Originally posted by Vampirian28

I think you are going a tad overboard, because I doubt most ppl if given the choice would go to such an extreme as to "stop playing."

Is that hard to understand or something?

Originally posted by Vampirian28

 

Actually that is what makes this test so perfect. In life things are not always Black and White...therefore you have to make a choice. The choice, which may not be your best scenario, still brings out a large portion of how you psycholigically deduce things. Hence the test is more accurate than most ppl may choose to believe.

No, the point is that, given the two choices in the test, a lot of us would simply stop playing the game entirely if that was all it offered.  It's like asking if you'd rather hack off your leg with an axe or cut off your arm with a chainsaw.  Neither are acceptable choices.  For many of us, myself definitely included, if all the game offers is gear grinding or PvP, we say the hell with it and go elsewhere.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

True. And in business, often the goal is NOT to maximize profit, but to hit a certain target for sure instead. In this model, catering to the KNOWN masses is a good strategy.

 That's only true as far as the immediate future, but overall the MMO industry is being very short sighted.  As we can see here, most people will join a game, play a couple months, grind to level 70, get bored and move on.  There's no impetus to stay with a game for the long term because it's all achievement based.  There's nothing about any one particular game that makes people call it "home".  You have a generally consistent number of players that just move from one game to the next to the next without any "brand loyalty".

That's not a good business strategy, it's just putting off the inevitable crash of the entire industry when everyone runs out of games to switch to.

Breakdown: Achiever 33.33%, Explorer 80.00%, Killer 6.67%, Socializer 80.00%

 SEAK players are usually very interested in the the 'total experience' of a virtual world--meeting other people and finding the unique places within it. They don't care much for PVP or levelling, but meeting up with online friends to see new parts of the world is usually fun and exciting.

The biggest problem I had with the test is that most of the questions had no good answer.  I didn't want to do either of them and had to pick at random.

For example, question 24:

On an MMORPG, would you rather:

I don't want to do either.  I'd be happier being the most respected person in the game, I couldn't care less about being feared or having a powerful weapon.

Unfortunately, they don't know that they're getting the largest audience available because no one is looking at anything but the current business model.  There are dozens of MMOs all fighting for the same customer base and no one is out looking for a different model to tap into.  There very well may be millions more customers just waiting for a different type of online game but if there are no maverick companies out looking for that kind of system, those millions will go untapped.

That's the problem with going for the lowest common denominator, you tend to miss opportunities because you stop looking for them.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

The second issue is whether you believe people's preference can change. Look at the success of Diablo. Is it successful because it DISCOVERED something people want? Or it is because it shows people a new way and change their minds? I believe it is more than formal than the latter. If it is the formal, then certain games, no matter how much resource you sink into it, will never be successful on a mass market basis.

The problem is, once developers find something they think people want, they stop looking.  There are many other people looking for many other things, but so long as developers have their current cash cow, they have no reason to go looking for the next big thing.  They cater to the lowest common denominator while ignoring the people who are not willing to wallow in the mud.

 

 

Originally posted by heerobya

Statistically speaking, the MMORPG is bigger and better then ever.

Bigger?  Sure.  Better?  I beg to differ.

Originally posted by uncus

 

 I agree with much of what you say about RPGA events - they SUCK because they are too confining!

 

I disagree with your comment on Exploring - that was the most fun in the campaign that I played in, and has been the most fun for the players in my campaigns [You'll have to take my word for it, I don't know that any of them frequent any forums].  As a "Good DM", I let my characters do whatever they wanted to do...usually that meant letting them get themselves in so much trouble that'd they'd have to leave town one step ahead of the local authorities!  I always did two things at the start of the campaign: 1. Give them a long range quest, usually by giving 1-2 players a "dream" or other omen, and 2. Give them many short range quests - the usual "stop these bandits", investigate those strange lights, protect this trade caravan, spy on that rival city, and collect these ingredients for a local alchemist.  The players would decide which goals to pursue and which to ignore - sometimes they'd find links between them and sometimes they'd just randomly stumble onto new quests ["save the farmer's family", investigate that cave,...]  They always had the freedom to do or avoid whatever they wanted.  Unfortunately, no MMO can have this flexibility.

Exactly.  Freedom at the gaming table is essential, at least IMO, to a good gaming experience.  It isn't that MMOs can't have that kind of flexibility, it's that they refuse to.  They don't cater to a creative audience and therefore feel they have to spell everything out.  Good roleplayers, even in the absence of a good GM, will just create their own situations spontaneously without having to have everything set up in advance.

I probably fall into all of them once in a while, but if I had to pick just a couple that really describe me and what I'm looking for, they'd have to be:

Roleplaying (90%) - That's really what I want to do, I want to take on a role and experience life vicariously through it.  I'm certainly never 100% in character (I've seen those people and they annoy the hell out of me) but it's more fun to me to get into a world and actually be a part of it, rather than just myself moving through it.

Socializer (10%) - This is especially true when you've got a dedicated group you're playing with.  Some days you just might not feel like RPing, or some major character can't make it that day, so you just sit around and talk.  You can do it IC or OOC, it really doesn't matter, but I've made some really great offline friends from online communities.

Otherwise... blah.  Most of the other roles I might ever adopt are short-term anyhow, dealing with a specific situation while RPing, not something I'd really have an interest in otherwise.

The biggest problem isn't that all MMOs suck, although a lot of them do, it's that they're all doing basically the same thing with very little spin on it.  You get WoW, then you get a dozen games that all look like WoW in different genres.  You get games that emphasize different things but the core concept is still the same.  No matter how many variants on the WoW theme, that doesn't change the fact that WoW is a very shallow, idiotic concept that your dog could play if he could use the computer.  It leaves a lot of us who don't want to play shallow, idiotic, cookie-cutter games out in the cold.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Now how is the imagination of ONE person be superior to imagination of a large team? Granted you are asked to do repetitive things. That is purely because developers want to stretch their resources. However, if you just do each thing ONCE, a MMORPG has much more content than a whole year of D&D campaign.

 

Not really.  With a good game, the GM sets up the situation and the players are free to do what they want and go where they want, even if they veer wildly off the plan the GM might have set up.  Unfortunately, online games have adopted the Final Fantasy model where they have a story that's set in stone and the only way to avoid going along with the story is to turn the game off.  There's no option for going left when you're supposed to go right, there's no option for not fighting the bad guys when you're supposed to, you're just dragged around by the nose through a story that you have no control over.  That's not roleplaying, that's being pushed through a barely interactive book.  You want to write a book?  Cool, write the book and let me read it.  I'm here to play a game though and I want actual control over my character.  It's not like there haven't been some really good, very open-ended games, but that's not what we see in the MMO market and that's what really pisses a lot of people off.

Originally posted by xpowderx

LOL, I still have my original D&D brown cover 1973  Gary Gygax original books around somewhere.

So for people who want to roleplay, that really only leaves online and the MMO marketplace has poorly served people who are really interested in intelligent, mature roleplaying.  That's mostly because it takes actual work to produce a good setting and keeping it from going to hell like places like Second Life have done.  It's much easier to produce a grind-fest PvP hell and they know that people will flock to it.

That's a little hard to do until they actually release the game, isn't it? 

Originally posted by DanyBoy2005

Matrix Online is by far the best game i've come across when it comes down to role play. But It's not much of a sandbox. So I'm not sure whether it's the right one for you.

So long as Matrix isn't like that, it shouldn't  be a problem.

Originally posted by MarleVVLL

Cephus..

Wurm Online.

Thanks, but I already said no fantasy.  I appreciate the suggestion though.

Edit:  Oops, sorry, I thought I had said no fantasy but I apparently missed it.  Okay, no fantasy.  Mostly I'm interested in either science fiction or interesting variations on the modern day.  Can't say I've seen many historical games that are all that interesting to me, sorry.

I'm looking for something specific.  I used to play MMOs back in the EQ day but left because it bored me to death.  I've poked around in games like EVE-Online and looked at lots of games and none of them seem to be the kind of thing I'm looking for.  I don't think it exists, to be honest, MMOs seem to be mindless grind-fests and PvP playgrounds.

I want something that's more of a sandbox, that's geared primarily toward roleplaying.  That doesn't mean there are a couple servers where roleplaying is put up with, I mean a game that is made for roleplaying.  I don't want to deal with PvP "oh look, something is moving, let's kill it" nonsense, I don't want to deal with gear grinding, I want a place where people actually... you know... TALK TO EACH OTHER and roleplay.  I also want that place to be reasonably free of illiterate 12-year olds looking to get laid.

Basically what I want is to recapture the feeling of paper-and-pencil, around-a-table roleplaying online.

I don't think it exists.

Prove me wrong.

Great, can we have an RP game that isn't fantasy please?

That actually sounds much better, it's certainly not the stupid random quests that most MMOs use, it seems like it might encourage a little actual roleplaying.

Thanks for posting that.

I meant I'm afraid that they're still going to have too much grinding.  The fact that they feel they have to stand up and say they're not going to have AS MUCH as they might otherwise is pretty sad.  I'm really tired of games where the whole purpose is getting stuff, getting experience, getting gear, leveling up, etc.  I just want to HAVE FUN!

Originally posted by Lordmonkus

 

It's much easier for you to right click and block someone then it is for CCP to hire and pay people to sit in the starter corp channels.

 

As far as the help system goes I will go so far as saying that it is the best in the industry. If you took the time to actually understand how complex the game is you would realize this. I do not know if this is still being done by CCP but they actually have a volunteer program for players to donate their time in helping new players out in the newbie help channels as well as actually taking the time to convo new players to help them out with any questions they might have. How many other games have this ?

I ask you again though, what was it that you were expecting from the game that you feel you could just as easily do in a single player offline game ? Judging by your posts here from when you finally were able to get the trial going and this latest post today you tried the game for a day at most. Believe me when I tell you that 1 day is no where near enough time to even begin to scratch the surface of what this game has to offer.

Hell I'll go as far as to say at this point that you are beginning to sound like some guy from some other mmo company paid to start this thread and to try and bad mouth Eve or something.

And CCP already has people in the newbie channel, they're just not doing anything.  Ask for help, they're there.  They just seem to be blind to people advertising viagra.

As far as the game is concerned, I understand the complexity, I just don't care for the game mechanics.  I can do all of the flying around and agent missions and PvE just fine without being online, in fact that's exactly where offline games shine.  The only other part to EVE seems to be PvP which seriously doesn't interest me much.

So tell me, oh wise one, what does EVE have to offer other than PvP?