Ya know, like surely many of you, I have started my MMO career in very different days. They seem like decades past to me these days. Though I am no first hour veteran, my MMO days began when SWG was fresh and new, though I had a 20 years gamers life by then, loving RPGs and Adventures mostly I was and am most into story. My vision of playing MMORPGs was basically formed by my Pen and Paper group, the German "The Dark Eye" (something a bit like D&D just less combatitve and more RP-heavy). I thought or hoped going to a MMO would be like playing such a P&P game, just on a bigger scale.

My first 3 years in MMOs have been good. I played SWG in a very active (GLBT-friendly) guild (*waves to all possible Mystic Alliance pals*) and then parallel also EQ2. To this day I found SWG and EQ2 used to be the best MMOs that ever existed, but you may understand after some years, you just have seen enough of the same. Or so it was for me after way over 3 years daily the same two MMOs.

Ever since then I have not found ANY MMO that even to a degree offered me the same entertainment, and to a not small part it is because IPOV there are no longer MMos with communities like I knew them from SWG and EQ2. Maybe in some small, special interest games (like EVE), but nothing in the "common" way of MMO gaming. One thing I realized in the end was the, MMO gaming was and is NOTHING like the good Pen and Paper games I love and that story is a figleaf at best. Maybe, as I tend to think today, the idea to have a sort of personal experience in a MMO is an impossible thing. Even in single player games I used to be demanding, and the best one where those like Fallout 1-3 and Arcanum where all of the players actions had direct results in the end. Like whom you support and whom you don't and then there is some result from your decisions. Unlike in say Everquest II, where, no matter how many Gnolls you kill, they ALWAYS respawn and keep besieging Qeynos and the lands of Antonica; they NEVER EVER leave. So MMOs essentially stay like in some frozen time state. You usually don't feel that right away, but when you play a game longer, at least for me it started to add some feeling of... well pointlessness in my doings. You know, somewhat like the work of Sysiphos, who always ends up in the same situation again, no matter how much he works. Now I know what you will say, how can you make a MMO otherwise?

Well, I am just a gamer no programmer, I dunno. I just DO know it is a big part of my personal gripe with my hobby, that even after 10 years of MMO history they are all more or less the same concept like they used to be 10 years ago. Zero progress. We have static worlds, seldom changed by some event in some small portion, full with “Kill 20 of X” trash, where your actions and decisions have null effect besides levelling you. I never played WOW more than a few weeks and long ago, but the idea of Phasing as explained from friends sounds like a seed, a beginning of what *might* be someday a change. Or SWTOR’s story with consequences. When you kill the Captain, he just IS gone for you. Those things sound like a good start.

In the end, I started a LONG Odyssee through MMOs after I felt I really had enough of SWG and EQ2, roughly after playing them each 4 years or so. I practically tried all the major titles since then. Now you may say I am picky, but truth be told, I think more or less ALL of them are different levels of shit. Sorry to be so blunt, but unlike many who say “we expect too much/demand too much”, I think on the contrary that most MMO gamers expect WAY too less and are way too easy satisfied. Given how meticulously many single player games are crafted (see peals like Fallout or KOTOR or Mass Effect) most MMO are relatively mindless and primitive. Now you may argue about what level of story is a good enough cover for “kill 20 of X”, but if you play a single player game like KOTOR or Mass Effect or Oblivion or like recently “Venetica” (really cool game), you see there are SO many possibilities to fill a game world with quests and have ZERO “fetch me 20 boar snouts” bollocks. It is just a question of creativity and will. Another thing someone here recently brought up, why is every MMO 99% centered around KILL X OF Y? Why?

I mean sure, every MMO is heavily filled with stuff to kill. But play Venetica. Or KOTOR. Sure you kill stuff there too, but many many parts are story. Solve a conflict between those two families on Dantooine. Unless you are a jerk it involves no killing at all, and its still a very interesting task. I am sure you all know many such adventures or quests which don’t involve killing. But over the years we all have been trained like the Pavlov Dog to find kill grinding entertaining. In itself it is as entertaining as working on a Rubberband and looking into AION really was a sort of revelation to me. I am sorry to alienate some people here, but Aion really is a new low in effort to entertain people. It is nothing other than F2P Asian grinder like Perfect World. Create 10 mob meshes, colour dye and rename them to make 200 types of them, spread them evenly over the world and write some cheap reason why NPC X need 20 of their noses. I mean, wow, compared to that McDonalds is Cuisine! Sorry if that sounds like trolling to you, but man, open your eyes! Is THAT entertainment? All in Aion is the BARE minimum. There are not even real feeling cities, just tiny outposts to house your quest givers and vendors. Even a big city like Sanctum just is there so they can say the game HAS a city. Where do people live there? Compare it to any of the detailed and believable cities in SWG, like Mos Eisley, Theed or what and all those Aion Outposts are clearly visible as what they are: cheap.

And so it goes on with almost anything that was released in the last 2 years. Games like Warhammer and AoC have been discussed in detail, so I must not add to it. They are decent, ok, but given what MMOs we had in the past you’d expect the things to come to IMPROVE on it, not FALL BACK behind it! Its like in 2009 some Car Company invents a new model of car which technically is like cars in 1960. Where games like EQ, SWG, EQ2, DAoC asf. Where complex and detailed and demanding, everything that followed was lesser and smaller and simpler. (Not simple as in easy, but as in “less complex/detailed”.) Or the CO disaster. I look at how CO is and I just can not believe how such a thing can happen? I mean, seriously, every person who halfway followed MMOs of the last, say 5-6 years, can outright say a dozen of must haves and no-goes for MMO making, and Cryptic managed to ignore practically ALL of them. Like making player hubs, like meaningful group experience, like not massive nerfing, like ensuring replay value asf.

I mean, seriously, compared to Warhammer, AoC, CO and Aion a game like Vanguard is a pearl, and I am serious about that! At least Vanguard has a good world design and an overall interesting concept behind it all. You have cities that actually look like cities, you have replayability because you have enough quests to allow half a dozen alts rolling and many other things. No, don’t think I am a basher, but I really think CO and Aions are new lows in what companies present us. All in all I just feel they are unbelievable cheap and especially “soulless”, so to speak. I mean, I am sure there is a lot of effort behind the manifestation of them, but if you look at them and look at complex and deep games like Everquest or SWG I can just cringe and wonder how the MMO genre could so much regress!?

The only thing that has advanced is the graphics. But in any other terms? The worlds have grown smaller and much more linear (Aion, WAR!), the classes have become less with less personal specialization; the worlds have become more instanced and fragmented (AoC, CO). The races you can play have gotten less. And it may be pink glass memories but even the quests/stories have become less creative/funny/original. Sure, animations have improved, but given how they COULD and SHOULD have improved, combat in MMOs is still a snoozefest to watch. Click abilities 1-5 over and over. Sorry that it seems like Aion bashing, but IMO Aion combat is especially mindless. Aion combat kinda reminds me of the Simpson episode where Homer makes a free day from work and lets some wooden bird make his work, since the toy bird nods every 2 secs and presses a safety button over and over and over. Sure, essentially EQ2 combat wasn’t much better, but when a genre has 10 years since UO, you do expect that some things advance. Somehow. AoC was a good try, even to the execution was not so ideal. In late Beta Champions seemed to be on the right track, but they lost the way with nerfs and totally chaotic design decisions which every halfwit fanboy could have made better.

I often hear people say, you are burned out, when someone writes he finds no more a MMO to play. The truth is as I see it that in fact MMOs have devolved. Those who made new MMOs were all too sure to have an audience, they stuck to the known and proven and often cut out all they felt non essential. For instance: I absolutely NEVER understood why a non combat sphere like Entertainers from SWG never was tried again? There are proven to be enough people who would be interested in MMO spheres which do not involve killing, those spheres would be relatively easy to design and implement, and yet it was never tried again. (Ok, it may have do to with SWG’s demise with NGE, but that doesn’t mean all SWG did was bad.) Everyone who remembers the sheer amount of possibilities a gamer had in UO must cry when he looks are lightweights like CO, Aion, or Warhammer and the like. I mean, I am really no defender of “old days hardships”, like camping, downtimes asf., but those old games had so many possibilities, so many things you could do, so many ways, whereas today we have Warhammer and Aion and their abysmal Theme Park hook-nosed form of Disneyland-Entertainment. I mean, I agree with story and even some sort of streamlining to make story-telling possible – IF the story is good and not “bring me 20 pig hoofs for my mom’s pie” – but along with all the streamlining everything else was cut.

I mean, look at a game world like Aion. Or Warhammer. You have questhubs, tiny places with Quest givers, vendors, a trainer, and they are all neatly in a long row like pearls and you work you way from A to B over C until Z. Often I strolled into corners of the world of Aion or WAR, seeing some ruin or stone circle or whatnot, but its cosmetics. Its just there to look good. I never had a feeling of urge, of reason to venture through those Aion/WAR/CO quest-line tunnels other than some NPC told me so. When I progressed in EQ2 or SWG I always had this feeling to venture into an exciting new territory, find new treasures, uncover secrets – so many things were in my mind I was curious about, but somehow those new MMOs stir zero curiosity. Those worlds are so unbelievable soulless. And truth be told, I think NONE of them will fare quite well in 2010. Not WAR, not AoC, not CO and certainly also not Aion. If you really, honestly look at the possibilities of old time MMOs you can clearly see how todays MMOs devolved in almost every aspect, they have all been reduced to the most basic functionality. You may shrug that off as old folks saying “all used to be better once”. But I don’t think that is the case. I used to have hopes and dreams into what wonders MMOs would develop when I first looked at UO almost 10 years ago. Looking at the existing MMOs I can only shake my head (or cry, as it may be) how the chances were all wasted and how cheap and easy entertained apparently many MMO gamers today are.

I just can’t believe THIS is the best that is possible. My last hope in this genre is SWTOR. Should that fail, MMO may as well get the same status of cheap trash entertainment I connect with TV. Which would be a pity.
 

Whoa!!!!!!!!!!

That is one long post.

wow....  lol  .... but nicely said. Good point...

I don't think anything interests me enough to ever write or even read a forum post that long.

 I've been talking to my co-workers about that, sharing your sentiments that I want a virtual world over another eq clone. Something that isn't 100% sandbox, but has elements of both but a non-liniar world.  Talking with alot of the designers on several game teams they all seemed to echo that the trend of eq clones has begun to peter out and that the future looks to be a regression to more old-school styled mmo;s which were trying to make virtual fantasy worlds rather then level grinds.

So there's hope... I mean if they all seem to say the same thing and they're the people making the games, it can't be that dark over the horizon.

Originally posted by HitechLolife

I don't think anything interests me enough to ever write or even read a forum post that long.

i super skim read it and it was still long as hell.

Still...good work OP, raised some good points

Originally posted by Death1942

Originally posted by HitechLolife

I don't think anything interests me enough to ever write or even read a forum post that long.

 

i super skim read it and it was still long as hell.

 

Still...good work OP, raised some good points

Thanks.

Heh, I am sorry. But you know how nitpicking people here are. I wanted to avoid as many possible misunderstandings as I could. So a brief post was not possible.

 The most amazing thing is that not only MMOs have became more strange to the concept of a story and roleplaying, but even dungeons and dragons in the 4th edition seems to me like  a pen and paper WOW clone.

Hope fresh ideas come out.

Good points OP

Ah the good old days where people like the crappy mmo they played,Many of you guys are living in a fantasy land where your memories have boosted games to levels they where not .EQ,UO,DAOC where good games but not the world changing games people are making them out to be.Go back and play those games all them still running i bet you if give those games a real second shot your memories won't be as fond.

Some of the stuff you are saying is true mmos have forgetten the RPG aspect and story but many of these games are not living masterpieces that players are making them out to be.Killing ten rats didn't come from WoW and grinding was happening way before korean games became popular.

 OP....pointless making your point here :D

There are wayyyy too many "satisfied" retards in this world to waste their free time on non fun elements. 

I concur to the point u made about SWTOR being the last hope....It looks quite similar to mass effect - Not the storyline ofcourse....but the overall conceptual implementation...and am a big fan of mass effect....and will be with star wars if they do add the sex scene..ahem...

Anyways....I think we should give guild wars 2 a thought as well.....guild wars...was by far the boldest thing brought out in this Genre....although many tend to argue and call it a Co-op instead of MMO...either way..it was publicised to be an MMO...so am going with that logic......Guild wars brought 3 brilliant elements.....ONE-TIME payment......Almost Zero grind.....Excellent storyline.....add to that a sex'd out game engine and nice music.....a perfect package......thats what you'd call a GOOD PRODUCT......I believe the future of this genre lies in such business lines....

Anyways, coming back with the point that you made earlier......Its best that we start encouraging single players more...rather than MMOs.....The Game companies in the MMO genre focus a lot on taking money...unlike the single players who try to give the moneys worth....

Sad thing is that since i joined this site in 2004. There was always something to look forward too. And if that turned out bad, there was always the next thing.

There was talk about "next gen" ...

Now there is nothing anymore. SWTOR as only "big thing" in production. Rest is one lame game by Cryptic, and another game that is probably waporeware.

It seems this genre is dead.

Actually it will die once people stop playing WOW. Because WOW is the genre

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Sad thing is that since i joined this site in 2004. There was always something to look forward too. And if that turned out bad, there was always the next thing.

There was talk about "next gen" ...

Now there is nothing anymore. SWTOR as only "big thing" in production. Rest is one lame game by Cryptic, and another game that is probably waporeware.

It seems this genre is dead.

 

Actually it will die once people stop playing WOW. Because WOW is the genre

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of MMOs that are being developed, and it might not be the next "big" thing, but many are mostly unannounced or nothing has been really said about them. Dawntide is in public alpha.. Blizzard is working on a project.. THQ is making a Warhammer 40k MMO.. SOE is working DC Universe, The Agency.. most likely EverQuest III. To say the genre is dead, is pretty silly. This genre isn't going anywhere.
 

I was about to say that Fallen Earth might be a game you should try out since it really does answer many of the complaints you have about new games, but then again it does not help with the core issue of your post.

There is atm no MMO that can give you the sense of accomplishment that you have in a single player "RPG" (as a PnP RPG'er I never liked to see that word in computer games). And how do you design that kind of progress when it has to include the efforts of thousands of people at the same time?

One answer has been to have large faction based PvP that changes the control of parts of the world, you saw that in DaoC and WaR and now also in Fallen Earth but it still does not really contain story and progress.

Personally I think we should wait and see about Kotor online because bioware has designed it so it contains 8 different progressive story lines. Bioware know their stuff and how to tell a story in a computer game so there is hope for people that love that approach to games. But we don't know how well it will work in a MMO yet and many MMO players of other orientations will hate it because it will probably be very solo and instance oriented.

You seem to have a problem finding both a good comunity and a good game and do go into extensive detail about your reasons. It seems a lot of people do wash up on this site when they feel burned out (and i can relate to that) but tbh man, it seems obvious to me youre looking more for an ideal than for a real game. Community takes time. It takes months, even years. You seem familiar with Perfect World and although i gather your position is not favorable ill use it as an example. The game is small which means you come to meet most people on it. And there are a core of dedicated players in each server which you eventually become familiar with as youve grouped or PvPed with them all. And since leveling to endgame takes long, you end up sharing in your journey with many friends. Its not that im into grinding itself but long games (with long endgames) tend to develop strong groups. In PW you needed reliable people to zen, HH, fbs, etc. Compared to WOWs, where you just to rush to level cap to literally be seen as a commodity (all guilds care about in the end is just your spec, that you have decent gear and how much time youre available to them) ill take the WC trolls and TW whores in Perfect World every single time. If you couldnt find that in there then you only had a shallow experience of the game, either you didnt stay long (this is not a game where youll make a name for yourself in just a couple of months) or for whatever reason you were something of an outcast.

I would still be there if f2ps were not in the habit of regularly driving veterans away with rule changes. Im not saying PW is particularly special (although it obviously is to me) but that in many games there will be great players. Even if only 5% of the people on any given game and on any given server qualified as such, 5% of 5,000 are more than enough friends, rivals,etc, to enjoy an MMO. Unless theyre zombified raiding as a part time job...

Old timers seem to forget that the great comunities in the games of yore did not spring to life fully grown but developed. And if someone might argue that it was because everyone had a different attitude and the genre was new and they had the wonder of discovery and whatever other whatnot... then you should admit that its them as a comunity thats changed and burned out. Join them in retirement and go play EVE...

If your problem is in finding a game every bit as good as pre NGE SWG get over it. The most sober minds have admitted it was never that good, and whatever evils SOE may have inflicted on you guys it is generally acknowledged it was motivated by falling retention rates. Yes, those games of the past were great, but theres a reason very few of the players who got started with contemporary games can stomach UO. Stop chasing ghosts, there are literally hundreds of MMOs. Yea, we are in a slump, and a lot of games suck because they try to be WOW. Go join the guys trying to turn Second Life into a game, you cant get any more sandbox than that, and trust me, the thing is filled with entertainers like "exotic" dancers. Did you even try Darkfall in your odyssey? How bout FE? Some developers are bending over backwards trying to please your crowd but theyll never manage because what you want doesnt exist. You people dont even agree on what was it that you had and i have half a mind to make a poll for veterans to see how much of an inkling you have of a consensus about what game you want? Im pretty sure you will not like SWTOR whatever they do.

Im sorry if i come as blunt but there really is a thread in this vein being written every couple of days. I say this in as friendly a manner as i can manage, just let go. Either you let the memory of the good old days rest for a while or youll have to give up MMOs. Take a break from whichever you choose because otherwise youre just making yourself miserable. Just let go.

 Edit; And im an old school pnp rpger, no videogame will ever match it. I myself know about letting go of things...

 Like someone said above: I would give GW2 a chance. It sounds like the advancement people like us have been waiting for. From what the devs said, the world changes depending the events that occur in the world. IE defending a bridge lets you take a shortcut somewhere, whereas letting it fall makes you go the long way around. That's just an example ofcourse. Also your gripe with the battle systems in MMOs is addressed, as GW1s battle system required reading the situation carefully and have quick reflexes. GW2 is my last hope for MMOs. Like you, I'm starting to lose hope in the genre after playing just about every game there is out there.

I think that was a long way to say you miss the people you bonded with in your first games.

I truly do not think it is ever the game that make it great but the friends that you made in your first couple games.

And that is the true reason WOW stays so big.  It was their first game for millions of those people and they still have their first gaming friends there to make it great for them.

People grow apart, priorities change, and you never get that feeling again. Looking for it in other games is just a frustrating exercise in futility.

Originally posted by DarLorkar

I think that was a long way to say you miss the people you bonded with in your first games.

 

I truly do not think it is ever the game that make it great but the friends that you made in your first couple games.

 

And that is the true reason WOW stays so big.  It was their first game for millions of those people and they still have their first gaming friends there to make it great for them.

 

People grow apart, priorities change, and you never get that feeling again. Looking for it in other games is just a frustrating exercise in futility.

One point really IS the lack of lasting and good communities these days. Maybe there are just too many MMOs today. People hop from game to game, there are many new every year, and in the past people where stuck in a handful. As a result games and communities had time to blossom. Today, after a few months a MMO is released, already the next comes, and people greedily hop from MMO to MMO. Which in turn makes the developers more panicky to please people fast and quick. Heck, EQ2 took over half a year even to have an ingame Mail!

But on the other hand: I am quite sure complexity and features did add a LOT to community forming. Take SWG: the existence of Player Cities, the full crafted economy and the Entertainers are three spheres of gaming which added to create communities in ways I haven't seen EVER since. And thats not pink-glass recalling the past better; I am sure UO vets will know the same about UO and their experiences. Today MMOs are streamlined and narrowed to the sheer must have minimum of features. It started with WOW. Sorry, but it DID start with WOW. Wow outspoken tossed everything overboard that was not streamlined, Theme Park entertainment. No housing. You may call it small, but its a part of a bigger picture, of making MMOs less a world to live in and reducing MMOs step by step to quest-line-Theme-Parks. See Aion. It is the pinnacle - or rather the new LOW in McDonadls form of  entertainment: quests in a long tunnel and thats it. I am not hating or bitter, I am just disappointed how easy most are apparently entertained today, how little folks demand.

I just think most MMO developing companies make it very easy. No risks, no originality and they stick to a very very small selection of proven features. Look at todays MMOs. With how little are people apparently content. I don't think I am too demanding saying that, because everyone who played EQ, UO or SWG just KNOWS what is possible! MMos could have expanded along those lines, but instead all devolved and simplified.

I am keeping eyes on some MMOs. The Agency for instance. While surely no whole world MMO, it sounds like it can be original, IF made well. Or DCU. Or GW2 IF they skip the nefarious over-instancing. Chances exist, but IMVPO every single MMO that was launched in the last 2 years was variations of trash, I am sorry to say. I mean, thats not that some of you must not play them. But it has become more the TV level of entertainment than the sophisticated, complex games MMOs used to be. (And no, that has nothing to do with how terrible the death penality is! )

 i tried to battle your long wall of text, but it blocked my first attempt and he countered me for  4120931 damage.

You have died, would you like another attempt? Y/N

Originally posted by vladakov

 i tried to battle your long wall of text, but it blocked my first attempt and he countered me for  4120931 damage.

 

You have died, would you like another attempt? Y/N

Wait until they make the movie. ^^