Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Vunak23

Don't mistake graphics for features. 

The games of past have way more features than the games of today. 

Yeah, those are not bugs, they are features. Old MMOs had more features in them.

Right because SWTOR launched flawlessly and had an amazing engine. Or GW2 didnt have huge account issues. Or WoW doesnt have a massive amount of botters. Lets take a look at AoC's release/post release....Warhammer?...Bright Wizards anyone. The ONLY game that went pretty much bug free on launch and after launch was RIFT and even it has serious balance issue....I think the current thing is Cleric Disintegrate pretty much one shotting people.  

Lets not forget FFXIV 1.0... yea games of today are so much better..

/sarcasm

Originally posted by Vunak23

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Vunak23

Don't mistake graphics for features. 

The games of past have way more features than the games of today. 

Yeah, those are not bugs, they are features. Old MMOs had more features in them.

Right because SWTOR launched flawlessly and had an amazing engine. Or GW2 didnt have huge account issues. Or WoW doesnt have a massive amount of botters. Lets take a look at AoC's release/post release....Warhammer?...Bright Wizards anyone. The ONLY game that went pretty much bug free on launch and after launch was RIFT and even it has serious balance issue....I think the current thing is Cleric Disintegrate pretty much one shotting people.  

 

Lets not forget FFXIV 1.0... yea games of today are so much better..

/sarcasm

Older mmorpg's like UO, SWG, AC, EQ1, etc right after release had bigger problems. Really ones that dwarf those you mentioned.   Mass botting or huge exploits & huge performance issues (Vanguard anyone?) can kill a game, but that's not what is keeping newer mmorpg's from sustaining stable playerbase with some exceptions of course  (FFXIV 1.0).

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Vunak23

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Vunak23

Don't mistake graphics for features. 

The games of past have way more features than the games of today. 

Yeah, those are not bugs, they are features. Old MMOs had more features in them.

Right because SWTOR launched flawlessly and had an amazing engine. Or GW2 didnt have huge account issues. Or WoW doesnt have a massive amount of botters. Lets take a look at AoC's release/post release....Warhammer?...Bright Wizards anyone. The ONLY game that went pretty much bug free on launch and after launch was RIFT and even it has serious balance issue....I think the current thing is Cleric Disintegrate pretty much one shotting people.  

 

Lets not forget FFXIV 1.0... yea games of today are so much better..

/sarcasm

Older mmorpg's like UO, SWG, AC, EQ1, etc right after release had bigger problems. Really ones that dwarf those you mentioned.   Mass botting or huge exploits & huge performance issues (Vanguard anyone?) can kill a game, but that's not what is keeping newer mmorpg's from sustaining stable playerbase with some exceptions of course  (FFXIV 1.0).

Oh I understand that. Hence the reason why older games have been around and survived longer than the games of today. They had more reasons to stay and play, aka more features. And nothing really Dwarfs Mortal Onlines launch which is a game of today. 

Originally posted by MMOExposed

As strange as it sound, but is it possible that MMO are too good now days?

back in the day the standards weren't as high as today. People expect way more than they did pre-WoW. MMO  now days have many new features like that seen in GW2 and Rift. But people seem to quickly get bored of these features.

 

if games like Rift and GW2 came out in 2002 in the same quality, would they be more successful or less successful than they are now? I feel these games are boring now because they simply too good. Indy games are more fun like Darkfall, because it lacks quality and not trying to be perfect or too good.

 

LOL!! This really made my day right there!   No ,  MMO's aren't any good now a days , far from it. Besides having great graphics , the game play is garbage OR more of the same.   Now would Rift & GW2 been more successful if released back in 2002? Most likely , it would of given WoW a hard time that's for sure. But even then , no one would of been able to run Rift/GW2 at full power since duo core processors were barely out.

  Good old fashioned P2P MMO's back in the 90's were the best. Indie games are garbage , besides Minecraft which is great fun. 

 Adding too many features on release is always a bad idea , because half of those features are half finished or bugged , and obviously GW2 failed big time , FF14 had to restart from scratch as they messed up the first time around , SW:tor is a failure.   Trying to do everything in a limited ammount of time is always a bad idea , do the smaller things right and 100% fonctional and as the game grows put in more 100% completed features.  Look at what Trion and Petroglyph are doing with EoN : End of Nations , Open beta was once announced at the beginning of 2012 ,we're almost at 2013 and it's still not in open beta , because they want to make the features bug free and 100% fonctional for everyone to see and enjoy. Nothing pisses me off more then a game entering open beta after 3-4 years of Alpha/closed Beta and the game is still full of bugs and half finished features.  Until Devs understand this concept properly on how to create a MMORPG  , they should stick to solo console games.

http://www.boardgamebeast.com/hero-quest-board-game.html#axzz2CJa6dabu

too good MMO

bad mmo

History is repeating itself now on computer world.

He nails it pretty nicely "At a glance this game is fun: however, the gameplay is very stagnant. As a veteran roleplayer of twenty plus years, this game offers little in the way of fun and excitement. "

Originally posted by ForumPvP

http://www.boardgamebeast.com/hero-quest-board-game.html#axzz2CJa6dabu

too good MMO

bad mmo

History is repeating itself now on computer world.

He nails it pretty nicely "At a glance this game is fun: however, the gameplay is very stagnant. As a veteran roleplayer of twenty plus years, this game offers little in the way of fun and excitement. "

 

 

Oh man, I remember playing Hero Quest on the weekends. Since each of us had our own game, we'd wind up playing these sprawling adventures that would cross six boards. We also made our own tiles, added more spells, potions, items, etc. Our group wound up playing this way more than D&D since it was a more visual experience, and we were able to easily expand the game for our own purposes.

Back to the OP:

I don't think the question is whether or not that today's mmos are too good, instead we should be asking were in the hell did depth go? Take a game like Asheron's Call, which is the first mmo I played. Even for then the engine wasn't great and the game looked blocky as hell, but holy crap was it fun. You could truly build your own character and your own experiences. With proper builds, you could take on content that you probably had no business in at your level, but you could just as easily gimp yourself too. The world was big, open and immersive. You could easily get lost in the lore and many did. You could also just as easily solo many things as well as group up for it. It truly was a mmo for the masses that never was really supported properly via advertisements.

Additionally, the original fans of mmos were your pen and paper rpg "nerds" and MUD players. It wasn't until WoW came out that a different group of gamers entered the mmo space. WoW became popular because of WarCraft and Blizzard names attached, which also attracted Diablo and StarCraft fans as well, two groups of folks who might not have ever played mmos before. However, with that change it also brought in the "cool" kids. So instead of mmo characters being about spreadsheets, they became about maximum efficiency.

Take a look at most of the forums for any mmo. You will see threads like, "How to increase DPS", "Best Build for X", etc. It's not about the experience of the game anymore, it's about individual encounters and how to dominate them. There's no more world building, just more achievements to get.

Today's mmos aren't worlds, they are play spaces, and the leveling process isn't considered the journey, but treated as an inconvienience to tolerate until you hit the "real" game.

As another thread stated, "We need Worlds, not games". We truly do.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

As strange as it sound, but is it possible that MMO are too good now days?

back in the day the standards weren't as high as today. People expect way more than they did pre-WoW. MMO  now days have many new features like that seen in GW2 and Rift. But people seem to quickly get bored of these features.

 

if games like Rift and GW2 came out in 2002 in the same quality, would they be more successful or less successful than they are now? I feel these games are boring now because they simply too good. Indy games are more fun like Darkfall, because it lacks quality and not trying to be perfect or too good.

 

Sometimes I think as an indie, some people expect AAA stuff out of our team of 3!

Originally posted by Onigod
Yes  they are all too good! thats why i am still playing league of legends while im dieing to actually pay money for a good mmo.

Why would you want to pay money? F2P is the way to go.

Let's look at a commonly accepted "feature" being world chat.  This simple feature DESTROYS MMO communities.  Without this feature, you have people meeting in popular hub areas.  Places to gather, trade, and to strategize.  If you wanted to group up for tough dungeon/cave you waited at the entrance.  When you ran accross someone out in the boonies, you would stop and chat and maybe group up.

World chat stopped all of that.

Bring back proximity chat with optional chat bubbles.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

As strange as it sound, but is it possible that MMO are too good now days?

back in the day the standards weren't as high as today. People expect way more than they did pre-WoW. MMO  now days have many new features like that seen in GW2 and Rift. But people seem to quickly get bored of these features.

 

if games like Rift and GW2 came out in 2002 in the same quality, would they be more successful or less successful than they are now? I feel these games are boring now because they simply too good. Indy games are more fun like Darkfall, because it lacks quality and not trying to be perfect or too good.

 

the only thing better about todays MMOs are the graphics. thats it.

i find more features and more to do in MMOs pre wow.

every new MMO gets easyer, more liniear, less social, and more boring.

Yet another not so thought out thread from OP.

Look at all the older Singlerplayer games like Daggerfall,Ultima series,D&D Forgottem Realms RPG games ect.

Then look at MMO games such as UO,EQ,SWG.

Then you compare those to modern day games and the anwser is quite clear, today games sucks compare the the old ones feature wise and depth wise, only thing modern games have to show for is graphics.

IF they were so good, they would be beloved like the old games.  The truth is, the old games were innovators, because there made leaps and bounds above their predecessors.  Look at UO vs Meridian 59.  Now look at TERA vs WoW. The gaps are MUCH smaller. The games now, for the most part, are afraid to innovate TOO much.  They would rather stick to a formula that was successful for someone else. UO and WoW never planned to have the success they experienced, but new games unrealistically plan for WoW's final success.

When new titles do innovate, they listen to too many critics who wants a clone, and the net result is that people leave WoW or others to find something new.  When they don't, they return because of time invested and ties still playing the old games.

Old games such as UO or EQ were unlike anything before them.  The features introduced far exceeded new features available in the games today. So while a new game today may boast 5 new features, which wow us initially, in the end the 80 shared features a month down the road bring us back home.

Originally posted by Quizzical
If Rift or GW2 had launched in 2002, no one would have had hardware capable of running the game.

       Also they didnt have other games to ripoff to make their own game......Rift wouldn't exist if it wasn't for WoW and WAR.

OP makes an interesting point. For example EA/Bioware spent a small fortune on a game that really just gave us the illusion of free choice along a linear storyline via multiple dialogue options that were played out via voiceovers. Other games like Secret World, Tera and GW2 look absolutely amazing. But all of them have deficiencies in some of the sub-systems, be that social tools, guild management, PvP, commerce, etc.

It's my view that game companies now are hanging their hat on one or two of their new games "innovation" and pushing that via advertising to the moon to get people hyped. Neverwinter's got their custom content tool. Wildstar is hyping up some sandbox playability. Elder Scroll's got... I'm not sure what's different really.

Game companies need to focus on all aspects of their virtual world, then build the adventures on top of that.

Originally posted by Scot
I see nothing wrong with region chat, but world chat does turn the game into a lobby.

I see nothing wrong with turning the game into a lobby. Many are already like that.

They are packed with features, but the missing component in a lot of new games is 'fun'. I can still go back and play 2D games and have fun, but a lot of new visually impressive games are lacking that. Its why 'Angry Birds' does so well, its a simple concept, but it is done very well.

More effort needs to go into the experience, rather than filling out a checklist.

  I always get a sick feeling when folks talk about the "good old days".  Look, I've been around, okay?  I remember all of my MMO experiences.  Here is what Pre-WoW felt like:  "LFG LFG LFG" for 3 hours a day.  I can already hear someone say, "But Gish...thats what GUILDS are for".  Look, I don't have a set playtime.  Guilds back then used to be terrible things anyway.  Half of them wanted you to fill out an application, and then play at certain times.  Thats not a game, thats a job.  You apply for JOBS.  Having the entire game cockblocked to you unless you magically found a party, (and not just ANY party...but one with proper class composition) was a downer.  It meant that, for me, I spent more time BEGGING to play than playing.

  Now that isn't to say all games were like this.  Thats just what themeparks were like to me.  You also had sandboxes like UO.  Lemme explain how UO went for me.  Make character.  Spawn.  Walk to leave town.  Die at gate.  Respawn.  Die.  Respawn, try to go punch training dummies, DIE.  Oh, yes...what a lovely game.  You couldn't even walk out the gates of the first town you spawned in.  Until SWG...sandboxes were, give or take, pretty horrid.  SWG did everything right for me.  I could do tons of crap alone, but I always needed the other people in the world.  I needed their weapons, their vehicles, their cities.  I needed them to heal me, to restore my stamina.  But I did not get shut out of the game without them around.  My experience was simply broadened and enhanced by them in every way I interacted with the world.  I could do things in a small amount of time, or a large amount of time.  Grinding did not feel like grinding.

  So, until WoW...there wasn't really much good I felt I could say for the genre.  I wish I COULD say SWG...but we all know THAT story and I don't feel up for beating a horse that has already long since turned to ash and been pounded into the soil.  Some games were pretty fun, but I did not get to spend time in them.  AO, for example.  Pretty fun stuff, but I didn't get to play it much.  Also, bugs.  I can forgive those.

  I guess my point is that games ARE too good now.  But not in the right way.  They are themeparks that are very well made.  But the draw of this genre, to me, was the fact it was a living world.  So, even a good themepark is still a bad MMO.  Its like shooting an arrow and hitting the bullseye on the next target down.  Yay, bullseye!  You still missed and suck at shooting a bow.  The issue is not that games are too good, its that they are too good at being a game that has nothing to do with what makes the genre better than playing Skyrim.