Originally posted by clbembry
Seems alive to me.

Take a look around.  People quit, look for a new game, play, quit, etc.

The way it should run like it has previously...  Find game, play for years.

Originally posted by Rayshe

I gotta disagree with the OP. its not dead, it has hit a painful Speedbumb but with a genre still in its infancy it cant be dead.

people keep saying that MMOs are in their infancy. but by those terms, 3d/3rd person games are still toddlers, and video games as a whole are just hitting puberty.

Originally posted by Foomerang

 

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Originally posted by nariusseldon
There is none. I started with UO (quite around end of beta .. not a good game), EQ (quit in a year .. too much camping), AC (quit soon), .. LOTRO/DDO/DCUO (good that F2P .. play once in a while).

 

WOW is the only one i played more than a year .. and i never play only ONE game. Too boring.

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Well if thats true, then you started playing a genre that you didn't like or really understand and now it has changed into something you've wanted all along: MMO versions of console action/adventure games.

I can definitely see your pov on this topic now.

I would not say i didn't understand it .. but what i want are:

- interesting combat mechanics with multiple classes

- co-op small group gameplay

These two are basically non-existance before MMOs. Diablo (the first one) has some of it. If more games are like D3 (and yes, i know about TL2 & POE .. which i will at least try out), i would NOT be playing MMOs. However, at the same time, if there are MMOs that offer the kind of gameplay i like, even if they are not the traditional kind of MMOs, i don't see why i should not play/pay.

Originally posted by Xoshua

Originally posted by clbembry
Seems alive to me.

Take a look around.  People quit, look for a new game, play, quit, etc.

The way it should run like it has previously...  Find game, play for years.

 

Maybe because there's like 3 games back then.  We don't have a choice =). 

Those games also suffer the problem when new games are released, their population drop suddenly.  Or it coule be because of bad patch.

Originally posted by Xoshua

Originally posted by clbembry
Seems alive to me.

Take a look around.  People quit, look for a new game, play, quit, etc.

The way it should run like it has previously...  Find game, play for years.

 

Nah .. if people like to experience varieties and new games, nothing is wrong with that.

Quality >>> duration. I would much rather have a very fun 2 weeks, than a so-so year. I don't have this obsession of playing a game for years and years. Surely i did that for WOW .. just because it is fun. When it gets a bit boring, i will stop and quit. (which i did, until they put in LFR)

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Foomerang

 

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Originally posted by nariusseldon
There is none. I started with UO (quite around end of beta .. not a good game), EQ (quit in a year .. too much camping), AC (quit soon), .. LOTRO/DDO/DCUO (good that F2P .. play once in a while).

 

WOW is the only one i played more than a year .. and i never play only ONE game. Too boring.

---

 

Well if thats true, then you started playing a genre that you didn't like or really understand and now it has changed into something you've wanted all along: MMO versions of console action/adventure games.

I can definitely see your pov on this topic now.

I would not say i didn't understand it .. but what i want are:

- interesting combat mechanics with multiple classes

- co-op small group gameplay

These two are basically non-existance before MMOs. Diablo (the first one) has some of it. If more games are like D3 (and yes, i know about TL2 & POE .. which i will at least try out), i would NOT be playing MMOs. However, at the same time, if there are MMOs that offer the kind of gameplay i like, even if they are not the traditional kind of MMOs, i don't see why i should not play/pay.

 

what i would like to see is more games like Skyrim, but with co-op servers. no more than a small group of people and many adventures tailored for that kind of combat dynamic. I would also like to see less 'tab-targeting'.

yes. i prefer small groups, and with how mmo's work these days, i dont see a point in paying a sub just so i can play with thousands of people that i will never talk to, because they are more like lobby games anyway. the problem is the lack of games that offer this. so people like me are stuck trying new mmo's, playing through the content and ending at 'endgame'.

only playing one game is not for me. even in my hardcore WoW days i didnt only play one game. i play what seems fun at the time.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Xoshua

Originally posted by clbembry
Seems alive to me.

Take a look around.  People quit, look for a new game, play, quit, etc.

The way it should run like it has previously...  Find game, play for years.

 

Nah .. if people like to experience varieties and new games, nothing is wrong with that.

Quality >>> duration. I would much rather have a very fun 2 weeks, than a so-so year. I don't have this obsession of playing a game for years and years. Surely i did that for WOW .. just because it is fun. When it gets a bit boring, i will stop and quit. (which i did, until they put in LFR)

lfr is okay, but nothing beats the transmog. best feature they added in years. if only they would give me some decent housing, i'd resub for more than one month a year lol

Originally posted by Zairu

what i would like to see is more games like Skyrim, but with co-op servers. no more than a small group of people and many adventures tailored for that kind of combat dynamic. I would also like to see less 'tab-targeting'.

 

yes. i prefer small groups, and with how mmo's work these days, i dont see a point in paying a sub just so i can play with thousands of people that i will never talk to, because they are more like lobby games anyway. the problem is the lack of games that offer this. so people like me are stuck trying new mmo's, playing through the content and ending at 'endgame'.

 

only playing one game is not for me. even in my hardcore WoW days i didnt only play one game. i play what seems fun at the time.

I don't like Skyrim combat. But in principle, i would also like to see more co-op RPGs.

I agree .. that is why after my annual pass, i will stop playing sub-based MMOs. I have already played quite a few F2P ones. All are good for jumping in fast and have a mission or two of fun.

Yeah ... i played MMOs, action RPGs, FPS ... i managed to finish Spec Ops (very underrated game)  in the midst of Inferno Diablo 3.

Originally posted by Zairu

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Xoshua

Originally posted by clbembry
Seems alive to me.

Take a look around.  People quit, look for a new game, play, quit, etc.

The way it should run like it has previously...  Find game, play for years.

 

Nah .. if people like to experience varieties and new games, nothing is wrong with that.

Quality >>> duration. I would much rather have a very fun 2 weeks, than a so-so year. I don't have this obsession of playing a game for years and years. Surely i did that for WOW .. just because it is fun. When it gets a bit boring, i will stop and quit. (which i did, until they put in LFR)

 

lfr is okay, but nothing beats the transmog. best feature they added in years. if only they would give me some decent housing, i'd resub for more than one month a year lol

Transmorg wasn't bad .. in fact, it makes running old raids/dungeons fun again. There are regular transmorg runs on my server. It is also fun trying to 2 or 3 man L70 raids to get transmorg gear.

However, WOW is getting *really* old. I highly doubt i will be playing much longer after i "finish" MOP.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

No, what that means is merely that your argument about "forcing" is inherently wrong. Which is also "what the hell" e-sport was mentioned for. 

What have I got against depth? That's rather an odd thing to say, given this entire time you have been going on about the fact that the deep mechanics travel through a game world can provide "don't count", "don't matter". I actually think depth matters, what you seem to think matters is to be permanently mashing buttons.

"it is irrelevant whether travel enables a deeper experience". No it is not irrelevant at all. It is also really rather funny to call it shallow gameplay:

"What are you doing fella?"

"Well i'm walking over to that keep there, some friends are meeting me on the way"

"What walking?!!! You mean you are not bouncing up and down on your head whilst juggling balls?"

"Er no, i'd rather just walk over there thanks"

"Wow thats shallow crap, go watch tv".

As to why am I "defending" travel. Well given I have pointed out it can drive depth and interlinks with mechanics and can't simply be replaced. Given the fact I have pointed out some people enjoy it (however few). Given the fact that I feel it is a complete and utter joke to think it has to be made into some form of minigame and given the fact that I have pointed out that by improving the game world is what is really needed. Then I think it should be pretty obvious why I am "defending" travel through an open, virtual world.

 

Making the game world more dynamic, more interesting, more alive. With the landscape subtly altering, with player cities springing up, with unique and dynamic encounters. People having to pick through the terrain, take cover, look for the next safe route. That is what makes travel through it fun, not "hurr play a quick game of Tetris to increase movement speed to warp factor six".

 

I'm not seeking the status quo at all, I believe that the base mechanics or travel should be kept simple, what should be improved is the game world you travel through and your interactions within it. Not minigames to move.

Er, really?  Because if your friend sees you running for 5 minutes and doing nothing else with the game he actually is going to laugh, call the game crap, and suggest you come watch TV with him instead.

Plainly stated, the problem is that Travel is shallow.

The depth of the systems travel enables doesn't matter.  Not to players nor to your friend watching.  Because the system you're currently engaged with, travel, is shallow.

The solution is simple: make both systems deep.  Instead of hitting autorun and waiting (a system with zero depth), have travel be more like Puzzle Pirates where it's a game unto itself, and challenging to keep your ship moving at maximum speed.

It's a really simple solution, and your resistance to it is precisely why you're against deep games.

Originally posted by Xoshua

Originally posted by clbembry
Seems alive to me.

Take a look around.  People quit, look for a new game, play, quit, etc.

The way it should run like it has previously...  Find game, play for years.

 

Some people quit and look for a new game. Some people don't. The difference between now and back then, is back then you didn't have options. Back then when you quit, you quit the entire genre.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Er, really?  Because if your friend sees you running for 5 minutes and doing nothing else with the game he actually is going to laugh, call the game crap, and suggest you come watch TV with him instead.

Plainly stated, the problem is that Travel is shallow.

The depth of the systems travel enables doesn't matter.  Not to players nor to your friend watching.  Because the system you're currently engaged with, travel, is shallow.

The solution is simple: make both systems deep.  Instead of hitting autorun and waiting (a system with zero depth), have travel be more like Puzzle Pirates where it's a game unto itself, and challenging to keep your ship moving at maximum speed.

It's a really simple solution, and your resistance to it is precisely why you're against deep games.

What you are "currently engaged in" is moving through a game world. You know the walking bit, the actual mechanics of walking about. Yeah that's not meant to be some herculean task. Make the game world interesting and dynamic and there you go, no more numlock and go for a cig unless you want to come back to a corpse. The act of travel is simple, that actual act of moving through the game world not so.

Perhaps your friend would act like that if he has missed his dose of ritalin.

Getting from point A to point B. You want to mash buttons to increase speed and ignore the game world. I want to see people moving through a dynamic game world in which they will come across unexpected encounters, meet new players, friends and enemies, come across challenging terrain. See new settlements and perhaps never reach point B in the end because they find something more interesting to do along the way. For those bits where instant travel will have zero impact on the interlinked gameplay features, have that as well. But sure, your case is "deeper" and i'm totally against depth me...

Travel in a virtual world game is meant to be a simple mechanic that lets you interact with the game world, it is not meant to be an endpoint gameplay mechanic, it is an enabling, conduit, depth generation mechanic. Which makes it all the more funny when you keep stating "depth of the systems doesn't matter". Oh and do note there is a rather large difference between a simple and a shallow mechanic.

But seriously, for virtual world mmorpg games you are advocating button mashing minigames over movement through a dynamic game world and the mechanics that can drive. Nice.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Travel isn't meant to be a fucking minigame, what you are "currently engaged in" is moving through a game world. You know the walking bit, the actual mechanics of walking about. Yeah that's not meant to be some herculean task ffs. Make the game world interesting and dynamic and there you go, no more numlock and go for a cig unless you want to come back to a corpse. The act of travel is simple, that actual act of moving through the game world not so.

Perhaps your friend would act like that if he has missed his dose of ritalin.

Getting from point A to point B. You want to mash buttons to increase speed and ignore the game world. I want to see people moving through a dynamic game world in which they will come across unexpected encounters, meet new players, friends and enemies. See new settlements and perhaps never reach point B in the end because they find something more interesting to do along the way. For those bits where instant travel will have zero impact on the interlinked gameplay features, have that as well. But sure, your case is "deeper".......

 "The depth of the systems travel enables doesn't matter... why you are against deep games". In the same post, oh my sides. 

The "challenge" and "depth" comes from the interaction with the game world and the agents within it whilst travelling. Trying to make moving forwards and backwards a frigging endpoint game? Wut? 

Travel in a virtual world game is meant to be a simple mechanic that lets you interact with the game world, it is not meant to be an endpoint gameplay mechanic, it is an enabling, conduit, depth generation mechanic. Which makes it all the more funny when you keep stating "depth of the systems doesn't matter". Oh and do note there is a rather large difference between a simple and a shallow mechanic.

"Games are meant to be fun" takes precedence over any weakly supported idea that "travel isn't meant to be a minigame."  If there's depth to travel, the game will be better.  Clearly.  Obviously.  It's just a matter of developing travel in such a manner where that depth is there and feels natural.

It's obvious how that would work in a game like EVE where you try to squeeze every ounce of effectiveness out of your ship's engine, because it can piggyback onto the same sort of gameplay of the rest of EVE (using a travel hotbar.)  With a fantasy game, expert horseback riding could be challenging in mostly a similar way -- although with that and foot travel the depth would probably also involve terrain being complicated, where you have to worry about foot placement (avoiding slower portions of the terrain.)

None of which makes you "ignore the game world" (in fact the latter makes you pay closer attention to it!), although as several have noted earlier in the thread: after the first exploration trip you're ignoring the game world anyway because you've seen it before.

As for someone observing you doing nothing at your computer for 5 minutes while you claim to be "playing" a game, any normal, sane person is going to think you're a little crazy for playing a game like that.  Because you won't really be "playing" anything -- you're sitting idle for 5 minutes!

Your "splitting sides" comment is ridiculous.  It's simple.  There are two systems.  0, 1, or 2 systems can be deep.  You're against 2 systems being deep.  So you're against games being deeper.

Originally posted by kantseeme

Originally posted by Xoshua

We should not have to change our preference if this was OUR genre to begin with!  You guys wanting everything hand fed to you is the reason the market has slipped.  Go get a job if you cant pay for P2P.  Go play D&D in person. 

 

A MMORPG is suppose to be a virtual world.  You say the market has changed, if thats so why does everyone come on these boards and complain about how the genre is dead?  Death SHOULD kill your experience, make you walk for hours because YOU DIED.  Now you die and theres no consequence. 

Walking SHOULD take 20 minutes!  It's a virtual world, when you start and for a long while you SHOULD have to walk for long periods of time.  It will build a sense of accomplishment when you finally DO get to travel faster.

Microshops and F2P fail.  Hard.  P2P is the way the MMORPG needs to be.  Content comes out, that content isn't made for free.  People need to be payed for their work.  Seriously go troll another thread, this thread is how MMORPG's are dieing because people like you try to justify the cancer the new MMO's cause. 

understand where your coming from. The problem is no one is making this game for us. They jumped on the Blizzard fast track to making money idea and failed horribly. Look at the list of games that have tried to follow the WoW business model and just died 1-3 mouths into its launch.

 

Now that the market is encompassed with these types of MMOs, people are getting tired of it. And sooner or later someone with make a real MMO and the numbers will justify it being part of the MMO market again. And that's when you'll start to see these current MMOs fall from grace. Hell there already falling from grace.

"OMG AC is going to be god's give to MMOs"         No it wasn't

"OMG WAR is going to be god's gift to MMOs"       No it wasn't

"OMG SWTOR is going to be god's gift to MMOs"  No it wasn't

"OMG RIFT is going to be god's gift to MMOs"        No it wasn't

"OMG Aion is going to god's gift to MMOs"             No it wasn't

Any other games come to mind that i left out?

TERA.  Give it another 3-4 months and it'll be F2P.  Once the novelty of the combat wears off the players realize they're doing the same old "kill 10 boars" quests.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Getting from point A to point B. You want to mash buttons to increase speed and ignore the game world. I want to see people moving through a dynamic game world in which they will come across unexpected encounters, meet new players, friends and enemies, come across challenging terrain. See new settlements and perhaps never reach point B in the end because they find something more interesting to do along the way. For those bits where instant travel will have zero impact on the interlinked gameplay features, have that as well. But sure, your case is "deeper" and i'm totally against depth me...

"see people moving through a dynamic game world" .... really ? you want to see other play games? Count me out. I want to play myself.

"meet new players, friends and enemies" ... travel is a very inefficient way to do so. Much prefer LFD (for friend), Battleground (for enemies), and chat channels.

"come across challenging terrain" ... no don't want terrain mini-game. Challenging terrain is not fun for me. Remind me that in Superman Return, Superman's ultimate foe is a piece of rock. Not fun & not heroic. Give me a dragon, a prime evil, or just a horde of mobs to mow down instead.

"perhaps never reach point B" ... if another 4 people are waiting for me at the dungeon, it would be a very bad thing ....

Originally posted by dave6660

 

TERA.  Give it another 3-4 months and it'll be F2P.  Once the novelty of the combat wears off the players realize they're doing the same old "kill 10 boars" quests.

Nothing wrong with "kill 10 boars" if the combat is fun. In fact, MOST RPG quests are kill quests. Lots of SKYRIM quests are go to the cave, and kill the bandits type (except the main story). It sold millions.

D3 is nothing but kill, kill and kill (more like kill 100000 boars than 10 .. but it is just killing) and it sold 10M, the fastest selling PC game ever.

WOW is mostly killing stuff. ALL the dungeon/raid runs .. are nothing but killing bosses.

Heck, even FPS is about shooting people/aliens/robots . .... which has not changed since DOOM in 1995.

Combat has yet to wear off, since the dawn of video games.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

"Games are meant to be fun" takes precedence over any weakly supported idea that "travel isn't meant to be a minigame."  If there's depth to travel, the game will be better.  Clearly.  Obviously.  It's just a matter of developing travel in such a manner where that depth is there and feels natural.

It's obvious how that would work in a game like EVE where you try to squeeze every ounce of effectiveness out of your ship's engine, because it can piggyback onto the same sort of gameplay of the rest of EVE (using a travel hotbar.)  With a fantasy game, expert horseback riding could be challenging in mostly a similar way -- although with that and foot travel the depth would probably also involve terrain being complicated, where you have to worry about foot placement (avoiding slower portions of the terrain.)

None of which makes you "ignore the game world" (in fact the latter makes you pay closer attention to it!), although as several have noted earlier in the thread: after the first exploration trip you're ignoring the game world anyway because you've seen it before.

As for someone observing you doing nothing at your computer for 5 minutes while you claim to be "playing" a game, any normal, sane person is going to think you're a little crazy for playing a game like that.  Because you won't really be "playing" anything -- you're sitting idle for 5 minutes!

Your "splitting sides" comment is ridiculous.  It's simple.  There are two systems.  0, 1, or 2 systems can be deep.  You're against 2 systems being deep.  So you're against games being deeper.

I am far from against adding movement functions, most games already have them, jumping, sidestepping and sprinting as well as class/skill specific movement functions most of which drain a stamina pool or the like. What I am against is adding them for the sake of it because someone can't go two seconds without mashing keys, or when they have a detrimental impact upon the game world and interlinked mechanics. Or the notion that adding in a few extra keys is more important than working on the dynamics of the game world itself and suddenly adds "depth".

If you are simply seeking to add more then it entirely depends on whether or not the added functions actually serve to increase depth without distracting the from dynamics of the game world and without impacting upon interlinked mechanics. Just setting off from A to get to B and jabbing away at a little minigame in between is shite, as is ending up in some random roll instance, compared to the option of making the space between A and B interesting. As is having to tap key combos (outisde of basic movement) just to get from a tavern in a town to the blacksmiths. Eitherway these are really pure movement specific mechanics, they deal with specfic situations, they don't alleviate the tradional issues associated with longer term travel, those are clearly, obviously, best resovled by improvements to the game world.

Expert horseback riding (within a virtual world game context) and the like naturally come from the way you move through challenging terrain and/or avoid/chase down game world protagonists. Leaping from rock to rock, running down a very narrow track, darting through trees in a wood and picking a path out that is faster than those bandits chasing you. You "worry about your foot placement" by making the game world dangerous. You allow for the user to fall off the terrain, add in encounters that can force him off mountains and into lakes. Give ice a sliding effect, slow down players in mud and water. Or you make it so that if he steps on the wrong bit of ground, he makes more sound and alerts the nearby enemy. The way the player has to approach and change his methods of travel, or movement "skills" dependant upon the terrain.That is what makes for natural depth, complexity and challenge. You don't need an additional arbitrary minigame layer, you just need to allow the user the minimum number of functions to allow him to directly interact with said environment.

It is not the gernre that is dead , it is the people .
How often do you run into interesting new people in MMO lately ?

That you say he , he or she got something special , infact you run into more drama people and psycho´s .
Then you run into decent people . the very few cases you can count on your hand .
Won´t even last past the first 2 months , thus creating the need for me meself and I .
And move on to the next grand MMO release in the ever persuit of meeting those special people .
That makes you feel good , sadly the majority of the public caught onto it .
And with every release some good people are lost , the "undecent ones" ruins the atmosfeer of socialising and moves on .

So basically the market gives what the audience demands .
Basically , the Audience demands drama at the cost of the few good ones .
So yes the Audience has shifted definetly , it is not genre is dead .
It is that the audience is dead .
Put all nice people in one room , they get along fine .
Put all bastards into one room they are ready to kill one and other .

Guess what MMO nowadays reflects ?