I mean I haven't liked a single one since 2005 and have been looking in the genre ever since. My point is however that the MMORPG genre has evolved into this WoW clone genre, where you make a character, log in, speak to an npc to kill 10 rats, do this until you're high enough level to get to the next zone, to repeat it all again. You then end up doing this until you get to the end game which is made up of standing around wondering what to do because you're bored of Battlegrounds and bored of instances. 

I got into the genre back in the day because I wanted virtual worlds, games back then offered this and they were all massively different from each other as the genre was in it's infancy and we didn't have many worlds. Now however MMORPG just means a game like WoW and I know EQ fanbois will be complaining, however they aren't true EQ fans. I mean I'm sick of these people who pop up and say WoW is an EQ clone........ sorry but play EQ from 2000 and play WoW from 2004, they were massivel different games, that is why EQ people hated it. 

The MMO genre was also one that amazed graphically as well as scale wise. I mean the genre has this weird perception now where it's always looked bad and never been immersive and now every MMO is some cartoony thing... again thanx to WoW. I remember pre WoW where I was thinking the graphics are amazing for what it was doing. I remember playing EQ in Upper School and my parents saying how good looking it was and I remember games like EQ2 and SWG blowing everyones minds. I mean even Planetside looked good back in 2003, I was blown away with many things in that game. The genre has seemed to given in though to the current gen consoles and never truely entered the DX9 era and just seemed to have stuck with WoW graphics. 

After playing Dayz I realised it isn't me, it's the games and how when a game creates an amazing world with challenge, not only do I jump on it, but so do 1.6 million other gamers. I realised that the MMORPG genre that I used to love was basically a genre for emergent gaming, a sandbox one where we create the story and one where we have control. 

I reminded myself, I love SIm City, I love The SIms, I love EVE Online, I love Dayz, ArmA and every other game in this style. My Fave MMOS were EQ Pre Luclin/PoP, EVE, PoP and SWG Pre CU. My fave games are the Dayz or the GTAs or the Euro Truck Simulators lol. Ones that are for the hardcore, ones that don't treat the gamer as dumb, ones that you create the story and give you control.

There is nothing more boring to me than doing a kill 10 rats quest for some NPC who gives me some shit 3 line dialogue of story for why I'm doing it over and over again. Even games like SWTOR or GW2 where people claimed they were different, I ended up doing the same thing over and over.

So I realise, this genre is dead and the games I strive for aren't part of it.

Everyone says the genre is dead and most people say that for different reasons.

I also think the genre is dead, but I actually liked WoW untill 2nd expansion or so.

I certainly don't like the evolution right now. Way to action and combat oriented.

Perhaps I like to kill 10 rats, you see it's all just a waste of time, whether you kill 10 rats or you take over a city.

What you want is satisfaction. And I believe they fail in that today. They're to much busy with making the games "fun" and "enjoyable" while in fact it's the contrary that makes it interesting.

Who plays poker for fun? That doesn't exist. You're after the thrill of winning what's on the table. And there probably is no other game you could play for hours, like poker.

I said is in my thread before. The genre isn't dying. It's just that the mindset has changed and developers aren't changing with the new mindset.

the same music that was in the 80s and 90s isn't popular anymore in 2013 like it once was. Why? Because mindset of consumer changed. What's so hard to understand about that?

OP, it's hard to like anything if all you think of any game is "just another WoW clone"

Try going in positive. Maybe WoW and some of the other themepark type MMOs aren't as bad as you envision. Nobody is going to make the perfect game that you dream about. So either alter your tastes or move on.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

I said is in my thread before. The genre isn't dying. It's just that the mindset has changed and developers aren't changing with the new mindset.

the same music that was in the 80s and 90s isn't popular anymore in 2013 like it once was. Why? Because mindset of consumer changed. What's so hard to understand about that?

Well to pick up on your comparision, music is suposed to make you dance, feel good, feel bad, feel nostalgic, feel sleepy, have sex, attend a funeral, celebrate a birthday and so on.

To me music hasn't changed at all, today's music still does all that and has done so for centuries. It's the whole purpose of music.

Back to the games. It's not about how the games technically change. To me it's about how they change our approach to the game. It looks more like coop adventure games these days with very limited depth. The whole reason you play MMO's in today's titles is different than the older ones. Yes I take the most hated MMO of all time: WoW :)

But I've played some EQ2, and I believe EVE certainly still respect those old principles even if the package is completely different.

We don't need popularity in games, we need quality ;-)

I don't know, it's late, maybe I don't make any sense at all.

wait 1-2 years, real revolution is coming

World of Darkness

Star Citizen

Elite Dangerous

Black Desert

Repopulation

AND EVERQUEST NEXT

the end of cartoony fantasy clones is nigh

Originally posted by FromHell

wait 1-2 years, real revolution is coming

 

And when 2 years have past and it's still all crap just wait 2 more because THOSE games will be the good ones!

If all you see is crap, it's time to go find a better view.

ya I mean those old games are so good yet you quit them all.

And if dayz is so good, why arn't you playing warz.

Maybe just maybe if those developer making those old games manage to keep their player base the genre might be different.  BUt they didn't, so they follow the game which did keep it's player base which is wow.

I hear you OP. I found this post I made in 2004 or so, regarding Brads new game at the time, called Vanguard. It was made during beta on the sigil forums. I posted it to the server forums I ran for Antonius Bayle during Everquest1 2003-2004. It pretty much described how my first mmo experience felt like, and probably also explains why no other mmo ever felt the same again.

LONG POST AHEAD:

This was written by Geln a member of the SGO forums. Links provided in the post above. -no its not, Its been 10 years and I lost the link :( -

Quote:

I was reading another thread and finally realized what it was that I most looked forward to in a new MMOG. I want to be as excited about the uknown of a totally new world as I was when I first played EQ. But, since I have that experience behind me and have learned a bit from playing for 4 years now, it's going to take an awful lot of trust in the developers for me to expect that kind of feeling again.

When I first started EQ, a good part of my excitement came out of my own imagination of what was possible. Some things did come out of it all that really surprised me, but to be honest, a lot of the potential I saw exploring the new world ended up as wasted. Now I've got a certain set of perceptions about what is done with a MMOG world and game mechanics and the assumptions I make as I explore any new world will be based on that. As long as the limits of the new world fit within the limits I've assumed for these types of games, then that excitement of the unknown is gone.

Let me give a few examples to illustrate.

Quoted from Aradune from another thread...

Quote:
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But what if travelling was fun? What if it wasn't tedious? What if an MMOG could have distant exotic lands where it meant something to have made the journey, ... where you occasionally saw someone of a race or garbed in certain clothing that was totally alien to the environment you were accustomed to?
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Reading this made me think of my early EQ days. I had two other friends as excited as I was about the upcoming release of EQ. For a couple weeks before release, we read all the press releases and articles we could find on it and got together and made plans on what characters we'd create and the adventures we'd all go on together. Then the game hit the shelves.

One friend wanted a powerful wizard. He created an erudite. Another friend was drawn to the dark arts and wanted to roleplay a cynical curmudgeon (much like his real life personality ). He started a dark elf necromancer and role-played him to the hilt. I was overcome with the possibilities right up until I read the game manual and learned that bards would be the "ultimate" addition to any party. So I started a wood elf.

Over the next week, we played and got to know the world just a bit and spoke together in real life about plans to get together for adventure. The only problem, as it turned out, was that it would've been harder to pick three starting points more separated by geography. Two of us were on opposite sides of the game world and the third, considered "evil" by those that didn't appreciate his dark cynicism, couldn't even attempt to travel in either direction at least until he got an invisibility spell at the hopelessly unreachable level 8.

Well, somehow it got left up to me to find them. I guess I volunteered for it because I wanted to see the parts of the world they kept talking about. Meanwhile, they had heard me talk about Kelethin so they both created wood elf characters, started exploring the city, fell off the tree platforms and died, then promptly deleted those characters and declared they'd never return.

Soon I made level 5. I hunted for a few more days after that and was finally able to afford my level 5 song, Selo's Accelerando. Singing that and banging a drum, I felt invincible, so I set out to travel the world. First I would pick up my friend outside of Neriak and then together we would run to Odus. We figured it would take us two nights of play.

Well, the first night was spent getting lost in Greater Faydark. I know a lot of people had gripes about getting lost, but I loved it. I had no idea the zone was square shaped, so I stayed away from the "walls." I knew the paths sometimes led to other cities (another friend had taken her high elf paladin all the way from Felwithe up to join me in fighting the orcs of Crushbone, but she forgot which turns she'd taken on the path), but I also knew that some just ended in orc camps, so I didn't want to use them either. I just stood in one place and hammered Sense Heading until I finally was pretty sure what direction I was facing, then headed West, where the port city of Butcherblock was rumored to be.

Due to the uncontrollable orc population, I died a few times. Then when I found Butcherblock, I died again. Somewhere around there I decided following paths was for the best and I ended up in Dagnor's Cauldron. Someone else in the zone answered my shouted queries and said that it was no place for anyone below level 20 so I quickly zoned out before anything ate me.

I eventually found my way to the docks and waited for the boat. I wasn't bored because the whole time was spent shouting for information on when the last boat had come by and how long it would take after that for the next. Of course, no one knew, but there was a lot of fun to be had speculating. Perhaps the boats were on a regular schedule, but what if pirates had attacked it mid-route and sunken the ship - or even stolen it? Someone shouted that there were worse things in the Ocean of Tears than pirates and that the dragon there could swallow the boat whole.

By the time the boat did dock, I wasn't sure I was ready to board it anyway. But I did. Before the boat had even left the dock, I had explored it completely. And no, I didn't fall off. I've never accidentally fallen off a boat, ever. Why? Well, I grew up in Kelethin and learned to walk carefully.

The boat zoned into OOT and I was on my way.

This post is getting awfully long, but I hope the point is pretty apparent from what I've already written. The adventure for me was in the unknown. It was still possible in my mind that anything could happen.

I didn't worry about the impossible game mechanics of a dragon that would swallow the boat whole. If I imagined it possible, surely the game developers had imagined it as well and I'd better be careful.

I actually walked around tree stumps in GFay clicking on them hoping they would zone me into a magical dryad zone.

When I got lost, I shouted for help in finding landmarks because I didn't realize all trees had to be the same to cut down on zone lag.

I wondered at who had made the paths through the forest and across the lands and tried to determine from the number of zigzags whether they had been good or evil and if that would indicate to me what lie ahead. Of course, I realized this was silly. Only a ranger would have the skill to know that.

I thought the orcs would invade Kelethin some day soon if I and my friends didn't kill a certain number of them every day. I knew it was important to kill the centurions before the pawns or they would shout orders out that the others would obey and outmaneuver us. Every time a pawn died shouting to the centurions to save him I hid.

I thought Dagnor's Cauldron would be a bubbling acidic lake governed by the great and powerful sorceror Dagnor who would pluck unwary adventurers from the chasm floor and use them for demonic magical experiments.

I spent half my boat travel clicking on the "bar" in the belly of the boat knowing that there had to be some way to order a drink or it wouldn't be there and the other half of the time cowering against the far side of the ship and hiding behind the mast so Gornit wouldn't see me and attack the ship.

I believed the rumors that the griffons in the Commonlands were over level 50 and each controlled by a GM. I looked for graveyards so I could return the bone chips I'd looted to their rightful burial spot and finally lay the undead souls to rest.

I still remember the day I stood in Kelethin and marvelled at the gnome in front of me. Surely he was a great warrior for having made such a journey all the way to my city. And surely he was rich beyond belief as he owned a full suit of real leather armor. I remember gang-rushing into Crushbone with 40+ people in vain hopes of taking down the vile guardian of the zone, the dreaded and undefeatable Ambassador D'Vinn. I remember saving up money to buy a sharpening stone so that I could begin to care for my rusty rapier (What respectable bard would be caught dead with so inelegant a weapon as a shortsword?) and turn it into an "uber" tarnished weapon, then being afraid to put them into a forge because I wouldn't be able to go on if I lost my weapon in the process.

The wonder of all of this was in the not knowing the possibilities and also in the trust of the developers that they could do anything they or I imagined. It was in this unlimited possibility that the adventure was found and the game was more than a game, but a new life. Since then, I've come to learn a lot about what can and can't be done within the EQ game mechanics. I've gotted to know the rules of spawn times and loot pools and tiled textures and repeatable quests, etc. The game is still fun for me, but it's only a game. The numbers are important these days. The imagination, unfortunately, isn't.

I enjoy playing EQ. But I remember how much fun it was when no one knew the answers or even the questions. I remember that even though there were those that had advantages of play time, lucky drops or even previous mud experience, we were still all pretty much on even footing because no one knew the extents of this new world. Those that had found something out about the world, or had leveled beyond us, killed something most of us ran from, or wielded a legendary item like the dragoon dirk were respected for their ability and sought for their advice. And it was freely given.

Even the upper tier of level 15s (rumors were that someone had hit level 20, but few believed it) were willing to help out brand new characters because we all survived that way - in a spirit of cooperation. The world was too big and too scary not to.

There was no competition for kills because no one knew the loot tables. If someone ran up and killed your orc, you thanked them for helping you rid your forest of the evil and moved on to the next kill. There were always enough around for experience. KS didn't mean a thing. Camping meant you were logging off. Buff meant a single spell from someone in your group. No one said LFG because all you had to do was stand in a crowded area and someone would join up with you. Drops went to the class that could use them. If no one in the group needed an item dropped, then a shout went out to the whole zone.

As I've said, I still enjoy EQ, but it's not the same. Please, Sigil, give me that old feeling of mystery and possibility. And please try to make it last as long as you can.

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If you made it this far, I hope you understand why I kept this post for all these years. It perfectly described how it felt when an MMO was unbound by preconceptions and the player had yet to understand the underlaying mechanics of the game. When the idea of "builds" "min/maxing" or any kind of math behind the game was completely unimaginable. When every choice had consequences and you got sweatty palms whenever a new situation came along because actions had consequences. When classes were really different. When you NEEDED a cleric because only they could help you recover some exp, when you NEEDED a necromancer because only they could get your corpse out of a dungeon, when you NEEDED a wizard because travelling took time and was dangerous without them. - When classes was distinguished by real and powerfull differences, that each held importance to everyone else too. When game developers were not afraid of making us interact with eachother exactly because we needed those various differences to get through our gameplay, when it was alright, great even to have to contact a stranger for a buff or aid, and make friends that way in the process. And when no instances excisted, which meant that everyone needed to co-exist with eachother to play the game. 

Originally posted by Psychow

OP, it's hard to like anything if all you think of any game is "just another WoW clone"

 

Try going in positive. Maybe WoW and some of the other themepark type MMOs aren't as bad as you envision. Nobody is going to make the perfect game that you dream about. So either alter your tastes or move on.

Or maybe the OP is right. The genre might be alive and well and have fantastic games for YOU.

But, and I know this is a shocker, PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. They enjoy different things.

Are MMOs dead? That depends on how you define MMOs. I tend to agree with OP, and therefore for me they are dead. I haven't played an MMO in over a year and before that the only one I had played in the previous two years was ATITD.

It might have been more accurate for OP to say:

MMOs no longer represent a style of game I want to play. They are dead to me.

I've honestly felt myself leaning that way for a while now.  Between massive amounts of dissapointment over the year and the dramatic and constant poluting of the genre with tons of crap just to make a couple nickels I'm so over it. 

I'm not normally a big doomsayer but honestly I've even been checking into this site less and less.  Hopefully development companies will eventually feel the financial loss and see a need to make a better product. 

Originally posted by laokoko

ya I mean those old games are so good yet you quit them all.

And if dayz is so good, why arn't you playing warz.

Maybe just maybe if those developer making those old games manage to keep their player base the genre might be different.  BUt they didn't, so they follow the game which did keep it's player base which is wow.

 

[mod edit]

Old MMOs didn't lose their playerbase. Many of them are still chugging along. Some of them were modified because publishers wanted WoW money and then the player base got pissed and they ended up closing. Like SWG. Some of them like EvE have more players than they did before. Some of them like WURM, ATITD and others are still chugging along at a similar level of activity.

EQ still has a substantial playerbase as well, even if they lost a lot of it, shocker, by trying to become more like WoW. Ultima Online is still running as well.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Old MMOs didn't lose their playerbase. Many of them are still chugging along. Some of them were modified because publishers wanted WoW money and then the player base got pissed and they ended up closing. Like SWG. Some of them like EvE have more players than they did before. Some of them like WURM, ATITD and others are still chugging along at a similar level of activity.

EQ still has a substantial playerbase as well, even if they lost a lot of it, shocker, by trying to become more like WoW. Ultima Online is still running as well.

Its been a long time since they've been relevant. A dev would have to be braindead to release an oldschool MMO right now. Most people have moved on, you've moved on. We know of something better so we don't have to endure all the shitty things they made us to do.

The novelty is long gone.

Well the genere is "dead" but its growing.  More people are picking up mmorpgs than did years ago...it is a growing genere.

This tells me that a LOT of players who dont like RPG games are jumping in for persistant progression and social aspects of the games they typically play.

What this means is to lure in the 75% of mmorpg players who hate RPG games they will continue to water down RPG aspects and appeal to short term action with limited progression...as these player just want to be the best as fast as possible.  To accomplish this, they must remove a deep progression system, water down classes, and provide super easy (though flashy) gimmicks to get these people into the game fast, get them to endgame fast, and get them to a position where they think they are really good at the game, even if they lack a pulse and even a shred of common sense.

And this my friends is mmropgs of today...exactly this.  No risks, you cant lose anything, you can screw anything up, just close your eyes and follow the NPC trail to the end, where youll preform just as good as anyone else there.

So some people cant figure out why they cant stay attached to a game where theres no effort needed to progress, where theres no choices, no mistakes, nothing at risk for doing anything...even pvp?

Well the answer is that back during 1996-2004 period, there were not a whole lot of mmorpg players.  Most of us had come from offline single player RPG games.  We wanted a game you could sink your teeth into, where the gloring of being max level wasnt guranteed or easy...for those who got there, it was an accomplishment, and you grew very attached to the game and character in the process.

Now there is none of that, its all done for you.  Sure the games look better, has more features, has more marketing hype and the euphoric prelaunch-first 3 weeks period where its "the best game ever all other games are going to shut down because this game is so fantasic and your really stupid if your not playing and enjoying this game im going to every forum to tell everyone this" moments...if you can remember older games were much more difficult to get into, but once you did it was that euphoric period towards the end and it lasted much longer.

I think two things NEED to happen with these games.  Developers need to ditch the mmorpg tag.  Half these games are fantasy action games.  While some are fun, they just lack most things that make a good RPG...well a good RPG.

We need developers, the indy ones, to top rushing into the endzone, always biting off more than they can chew, creating a general feeling that  "those types" of games suck..which is whats happening.  You say sandbox or full loot and most think a really crappy game thats alpha test quality 4 years down the road with a broke 5 man team stuck in a situation where the game will never get better.  All these guys are really doing is rushing in on the common complaints from RPG players.

And dont get me wrong, RPG players that i speak of can have fun in shallow games, and often do.  Just there needs to be someone out there that can make a decent buck on a well made game, that appeals to us...rather than the crowd everyone else is trying to go after...the ones i decribe above.  Its turing the genere into a one trick pony where all they can do is over hype the game and move on.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Cuathon

Old MMOs didn't lose their playerbase. Many of them are still chugging along. Some of them were modified because publishers wanted WoW money and then the player base got pissed and they ended up closing. Like SWG. Some of them like EvE have more players than they did before. Some of them like WURM, ATITD and others are still chugging along at a similar level of activity.

EQ still has a substantial playerbase as well, even if they lost a lot of it, shocker, by trying to become more like WoW. Ultima Online is still running as well.

Its been a long time since they've been relevant. A dev would have to be braindead to release an oldschool MMO right now. Most people have moved on, you've moved on. We know of something better so we don't have to endure all the shitty things they made us to do.

The novelty is long gone.

That's not what he said though.

On the issue you are raising:

Modern MMOs didn't improve on old ones. They aren't the same kind of game. If someone came out with an old style MMO with a graphical update and an improvement to the things that made MMOs great it would be popular. Maybe not WoW popular, but then RIFT and SWTOR weren't WoW popular either.

Considering how AOC and WAR and SWG went down the toilet followng the "new" MMO model, it can't be that great.

Of course no one has made an MMO like that, even if a few companies are currently trying. I think they aren't going far enough though.

If you havent enjoyed a game since 2005 you should probably move on.

A lot of the nostalgia is all well and good, but the truth is that if EQ or UO launched today, noone would give it a second look. The industry has moved on and people have higher expectations, thats what is really killing the genre.

People aren't happy with all the time sinks and limitations to having fun.

There are still plenty of MMOs out there that offer that old school feel, that are still alive and well. Aside from graphical snobbery, there is no reason why you couldnt still be playing them.

Originally posted by tixylix

I love EVE online

This one statement contradicts everything else in your post. You hate MMO's but you love EVE online? Hello? Also seems like you just mentioned the game for you right in your post, how about that. Go tear your ass and have some fun...

What was the point of this post again?

If stopped liking MMORPGs in 2005, I would have stopped playing them in 2005. And I certainly wouldn't be posting here 7 years later whining about how much I don't like them. Move on with your life to something you actually enjoy.

I think it's less about the games changing and more about the players becoming a bunch of whiny, jaded, entitlement-obsessed, freeloading crybabies who would rather complain about what's wrong with games than actually enjoying what's right with them.