gripping from the community. Mainly their decisions to add heroics & to tone down the difficulty of most of their content.

It's not so easy to say that 'games where the community is listened to survived just fine'. SWG is a prime example of a game that tried to listen to what the community wanted, ended up listening to the wrong parts of their community, and tanked as a result.

As for the sub argument, it's also not that simple. There are sub games that are still going strong, or even gaining subscriptions (EVE), and others that aren't doing well at all (TERA). There are also some F2P games that aren't doing so great (Allods), and some that are doing quite well (Runes of Magic, Perfect World, etc.)

What you, and many others need to start understanding, is you're part of a crowd. You are one of millions of potential players all screaming about how much they love or hate various aspects of the game. Just because your one piece of advice (even if it seems valid) doesn't get heard, it doesn't mean that developers aren't listening. They have millions of people they have to listen to, and other people may have the exact opposite feedback from yours.

Every game's different, and every company handles feedback differnetly. Some are a little more proactive about it (Anet), while others tend to do their own thing until problems start to arise (Sony).  There are examples of community feedback being listened to across most of these games, in one form or another. Doesn't mean it's going to be yours.

Originally posted by aesperus

First off, paragraphs are your friend bud. Please use them.

Secondly, I agree with the vast majority of what the OP said. Regardless of what a lot of people try and swear as truth on these forums, we most definitely had 'less' to work with during the 'golden age' of MMOs. Less games, less features, less players.

This didn't stop some of those games from being amazing, but it's also irresponsible of us, as players, to try and pretend like those games were flawless. Or that we stuck with them for as long as we did because the game was so much better built than everything else at launch.

Er... but I stuck with DAoC for 6 years exactly because it was built better than just about everything else at launch. I would still be playing it if they hadn't broken their own game. And less to work with? UO, the first true MMO had more features than just about any modern AAA WoW clone, waaaay more features. Just about every pre WoW MMO has more features than modern MMOs.

Originally posted by Terranah

If a game is designed well it will endure through the years.  Sadly, many games are not designed well. 

 

Also, I think there is a fundamental flaw that occurs even before many games begin, and that is mmos are being designed with gameplay in mind, as opposed to escapism.  Games in general tend to have a short lifespan unless they resonate with the fans, and even then newer iterations come out every year or so to replace those games.  Therefore, modern mmos are really not designed to last beyond a year or so.

 

In contrast, mmos with escapism as a central focus, ie virtual world or sandbox, encourages gameplay by utilizing a more organic design theory that encourages participation more than the sum of it's parts.  Games like UO, DAOC, SWG, and Eve Online are much deeper and richer experience because it taps into something more intriguing than a simple game ever could.

 

WOW I think resonated for a different reason.  It became the exception to the rule, but so successful a lot of people in the gaming industry thought it was 'the rule'.   And because of that we've seen a lot of emulation in one direction when we should have been going in another direction...at least some of the time.  Half assed attempts at sandboxes don't count, because as a concept it is like a house of cards and if it's implemented without care or deep thought it comes crashing down.

 

So I would not blame the players.  But I think the designers and developers are to blame, catering to the gamer market instead of the escapist market. 

The escapist market is not even close to being large enough to consider that the developers made the wrong choice.

Originally posted by bossalinie

Originally posted by Terranah

If a game is designed well it will endure through the years.  Sadly, many games are not designed well. 

 

Also, I think there is a fundamental flaw that occurs even before many games begin, and that is mmos are being designed with gameplay in mind, as opposed to escapism.  Games in general tend to have a short lifespan unless they resonate with the fans, and even then newer iterations come out every year or so to replace those games.  Therefore, modern mmos are really not designed to last beyond a year or so.

 

In contrast, mmos with escapism as a central focus, ie virtual world or sandbox, encourages gameplay by utilizing a more organic design theory that encourages participation more than the sum of it's parts.  Games like UO, DAOC, SWG, and Eve Online are much deeper and richer experience because it taps into something more intriguing than a simple game ever could.

 

WOW I think resonated for a different reason.  It became the exception to the rule, but so successful a lot of people in the gaming industry thought it was 'the rule'.   And because of that we've seen a lot of emulation in one direction when we should have been going in another direction...at least some of the time.  Half assed attempts at sandboxes don't count, because as a concept it is like a house of cards and if it's implemented without care or deep thought it comes crashing down.

 

So I would not blame the players.  But I think the designers and developers are to blame, catering to the gamer market instead of the escapist market. 

The escapist market is not even close to being large enough to consider that the developers made the wrong choice.

Haha what? The 3 million or so people who played MMOs before WoW weren't a big enough market?

Nowadays, an MMO is lucky if it has like, 100k subs. Like, REALLY fucking lucky. Back in dial up escapist days, MOST MMOs had that many subs. UO, SWG, DAoC, and EQ had 250k +

Ahhh the early days of 2005 when we were all in short trousers. :)

Yes MMO's have been a fashion for years. Gaming companies do realise this and play to it. Hype, pre-launch play, open beta, pre-order. But also encouraging gaming social networks and their new love of the last few years, mainstream social networks. Keeping gamers in touch, tweeting purchases, what games they are playing. Just like music, if you are not playing my game with me are you really my friend?

Gaming has totally become ruled by fashion; WoW is this decades black, no matter what the style, the MMO must be black. We have gaming shows instead of fashion shows, trendy must have accessories like dailies, in game rewards akin to retail loyalty points. And that’s just where we are now, as I always say this is a ongoing process, people who think it stops here are deluded.