As every January 1st rolls around, people the world over begin making New Year's resolutions. It should come as no surprise that we gamers do as well. Check out Pokket's Gaming Resolution and then let us know what you are hoping to accomplish in 2013. Check it out!

I guess, in a sense, I did sort of set goals for myself in gaming. One of the main goals was to stop comparing everything to my first online game, Ultima Online. I really, really enjoyed the PvP and housing customization in that game, even to the point of addiction. I’d say seven years of playing it will make you a pretty hardcore fanboy, however, I found that by comparing it to other games, it made it hard to enjoy those new titles. Once I stopped doing that, it was amazing how I could finally manage to enjoy other games. I think this concept spans many areas in our lives and it is something that many of us need to work on constantly.

Read more of Hillary Nicole's Pokket Says: Gaming Resolution.

It's not easy to accept games as what they are.

On the other side, once one can see them as-is without comparison, if they still don't rate better than "meh", just accept that too as part of what they are.

There's plenty of "meh" to be had.  And those are the good games. :-)

nice post.

New Years Resolutions always seem to be rooted in regret. A long time ago I changed my approach to life and I chose not to live in regret, thus I do not make New Years Resolutions.

Happy New Year all, may your games be fun and plot lines be full ! 

Good article Pokket.  Plus throwing a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon in there never hurts :).  I feel the same way as you except with Pre-NGE SWG rather than UO.  I always compare the games I play to that and wind up being disappointed.  The attitude I have been taking is I'll play games for what they are and in the case of TOR and TSW, I am really enjoying them now that I am playing them without all the "baggage." 

What I've noticed lately is that if you enjoy a game like TOR and express something positive about it, people jump all over you like a pack of rabid dogs basically calling you an idiot. 

Happy new year Pokket and all members.  I enjoy reading your posts and watching your videos. Yes, it's a shame that  so many concentrate on the negative aspects or comments of a piece (I am guilty too) and it's too bad that people always want to argue or criticize OPINIONS (I am guilty of this as well).  

So, my resolution is to make sure that I am advancing or adding to the thread, instead of arguing somebody's opinion.  

This is so true. My first mmo was SWG . I have since then compared more than a dozen mmo's to my first, and of course nothing comes close. I ended up being extremley disappointed with SWTOR because it is nothing like SWG. At the moment I am playing WoW. I really wish someone would make a SWG2 or a game similar to SWG, but i think you are right, we must move on and look at each game for what it is, not what we think it should be.

Originally posted by Ozmodan
So we should just ignore the good things we experienced from past games and accept what the current spate of games give us?  I guess that means we should lower our standards to enjoy what we get these days with the newer games.  Sorry, just don't see the point in that.  I just remain hopeful some developer will get it and deliever a game that improves on the old games.  We should not have to settle for games that constantly hold your hand, provide no challenge and provide little choice.

Agreed, decided that rather than continue supporting games I don't like I'll stay with titles I did, like EVE.

Maybe someday we'll see a newer title that matches the earlier ones for depth and challenge, (or at least a little variety in design), but until then, not going to lower my ideals on what I'm looking for.

I agree so much with the theory that fanboys ruin the games they set out to love. I have been saying it for years, far worse than being skeptical or even pessimistic about something, far far worse. I have seen entire forum communities be content with simply horrible designs and mechanics in game simply because they "love" the game, like it's their long lost love. Only to watch that game fail as they drift onto the next flavor on the month, it's disturbing.

One example definitely is GW2, however atleast that game was generally considered a decent themepark at the very least. However, look at 'The War Z'. I was on the forums of that game much before the whole steam debacle and even prior to the initial alpha release. 

All I can say about War Z fans is they got exactly what they deserved. Never once on any forum had I ever seen so much rampant fanboyism over a terrible game. The people on the forum were like the deaf , dumb, and blind. I don't blame hammerpoint for taking their money, the whole community behind the War Z behaved like children below the age of 12. Totally ignorant to what was actually going on and shooting down any concerns with harsh personal attacks.

Anyway... That is just was stuck out for me. I think I will be doing the same somewhat, I've seen how juvenile and insane a fanboy can look and I vow to never from this point on allow myself to act that way over a game no matter how excited I may be. 

It's funny though, I see a somewhat similar thing could happen with DF:UW, I certainly hope it does not.

Happy new year everyone.My gamming resolution is  I really need to embrace the way the whole mmo genre is going but I am an old timmer and really have a hard time giving up dedicated classes. I really find a sence of belonging when I can choose my class while games like GW2 were great to play through I found myself being lost with what to play(Traits)/use(weapon).

Originally posted by LethalElement

This is so true. My first mmo was SWG . I have since then compared more than a dozen mmo's to my first, and of course nothing comes close. I ended up being extremley disappointed with SWTOR because it is nothing like SWG. At the moment I am playing WoW. I really wish someone would make a SWG2 or a game similar to SWG, but i think you are right, we must move on and look at each game for what it is, not what we think it should be.

 

Looks like the Repopulation is going to have ALOT of the features SWG had including entertainers and similar crafting.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Ozmodan
So we should just ignore the good things we experienced from past games and accept what the current spate of games give us?  I guess that means we should lower our standards to enjoy what we get these days with the newer games.  Sorry, just don't see the point in that.  I just remain hopeful some developer will get it and deliever a game that improves on the old games.  We should not have to settle for games that constantly hold your hand, provide no challenge and provide little choice.

Agreed, decided that rather than continue supporting games I don't like I'll stay with titles I did, like EVE.

Maybe someday we'll see a newer title that matches the earlier ones for depth and challenge, (or at least a little variety in design), but until then, not going to lower my ideals on what I'm looking for.

 

 

Don't think we should lower our expectations, but we shouldn't expect newer games to completely recapture the feeling we had in some of the older games we played especially if it was your first MMO.   If you are expecting a similar set of game mechanics than that is a different discussion. 

Treat each game like it's the first game you played then you kind of enjoy other games each time. That's the only way to do it. I loved UO's housing customisation which even outranked The Sims but I didn’t like having a skill cap so didn’t get into it as much as I could have. It grew on me afew years later but then there was a faucet which made pvp optional which ruined the excitement abit. Then that skill which made being a mage pointless which is when I stopped playing it.

It was a good time back then. Not mindless ganking of people like you see these days in other full loot pvp games. People could make their own laws etc and own party rules etc. Like it didn’t have it’s own roll system but there were dice you could use to manually set up some kind of loot rule system and if you disagreed then pk could be an option. But it’s usually just like whoever hit the other the highest and get the stuff back and then point made, move on etc and it wasn’t even about loot back then. Just as one of many examples.

Developers used to make games to make good games back then, these days excluding some indie groups games are just made to make money. The same type of good games are still out there, you just have to look a bit harder because MMORPGs have became more popular over the years developers have been making games which make good business sense as opposed to being enjoyed by the gamer.

If a game has 3 developers and a server cost $120 a year and it is ran off a voluntary donation system with a playerbase of 50. If half the player base donated $20 annualy that would be $520 - $120 = $400 a year profit therefor the game would have enough money to keep going. That is how I see success so I can't really see how any game could be considered a failure looking at it like that.

Fanboyitis is deadly to gaming because its never possible for someone building a game to compete with your imagination and nostalgia rolled into one.  After a series of dissapoinments its hard to get enthused about whats coming knowing it will not live up to what you think it should. 

For me in particular, an otherwise good or great game can be sunk by bad or even not good UI design. It just shows people didn't play it enough. If  fighting the UI to do what you as the player want to do is part of a game that game has already failed.