I found this interesting article posted on massively.com. What do you guys think ?

fidgit.com/archives/2009/01/five-ways-mmos-are-broken.php

He didn't offer any solutions to the problems he presented.

number 5 and number 1 are the only ones I agree with.

I sort of have a solution to number 1. It's a rather simple design.

Give higher levels a reward for helping lower levels. Have a scale down option that lets you go down to the normal level range of the quest or dungeon they are on. Once you are that level...your group mate will share the quest they are on and you will get something in your quest log called a 'Helper Quest" (I know...not very imaginative name ) Once you help them complete the objective, you will get a quest helper point. Once you save enough of these up, you could get some cool gadgets or a special mount.

now of course thats really a simple design. I don't feel like going into detail how it all work. I realize that lowbies could abuse the system and what not. It's just a basic idea.

number 5...I don't have a solution to either. Good luck with that one

the other three are just personal nit-picks of the writer.

Well, you'd have to say they're good points, especially 1-3.

3) With 4,000 abilities and cool downs, yea, combat is pretty much nothing but playing the UI.  Personally, I'd rather see things trimmed down and more about paying attention to the action.

2) It's all been said before and it's still true.  So far, only the player driven games have found any kind of solution.

1) Big problem that people just sort of ignore.  Don't see why this one is so hard to solve.  Either get rid of the level system or just flatten out the progression curve.

I don't agree with Number 5 because subscription fees are on nearly everything these days, not just MMORPGs. It's become a way of life really and I understand why. Subscription is needed so that the developers get paid, so that the servers get paid, so that any other bills get PAID. What, does this guy think money grows on trees (technically it does) and that everyone can just pull off however much they like? Pfft, I wish.

The only problem I have with subscription fees is the price. $15 USD/mo may not sound like a much to those who live in America but to those who don't it can be quite annoying. And this is because of exchange rates (screw you Wall Street!).

Let's start with a few that aren't the worst I've seen, in fact, I wish I was paying this in my own currency.

$15 USD = €11.42 EUR
$15 USD = £10.56 GPB

These two aren't the worst, hell they're CHEAPER then what the Americans pay. And quite frankly, I wish I was paying this much in my own currency.

$15 USD = $18.26 CAD
$15 USD = $22.62 AUD
$15 USD = $28.79 NZD

Note that I'm using fairly common currencies (so in my examples I'm using Euros, British Pounds, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars). I have to pay more than any of those countries (I live in New Zealand). Do you know how annoying it is to have to pay nearly $30 when I know people are paying half as much as I am?

I wish developers would think about the exchange rates when dealing with prices so that countries like New Zealand and Australia arn't being ripped off. I used to pay $20, that was good. But noooo, Wall Street had to get goddamn greedy on us and now look what I pay (I don't blame the developers for that, but they can change their own prices).

Number 4

How the hell is aggro a problem? I'm pretty sure in real-life if some random come running through your home with a giant weapon killing all your family you'd at least question WHY they're doing it, wouldn't you? "Aggro" exists in real-life, ever hear attacks which have happened in the wilderness in real-life? That's basically the real worlds version of "aggro".

If you don't f*** with nature, nature won't f*** with you. Simple.

Number 3

This I do agree with but meh, I'm used to it. I would however, like a game which plays like World of Warcraft (in terms of the games 3rd person camera angle) but I can attack like in Oblivion (so no auto-attack).

Number 2

Huh? He doesn't like static worlds? Too bad. How else does he want it? It wouldn't be much of a game if, once one person has done a dungeon, no one else can do it. And, the only way to fix it would be to make one quest per person, one mob per person and one dungeon per raid/party.

Now, to make matters worse. That could not just be ONE quest/mob/item etc, per person. It would have to be individual quests/mobs/items until they got to the level cap. So that's X amount of quests (that would get you to the cap) per person. So if took you 100,000 quests to level to let's say, 50. That's 100,000 INDIVIDUAL quests per person.

Yes, because that's totally achievable without breaks or an incredibly high cost. If this guy doesn't like it he CAN fix it: Stop playing MMOs and go back to single player games.

Number 1

I say bull**** to that! You're level 70 and wanna group with a bunch of level 10s? THEN GO AHEAD DAMMIT. There is no restrictions to who you can level with, just what level a dungeon is.

Oh I have a Number 0 problem for him too.

Number 0

He has all these problems but can't fix them himself. Half of his "problems" are just stupid and, like I said, he can't think of a damn problem to fix it.

The whole point of a game is to play it and have fun, if he doesn't like it then he doesn't have to play them. And constructive critism is fine but his isn't constructive because he's too lazy to think of methods to fix the problems he hates.

So, exactly which reason hasn't always been a staple of MMORPGs?  And they're broken?  WoW is broken?  Don't tell the 11 million playing the game, they might cancel their subscriptions.

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Originally posted by Pale_Fire
So, exactly which reason hasn't always been a staple of MMORPGs?  And they're broken?  WoW is broken?  Don't tell the 11 million playing the game, they might cancel their subscriptions.

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The main problem I have with MMO's is they all bore me after so many months of playing. But I think is just me. Years ago I could sit on my ass and play games all day, now I just get bored.

Is something wrong with me? THERE IS ISN'T THERE?! TELL ME IT AIN'T SO.

1. Economics. The publishers and stockholders demand a wow-killer. Brilliant devs not left alone to be brilliant.

2. Economics. The publishers and stockholders decide when a product needs to be on the shelf. If the product isn't ready, oh well. patch it on the go.

3. Economics. The publishers, eager for a wow-killer, would rather back new games based on popular IP's rather than trust a brillian dev team to develop a new innovative IP.

4. Economics. Publishers and stockholders desiring enormous and instant return on their investments want games to appeal to the largest possible audience. Devs are forced to simplify their games, make them accessible possibly on a console. Resulting product is watered down and bleah.

Originally posted by sidebuster

He didn't offer any solutions to the problems he presented.

He did, but they where really bad fixes imo :/

The problem: 99% of MMORPG players like something differnt than what I want in an MMORPG.

The solution: STFU and go play single player games.

This was like listening to someone complain that trees are too leafy.

5) "I've never heard of Free to Play MMOs."

4) OK - I'll give him this one, I've never seen or even heard of any MMO that has combat that doesn't have some kind of non-intuitive / doesn't make a whole lot of sense aggro mechanics for the NPCs.

3) "I want twitch combat but I want it in WoW, not any of the games that it already works in right now."

2) "I've never heard of sandbox games.  Or I want this style of gameplay, but in WoW"

1) See #2

This article is fail.  The pictures say it all.  He's not complaining about his top 5 problems with MMOs in general, he's complaining about his top 5 problems with WoW and maybe a clone or two he's tried and (rightly) ditched and gone back to the real thing.

If he wants to get away from the WoW paradigm he first needs to figure out that there are other MMOs out there that don't follow the WoW method, and figure out that it doesn't matter if you're playing with 100,000 people instead of 10+ million if you're still having fun.

CoH solves the problem of not being able to play with friends. Sidekicking is something all MMO's should consider

That was a very lame article in my oppinion.

That is just an ex-SWG player bashing on linear progression MMOs, speciailly WoW.

The solution to four of his five problems is a true sandbox MMO and he knows it.

good article- he's right imo. If mmos are to improve then those points are interesting to look at, though as he says with subscription fees being ludicrous for companies why would they want to change that?

5) True. This is why game developers concentrate on quantity rather than quality.

4) True. While this makes playing the healer a bit more interesting, I wish that mobs would just attack "on sight". The aggro system must be hidden.

3) True. It's just hard to make something else that works as well.

2) True. It's the main downfall of mmorpgs.

1) True. But some games have systems which make grouping easier.

The author knows the problems but not the solutions. I don't pretend to know them myself but few games have come around those problems. For example: EQ2's mentor system for #1, GW for #5, AoC tries to get over #3 etc. Alas there's no game that has none of these problems.

I also think the tank, healer, dps - argo system is crap.

I have a great solution for it, have a MMO with no healing.  So you'll need a DPS, DPS DPS and DPS.  There problem solved.

Another burnt-out MMO veteran rant bemoaning WoW as the cause of all ills.

As long as Blizz don't start killing kittens to make their games, I will continue to enjoy WoW, whether this guy deems it 'broken' or not.

What a crock. I could point him in the direction of some truly broken games.

He wants fantasy sandbox MMO which currently doesnt exist, thats why he gives example with best themepark MMO.Having in mind he is ex-SWG player, he has reasons to hate wow because of wow SWG its what it is now.