We used to live in our own realm, a land of castles, they were windy and had few amenities, but did that bother us? It could take ages galloping around to reach a town, and you could bump into all sorts. As a lone knight you could right a few wrongs in the world, but you needed a fellowship to really make a difference. And this land, which you would die for was fought over by perfidious barons from far off realms. We ate beef of the bone a plenty and quaffed ale to wash it down.

Now we live in a rabbit warren, with little tunnels connecting use to the rest of our warren world. There are lots on amenities, why you scarcely have to leave your own burrow to play the game, and you certainly don’t have to talk to your rabbit neighbours. We eat our lettuce leaves and wonder what happened, how did we proud warriors become vegetarian care rabbits?

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Phelcher 

Very weird that "people" keep discussing non-niche games, in a very niche forum.  Wonder why these "people" feign ignorance... even after being told. So weird..  to keep discussing those "other" games.. trying to make those popular, but unable to talk about the non-popular games, the niche MMORPG's..

Makes you wonder why someone post 10,000 times..  and then claim to stand for zero, if anything.

It's a forum with a lot of niche opinions, but MMORPGs are rather mainstream.

MMORPGs as a whole aren't niche.

Only the obsessively virtual world-focused games are.

So it's not weird at all that people discuss MMORPGs on MMORPG.com.  It actually is a little weird for them to fixate too much on virtual worlds when it's such a tiny sub-genre of MMORPGs.

 

I am not sure what you are referring to as a virtual world MMO. I do not think such a game exists. If you mean open world MMO there are more than a few, it is hardly a niche area. But then every other MMO type is smaller than the easymode majority we now have. I do not regard open world as niche, just as I don’t regard MMOFPS as a niche. They are different games essentially.

You can call them all MMO's with sub genres, but it is getting harder and harder to do so. The gameplay is diverging so much that putting "MMO" in a games title is only there to give players an easy handle on what the game is about. A handle which can be quite deceptive, as a lot of modern games are MMO wannabes at best.

We do have supporters of non traditional MMO formats on here. Am I one such because I like a MMOFPS? Am I a MMO traditionalist because I see modern MMO's as losing so much? To me MMOFPS is essentially a new game, a hybrid between MMO's and FPS. Modern easymode MMO's on the other hand, are stripped down shadows of what they could be, pandering to the solo crowd. To call some of them themeparks is an insult to some good themeparks I have been to.

So all of us are putting forward their gaming agenda, what’s best for gaming. As long as posters are honest about where they stand I see no issue.

This TV/Game concept is a first, and it shows. The idea that the game needs to keep pace with the series is an odd one. We have two very differant formats TV and gaming, the pace of the story in both formats cannot be the same.

They seem to be trying to make it all one experiance. Thats a mistake, take flavour from both formats but don't try to march them in step.

Kids certainly play MMO's

But ID checks are very tricky. Kids can get credit cards and find the answers to any questions posed with a goggle.

I have noticed we don't have many players speaking in my outfit in PS2. Then we had a few with very squeaky voices, I did not have the heart to report them. But they could not be a day over 12.

If I was that age I would be doing everthing to get to play the games I wanted to, thats the reality.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Scot

You can't expect a MMO to compete with an arcade game in its niche area. Those games and MMO's will be better than a more general MMO at what they do best.

An example of such a poor design decision was the Space Flight missions in SWTOR. No way could they live up to what an arcade style space shooter has to offer. A cheap as chips Elite style trading and space flight would have been better.

Why? Because there is no Elite style trading game out there. There is no genre of games to compete against. But EA went the easy route and paid the price.

MMO's have to be built solidly in the areas they are best at. Questing, Crafting, Housing, Faction PvP, Community and the like.

Of course you can. You don't have to be the best to get some business. Look at FPSes for an example. Bioshock Infinite is probably the best, or one of the best. You don't have to beat it to make money.

Take STO. Is it better than Bioshock Infinite as a SP game? Probably not. However, it is the ONLY Star Trek based RPG out there. Why shouldn't it do some SP missions? In that segment of market, it is the best.

BTW, MMO is NOT the best in questing, pvp nor community. There are plenty of other online games that are better. Heck, how can MMO the best at pvp when there are pvp centric online games? You argument of specialization applies here too.

There is an element of what’s in the mix. MMO’s can have that unique mix that makes them stand out from other online games.

I have never played a solo rpg that had better questing than the first twenty levels of AoC, the Fellowship quests of Lotro or the Class quests of SWTOR. MMO’s are up there with the best any other game has in questing.

I have never played PvP better than DAOC. In their own way other games have great faction PvP such as PS2. But this is a different type of PvP. Indeed PS2 is essentially a stepping stone between Battlefield style PvP and MMO faction based PvP.

Again with community, MMO’s are up there with the best or are the best.

Those are three of MMO’s great strengths that can make them better than any other type of online game out there. What you are suggesting is spending significant development time on making a different kind of MMO. One which caters for those who like Diablo and the like. These markets are cornered by those existing games, competing there would be a struggle at best. And it would change the nature of MMO’s, to their detriment.

Why would we want Diablo style play in our MMO’s? We have other games for that. I am arguing once again for games with distinct gameplay, you seem to want everything to be Diabloesque.

I would not go onto the Diablo and PoE forums and argue for more MMO like play in those games. Games need to do what they do best, not have half baked elements in them just to try to appeal to every player.

The problem with putting games within MMO’s is that they detract the devs time from why we joined the game in the first place.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Scot

Zones and instances were what we used to talk about, when we had more open worlds and a reason to have them. Today we have MMO's which lead you on a path about 200ft across with the occassional more open area. Yet we still have zones and instances.

You do get the feeling MMO's could become games where we run along a path 20 feet across and we would still have zones and instances. :D

Yeh. Because there is less and less reason to have a virtual world. Look at highly acclaimed games like PoE .. it is like a public zone, and instanced gameplay.

While it may not be a MMO by your definition, the "proper" MMOs are competing with games like that.

PoE is an interesting example, they have used an isometic look down like old Ultima did. This approach gives a bigger feeling of space to my eyes as you see the other side of the wall. You see whats outside of the path. I have always been a true 3D fan though, you can't beat that. The thing is though, that PoE is to Ultima what Rift, SWTOR etc are to EQ and Lotro. Smaller, downsized versions. Yes its meant to be like Diablo, but it could be much bigger.

I quite like some of the ideas they are trying out at PoE actually, but as I always say wait until it launches. Even with F2P games, why play a unifinshed beta when you can play the finished, polished product later?

You can't expect a MMO to compete with an arcade game in its niche area. Those games and MMO's will be better than a more general MMO at what they do best.

An example of such a poor design decision was the Space Flight missions in SWTOR. No way could they live up to what an arcade style space shooter has to offer. A cheap as chips Elite style trading and space flight would have been better.

Why? Because there is no Elite style trading game out there. There is no genre of games to compete against. But EA went the easy route and paid the price.

MMO's have to be built solidly in the areas they are best at. Questing, Crafting, Housing, Faction PvP, Community and the like.

Zones and instances were what we used to talk about, when we had more open worlds and a reason to have them. Today we have MMO's which lead you on a path about 200ft across with the occassional more open area. Yet we still have zones and instances.

You do get the feeling MMO's could become games where we run along a path 20 feet across and we would still have zones and instances. :D

To get immersion you have to start with an open world, these new MMO ribbon worlds feel artificial from the start of your game journey. Everything else that goes with an open world makes for an immesive MMO, not a MMO that feels like you are in toyland.

I think players are asking too much though if they think their immersion should never be disturbed. The needs of gameplay do not always synch with immersion.

The word "myth" seems to be now a label for "you have got it wrong and its time to have your mind readjusted."

PvE and PvP both have their place in a MMO, balancing the two is difficult and has led to antagonism. So the issues between these groups are real. Over the years the importance of PvP in MMO's has been sidelined for many reasons. I do not see this stopping, PvP will become even more marginalised in the MMO's of the future.

“It’s getting hot in here so take of all your gear.”

“Prepare to get whipped…whose really in control?”

These ads made me smile and that’s a good thing to start the day.

Without reviews a metascore gives you only a vague idea. It tells you about how well the hype as worked as much as how good the game is.

If you are using metacritic, check out the reviews, go for the middle ramge ones. Look at what the player reviews say and how they say it.

Basing purchase on anything other than a solid all round review approach is asking for trouble.

Originally posted by Kumapon

This pic sorta looks like ArcheAge, but those are not archeage houses, so I don't know what game this comes from.

This pic is just an outright fake. Women do not have those outfits in ArcheAge. This may be another Korean game but it is not ArcheAge.

What? No babes in impossibly short skirts? Thats a big Con. :D