At some point MMO's became the difference between story telling and movies.

Nothing equals a well told story or even a book. The imagination can take you places that structures such movies or in game structures such as linear questing can't give you.

Movies came along much like certain MMO's and mainstreamed everything. Now you can get hi-res porn, blue ray sci-fi flics, romance, comedy, en mass daily.

But is it better? Are current linear MMO's better than the old open ended sandbox MMO's?

At some point developers need to ask themselves at what point do they throw so much content into a game that it becomes more restrictive an ultimately drowns out player inspiration and invention.

I wish game developers would strike a balance instead of pouring all their money into the flashiest GFX and the biggest content treadmills. They need to go back to the basics. Everything has a foundation on which it is built, I think the latest line of MMO's have gotten very flashy but forgotten the basic they were founded on. If you can't engage a player's imagination then it doesn't surprise me that these games goes F2P and then ultimately fail.

I came to MMOs at a time when action/adventure titles were just...bad.

Back in those days, in the early 21st century, you'd spend $40-$50 on a churned-out action adventure game (like Parasite Eve 2 or Resident Evil 3 or Legacy of Kain 2), play it for a weekend until done, then pick out the next action adventure title.

MMOs, to me, were so much of a better value.  Here's something where I'd pay an initial box price, but I'd get many games in one.  I'd get an action/adventure title, an action-figure creator, a building game, an economic simulation, a virtual chatroom, a storytelling tool, and so much more...all for the price of one game and a maintenance fee.

But, these days, all those other things I used to do have been removed or watered down in MMOs for the sake of the action/adventure stuff...and the action/adventure stuff is a whole lot worse than what I could get with Arkham City, Assasin's Creed, etc.

So now I'm finding myself going back to console, not because I don't like MMOs, but that these current MMOs cost too much for too little.  Single player games on console are just so much better now, so much less expensive, and I don't have to deal with all of the baggage of having the publishers close down the games out from under me, or nerfing things, or making things too expensive.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Banaghran

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Originally posted by Eleazaros I laughed a lot at your post.  Not insultingly really but it was a most excellent laugh.  MMO gamers don't play anymore - they "race through it" - to "have" and "be there", not explore and adventure.  Challenging?  To do that you can't have "published info on every encounter".  You can't have "overpowered players farming others in PvP" nor "better stuff" and "higher levels" (easing all other aspects of the game).  etc... Challenges are from not being able to predict and not being able to out gear your opposition and that is *NOT* how MMO gamers operate be that in PvE or PvP. Why the hell do you think you have gold and item shops for these games available everywhere?  Look at the "logic" of "risks vs rewards" -- they don't want to adventure and be challenged, they want to have and be rewarded with things to make it much easier to play and obtaining the levels and items is "grind time". If you want challenges and open worlds to play in, try Oblivion, Fallout, The Witcher - standalone.  For PvP style coflicts try Starcraft or Civ - that ilk for competition.  Going with games that have 'better weapons" and 'higher levels" for how you compete and such -- that doesn't work for challenges - that becomes fodder and farmers and farmers don't need better skills, just "better stuff" when they can start encounters much more powerful than their opposition. MMO's haven't been balanced for combat...  *EVER* because they based it upon the PvE gaming model Dungeons & Dragons which had levleing up, which granted more power to your chars.  D&D was built upon groups of friends doing things together - not soloists "grinding out levels". That means "grind time" > skill and if you can't "grind time" to get ahead, check the local gold & power-leveling services -- which now are "adjusted" in other ways so your wallet is for "winning".  Again, it's not about playing - it's about winning and this is what is killing MMO's these days. Everything is about winning by having - levels & stuff.  They become boring and non-challenging when you have "won" and if you haven't "won" yet, "you suck".  Nothing to do with adventures and exploration - everything to do with "rewards" of a pixel variety.  

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I see it as depressing that we have reached a point where the audience is so fractured and "gone" that we have pen and paper purists telling people how to play a computer game.

 

There will be always guides, it depends on the content if the guide destroys it or not, good content is good content even with a guide.

Obtaining the gear (or skills) to outgear the content can also be challenging, it is more funny if you consider that the same people arguing for "unpredictability" as a challenge sometimes (but maybe not in this case) argue against rng.

Farming is not only solo and not only negative, because it temporarily removes the "win" aspect, replacing it with "being as efficient as possible", which can do wonders in the community area if done properly.

But with the winning you are right.

Flame on!

:)

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That "winning" seems to be what most people want, even if it means the game is over sooner. This seems to have always been the case with MMORPG. The "world" was off to the side. The thing most people went after was better gear or more power. Developers are just following along.

It seems to be different with single player games. Games like Skyrim or Fallout keep getting made and keep selling a bazillion copies. I would assume this is because people want that type of thing in their single player games. It sells.

Is it the competitive factor in MMORPG that drives more people to "winning", regardless of what that win state is? If other people are there, someone might have better gear, a higher level, more resources, etc., so it drives other people to compete, even in scenarios where there's not really that much competition. So developers follow the players.

I don't think any of this matters when it comes to the definition of "MMO" though. People will decide whether having a virtual world of some sort is a requirement for a game to be an MMO. Eventually, multiplayer Bejeweled could be considered an MMO. Bleh. Even I would be telling people to get off my lawn at that point.

 

I am not quite sure you can blame this on the players, that the games do not effer enough outlets for their ambitions, that everything is concentrated into one single number (gearscore, dps, achievment points to a point).

You cannot really expect the players to not compare themselves with the next guy if the next guy is in the environment (you know, multiplayer), whatever it may be, what you can do is give them more variables.

In the past pvp jocks would kill anyone they wanted but they were always short on cash, combat was expensive, it created a nice balance of sorts, i am not saying this is the way to go, just to illustrate my point.

Flame on!

:)

Elite:Dangerous will be a UNIVERSE, not just a world. Go help them out on their kickstarter campaign, I did

I get a kick out of these "golden age" wistfull threads. Look: when are you guys going to get it through your heads that one of the cool things back then was that you were interacting with another human being who was half-way around the world on your computer. That was a BIG DEAL back in those "golden" 300 baud days. "Hey Ma, I'm playing a game with someone in Italy! Is that cool or what?"

What you're really missing is the sense of wonder and enjoyment from doing something that was brand new and hadn't been done before. We now take all that for granted of course and get cranky when our hand-held device--which is infinitely more powerful than those 80's computers--gives us choppy "facetime" or Skype video.

So forget that "playing with strangers from 1/2 way accross the world" factor as being a draw. That is just normal, routine stuff now.

Then there is the "MUDD begot MMO" falacy stated as gospel truth. MUDDs were extremely niche text-based RPGs from a time where that was all that the technology could handle. But at the same time there was this other thing happening. You know? Those progressively more sophisticated and graphical single player RPGs happening on your PC. And someone said "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?" And that, was the real beginning of MMOs: not a child of MUDDs but of single player CRPGs.

And those CRPGs have continued to evolve and have developed their own genre and language that is extremely closely linked to what new MMOs look and feel like. You can't really talk (positively or negatively) about today's MMOs as a phenomenom separate from CRPGs.

And guess what? Where before there were a handful of those with mostly a Western-based fantasy theme, now there are thousands upon thousands of them with all kinds of lore foundations from all over the world.

And you know something else? Just like how we made "Ultima" and "Wizardry" and "Baldur's Gate" popular back in the days by buying lots of copies of those games and created the gaming trends for those days, gamers today are continuing to do the same exact thing by voting with their wallet and setting the trends du jour.

If you don't like it and want to whine about the loss of the "golden age," that just makes you a member of small minority who wants to live in the past. A conservative in the true sense of the word. Your insolence in describing the rest of the world who is quite content with living in the present as "noob carebears" who enjoy garbage is just a symptom of your habitual bitterness about a world that is passing you by.

And btw... before you reply with your habitual knee-jerk response, no I'm not a kid...kids are what my children have living at home with them. So... go play "Wurm" and other dreary garbage you like so much and piss off with your "Woe is me! The world is going to hell! Kids these days!" garbage.

Originally posted by Iselin
(snip)

If you don't like it and want to whine about the loss of the "golden age," that just makes you a member of small minority who wants to live in the past. A conservative in the true sense of the word. Your insolence in describing the rest of the world who is quite content with living in the present as "noob carebears" who enjoy garbage is just a symptom of your habitual bitterness about a world that is passing you by.

(snip)

That must be why today's MMO's are so successful.

"The proof is in the pudding", as they say.

Edit ti add: You know, I really don't know what it takes to get through to some of you. But one thing's obvious, MMO's are not going to be worth the investment until this attitude changes.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by xeniar

Loktofeit. i tought you where on the same page. regardless of how they are sounding.

I'm a massive fan of community-driven sandbox-focused MMOs, but I'm not about to deem my preference correct or better than someone else's, let alone deride them for their entertainment preference.

 

Originally posted by Aelious
Iselin

It's not about romanticizing the past. The common design for MMOs is indeed different now and some people don't like it, myself included. The gameplay is form fit and premade like Spam and though some people like it I find it a slap in the face from what I considered an extension of the fantasy genre.

Whether people like having a set story put out in front of them to play with others is none of my concern. I don't think they are any more or less than me. The spirit of the MMORPG did change though and even if the change suits more players now than before it still, to me, is far to fake.

Luckily there are others in the right places that seem to agree. There's a certain person by the name of John Smedley that is supposedly releasing "the biggest sandbox style MMO ever made". We'll have to see about that but if you look at the comments he is making right now about EQN and the current state of MMOs it's more than just a small minority that thinks we've strayed too far.

Let's also not forget how stellar sales have been for the recent crop of MMOs :)

Don't get me wrong: I'm not giving the unimaginative garbage that some big studios release to try to cash in on the "WOW phenomenom" a free pass. I think it's rather sad that the bulk of the MMO-gaming money these days is still going to the same place it went 7 years ago--Blizzard.

But I also refuse to go backwards and call painful, repetitive harsh grinds innovative games "in the true spirit of real MMOs." You see, I remember lengthy corpse runs in Asheron's Call and losing items because I died repeatedly trying to recover that first corpse--that was just a colossal time sink and not fun at all. Nor do I yearn for a pre-Auction House world where scammers ruled the roost preying on the unsuspecting or trusting--young kids most of them when you think it through. Trading back then was almost literally taking the kid's lunch money.

Nor do I buy the "there's only sandbox OR themepark" simplistic garbage often spouted here. There are many good elements in both types that should be carefully blended and incorporated in future MMOs...MMOs that will hopefully knock our socks off by bringing things to the genre we haven't even considered.

And btw, I would take what Smedley is saying with a grain of salt. "Sandbox" is becoming a marketing term used these days to try to separate you from your money with vague promises of "better." I'll beleive him when he delivers and not a minute before then.

MMOs are worlds... they just are shrinking worlds... ever ever shrinking worlds.  Take WoW for example... shipped with two continents... large continents that you had to traverse by foot or use flight paths that took about as long as traversing it by foot until you earned enough rep and gold to buy a mount that moved just a little faster than on foot.  To do dungeons or raids or anything required players traversing the world to get there.  Sure there were summoning stones, but you still had to get people there first to use them.  Waiting around the summoning stone was a place of great fun if you were on a PVP server, in a contested zone, or just flagged yourself to start up some action.  The world stayed alive throughout vanilla.

Then came TBC, that teleported players to a new world... outland... about the size of one content.  Everyone left vanilla behind... new players and old, because that's were everyone was.  New playes bought vanilla but were polevaulted through it by developers to catch them up to those in TBC.  Vanilla gets neutered in the process to speed things up.  Group quests become soloable.  Elites become normal mobs.  The mobs begin to thin out.  The price and effort to get their first mount is dropped dramatically.  40-man raids are brushed aside for the new smaller 25-man raids.  Everything revolves around TBC.  Vanilla is a ghost town.

Poof, WotLK comes out and we are all sent to yet another new continent... Northrend... about the same size as outland.  Everyone leaves TBC behind.  Flying mounts are the norm now.  No one walks to anything or even rides, they fly.  Everything is instanced now.  Don't need to leave the city.  Queue up and poof you're in the instance.  Vanilla and TBC are neutered further to make way for alts and new players than need to be able to traverse 70 levels in one week.  What once took months to hit 60 has been turned into a short week of effort, if that much.  10-man raids are introduced and players start to ween themselves off of the 25-man raid size.  It has already become a postage stamp of a game... 

Then, Cataclysm comes along and tries to entice us back into the old world again.  They remake the old world but fail to realize that no one really wants to level up to 85 anymore... no matter how pretty you make it or howmany carrots you stick before us.  We all know that the leveling process is redundant and any content that isn't end game is redundant.  25-man raids are literally replaced by 10-man raids.  The world even though larger than it was in TBC and WotLK is now smaller than it's ever been.

MoP comes out and sends us off to an even smaller world... one of endless dailies to hide the fact that it is indeed microscopic in size.  They try to do everything they can to entertain us but the reality is, they've killed the whole concept of an MMORPG now.  So much so, anyone who has ever played an MMORPG before loaths any notion of leveling now.  Preprogrammed into thinking the game is about end game alone, that the world doesn't matter (it doesn't), that standing around in a city waiting for queues is what MMORPGs are all about.

Yes the world is small and it's getting smaller.  What killed the game was end game.  End game took us away from the world.  You might as well just log directly in to the instance of your choice... that's about all you are really doing nowadays anyways.

Originally posted by XAPGames

I call it "Lowest Common Denominator Game Design".  Maximize profits by reaching the largest number of people by providing a gameplay experience based on the desire of that group.

 

To my understanding, these players don't want worlds.  They want interactive entertainment.  That's how they see gaming.

 

Evolution or decay?  That depends on if you like the direction taken, or not.

 

I'm just glad the financial performance of the industry is proving otherwise. The number of failing, or barely surviving titles, should be a wake up call that indeed the majority of players are not going for it.

Originally posted by Wayshuba

Originally posted by XAPGames

I call it "Lowest Common Denominator Game Design".  Maximize profits by reaching the largest number of people by providing a gameplay experience based on the desire of that group.

 

To my understanding, these players don't want worlds.  They want interactive entertainment.  That's how they see gaming.

 

Evolution or decay?  That depends on if you like the direction taken, or not.

 

I'm just glad the financial performance of the industry is proving otherwise. The number of failing, or barely surviving titles, should be a wake up call that indeed the majority of players are not going for it.

 

Give you head a shake. The bulk of the mmo market money is still going to WOW. Your statement only makes sense if you ignore that one rather large fact. 

Originally posted by Iselin

 

Then there is the "MUDD begot MMO" falacy stated as gospel truth. MUDDs were extremely niche text-based RPGs from a time where that was all that the technology could handle. But at the same time there was this other thing happening. You know? Those progressively more sophisticated and graphical single player RPGs happening on your PC. And someone said "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?" And that, was the real beginning of MMOs: not a child of MUDDs but of single player CRPGs.

 

Then I guess that all the Diku-based interface command language that MMOs use is akin to those scientists who plant dinosaur bones deep in the earth's crust.  It's to throw us all off from the 'true' history that malevolent forces don't want us to see.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by Iselin

 

Then there is the "MUDD begot MMO" falacy stated as gospel truth. MUDDs were extremely niche text-based RPGs from a time where that was all that the technology could handle. But at the same time there was this other thing happening. You know? Those progressively more sophisticated and graphical single player RPGs happening on your PC. And someone said "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?" And that, was the real beginning of MMOs: not a child of MUDDs but of single player CRPGs.

 

Then I guess that all the Diku-based interface command language that MMOs use is akin to those scientists who plant dinosaur bones deep in the earth's crust.  It's to throw us all off from the 'true' history that malevolent forces don't want us to see.

Oooh! I love esoteric tangential arguments!

I'd be willing to bet you any large amount of money that even back in the haydays of the most infamous (alledgedly) Diku-derived grandaddy of modern MMOs, Everquest, 90% of that player base had never played a MUDD. I would also bet you that at least 95% of the same player base had played one or more CRPGs. I'd say today both of those numbers would be closer to 99.9%.

MUDDs were niche playthings for those who could get unlimited free bandwidth in those days (i.e. academia) or the wealthy home hobbyist who could afford the rather hefty connect charges in those days before wide accesibility of the internet.

No, MMOs are CRPGs that many players can play together not MUDDs redux.

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by Iselin

 

Then there is the "MUDD begot MMO" falacy stated as gospel truth. MUDDs were extremely niche text-based RPGs from a time where that was all that the technology could handle. But at the same time there was this other thing happening. You know? Those progressively more sophisticated and graphical single player RPGs happening on your PC. And someone said "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?" And that, was the real beginning of MMOs: not a child of MUDDs but of single player CRPGs.

 

Then I guess that all the Diku-based interface command language that MMOs use is akin to those scientists who plant dinosaur bones deep in the earth's crust.  It's to throw us all off from the 'true' history that malevolent forces don't want us to see.

Oooh! I love esoteric tangential arguments!

I'd be willing to bet you any large amount of money that even back in the haydays of the most infamous (alledgedly) Diku-derived grandaddy of modern MMOs, Everquest, 90% of that player base had never played a MUDD. I would also bet you that at least 95% of the same player base had played one or more CRPGs. I'd say today both of those numbers would be closer to 99.9%.

MUDDs were niche playthings for those who could get unlimited free bandwidth in those days (i.e. academia) or the wealthy home hobbyist who could afford the rather hefty connect charges in those days before wide accesibility of the internet.

No, MMOs are CRPGs that many players can play together not MUDDs redux.

Alright, if your history is so much better than the history we've all established (that MUDs turned into graphic MUDs, and these Graphic MUDs turned into 2D Isometric environments, which turned into 3D environments), who was this "guy" who said:

 "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?"

I don't think he exists.  Or, if he does exist, he certainly isn't an MMO man.  He might be a peer-to-peer gameplay pioneer, but not an MMO guy.

I mean, you can see the history of this genre develop from the early 1990s through the early 21st Century.  You have the players in this industry who were there at the transition: Garriott, Koster, Bartle, etc.  And not one--not a one--will go along with your crazy theory that this genre has no relation to MUDs.  Now, it may have became that over the years, but that's a whole different story than the one you are spinning here. 

this hit me the moment WoW introduced the raid/groupe finder...compleatly destroyed the need for a world....ppl can now just sit in the city and spamm the grp finder button not needing to actualyl go out and get into the world...why even make worlds these days? MMORPG players are lazy now, they want convinece. They want things hand fed to them...

What do the mmo players say to the intoruction of the grp raid finder?

"OH its the BEST! i can now clicka button and get into a raid in a snap! Its great for ppl who play for 1 hr a day and dont have to waist time looking...."

this ^^ to me isnt a MMO player its a lazy offic eboy who plays at work...a MMO player is sumoen who shud be willing to dedicate TIME into there game...not join,click a button and go to a raid....that is just stupid.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Originally posted by Iselin

 

Then there is the "MUDD begot MMO" falacy stated as gospel truth. MUDDs were extremely niche text-based RPGs from a time where that was all that the technology could handle. But at the same time there was this other thing happening. You know? Those progressively more sophisticated and graphical single player RPGs happening on your PC. And someone said "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?" And that, was the real beginning of MMOs: not a child of MUDDs but of single player CRPGs.

 

Then I guess that all the Diku-based interface command language that MMOs use is akin to those scientists who plant dinosaur bones deep in the earth's crust.  It's to throw us all off from the 'true' history that malevolent forces don't want us to see.

Oooh! I love esoteric tangential arguments!

I'd be willing to bet you any large amount of money that even back in the haydays of the most infamous (alledgedly) Diku-derived grandaddy of modern MMOs, Everquest, 90% of that player base had never played a MUDD. I would also bet you that at least 95% of the same player base had played one or more CRPGs. I'd say today both of those numbers would be closer to 99.9%.

MUDDs were niche playthings for those who could get unlimited free bandwidth in those days (i.e. academia) or the wealthy home hobbyist who could afford the rather hefty connect charges in those days before wide accesibility of the internet.

No, MMOs are CRPGs that many players can play together not MUDDs redux.

Alright, if your history is so much better than the history we've all established (that MUDs turned into graphic MUDs, and these Graphic MUDs turned into 2D Isometric environments, which turned into 3D environments), who was this "guy" who said:

 "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could link up a few computers so we could play together?"

I don't think he exists.  Or, if he does exist, he certainly isn't an MMO man.  He might be a peer-to-peer gameplay pioneer, but not an MMO guy.

I mean, you can see the history of this genre develop from the early 1990s through the early 21st Century.  You have the players in this industry who were there at the transition: Garriott, Koster, Bartle, etc.  And not one--not a one--will go along with your crazy theory that this genre has no relation to MUDs.  Now, it may have became that over the years, but that's a whole different story than the one you are spinning here. 

So... Ultima Online. Was there an Ultima MUDD that escapes my memory? I mean remeber playing Ultima one through one-too-many on Atari, Comodore and PC computers in the 80's.

But whatever... if you MUDers want to get credit for having been there first, so be it. You were there first. Happy? Now tell me again why anyone should give a shit in 2012?

ya I mean GW2 don't have lfg finder.  What do people do?  They go to website with lfg finder?

That is insane, I mean if people want to do dungeon they should spend 10 hours a day searching for friend to play with, instead of actually playing the game!  That will make the game more social. 

That looking for group website for GW2 totally destroyed the community.  MMORPG is about social and making friend and not actually about playing and doing dungeons.

Originally posted by Dantae87

this hit me the moment WoW introduced the raid/groupe finder...compleatly destroyed the need for a world....ppl can now just sit in the city and spamm the grp finder button not needing to actualyl go out and get into the world...why even make worlds these days? MMORPG players are lazy now, they want convinece. They want things hand fed to them...

 

What do the mmo players say to the intoruction of the grp raid finder?

"OH its the BEST! i can now clicka button and get into a raid in a snap! Its great for ppl who play for 1 hr a day and dont have to waist time looking...."

this ^^ to me isnt a MMO player its a lazy offic eboy who plays at work...a MMO player is sumoen who shud be willing to dedicate TIME into there game...not join,click a button and go to a raid....that is just stupid.

I actually I tend to agree with you. This one convenience feature not only created the Stormwind lobby game formerly know as WOW, it also ultimately led to the asshatery found in most WOW pugs where the name of the game is skip all the content that you can so you can do the run in 3 minutes.

Not all convenience features improved on what existed before although many did. This is an example of one that didn't.