I don't really have anything to add, but I played Everquest for about 3 years and I never had a max level character. Even though I wasn't max level I was still able to participate in end game content (PoF, PoH, NToV). There is definitely a lot of "rose colored glasses" when looking back at EQ. But that said, I spent WAY more time playing it than anything since, and I continued to play it longer than any other MMO.
Harking back to the days when I had to pay $2 to get a beta disk for a MMO that was sent in the mail... I would say that today, MMO's have a much larger market and a more diverse player base. If you only go after the "you have to group to do anything" segment of the market, then you are going after slim picked over pickings, as every dev knows that player base sticks around, even if things suck, because of friends... it's the easy route.
Imagine mass entertainment that could only happen if you were grouped? Nope, can't listen to your MP3 player or watch television unless there are four more people with you... it just wouldn't work. The real large audience out there is solo. There is a reason that most people in society don't play sports... the smart devs should notice that.
In the end the MMO that brings out scaleable instances that can seemlessly cater to ALL people, solo or group, has a combat system like this game, and cool graphics (like this game) will clean house in my opinion. Of course they will have to bring out weekly content, like a television series, but wow the money would be something to behold...
Why are ALL current MMO's about endgame and not about the ride to get there?
Because the end game is where you spend most of your time. Think about it. If you play a game for 6 months how much time of that are you going to be max level? Even if they stretch it out and make leveling 'hard' and it takes a month to go from level 1 to max level you are still going to be spending 5 months at max level.
I played a year on FFXI before I had my first 75. I then spent the next year trying to catch up on story quests I could have done while leveling but decided to skip in lieu of leveling "fast". I then spent the next four months doing endgame before rage quitting because of having to grind 6 hours a day to just to attend a 3 hour event, totaling 9 hours a day. Tell me, what did I spend more of my time doing on FFXI?
I was waiting for those "nostalgic" or "rose colored glasses" comments.
Let me make a very simple point about this post.
This is what I want. ME. I want this. If this style of MMO in this generation suites you, that's great. I have no issue with that. But where is the MMO for me that yields the old day style? There is none and the reason I made the point as to why did they stop making them? Where did we decide that ALL MMOs should be one style? Why should everyone else get the style game they want and I have to set here and be "nostalgic?"
I was waiting for those "nostalgic" or "rose colored glasses" comments.
Let me make a very simple point about this post.
This is what I want. ME. I want this. If this style of MMO in this generation suites you, that's great. I have no issue with that. But where is the MMO for me that yields the old day style? There is none and the reason I made the point as to why did they stop making them? Where did we decide that ALL MMOs should be one style? Why should everyone else get the style game they want and I have to set here and be "nostalgic?"
Those still exist. They didn't disappear, they just became less popular.
I was waiting for those "nostalgic" or "rose colored glasses" comments.
Let me make a very simple point about this post.
This is what I want. ME. I want this. If this style of MMO in this generation suites you, that's great. I have no issue with that. But where is the MMO for me that yields the old day style? There is none and the reason I made the point as to why did they stop making them? Where did we decide that ALL MMOs should be one style? Why should everyone else get the style game they want and I have to set here and be "nostalgic?"
Those still exist. They didn't disappear, they just became less popular.
"Newer" one. I have stated that I play the progression servers on EQ1.
Old and original MMO's weren't about levels. PreCU SWG had no levels, EVE Online doesn't have any levels. Even those games fell to the new system though. NGE SWG was all about the gear grind, EVE is now less and less about your SP and more about your gank power and ISK for ships that translates to gear grind.
I agree, MMO's have changed. They aren't about character evolution any more. They are about character maxing. FF14 is the only thing that resembles the games of old and they murdered it by trying to make it a PC/ Console hybrid.
Back here in Tera, it's more like you need to look not at your character but your account when you evolve it. EME and BHS will need to somehow convince me to look not at my character but all my characters when they advance the game and how we either gain that affinity for Tera or don't. I don't know if they have the dedication to Tera for that.
Harking back to the days when I had to pay $2 to get a beta disk for a MMO that was sent in the mail... I would say that today, MMO's have a much larger market and a more diverse player base. If you only go after the "you have to group to do anything" segment of the market, then you are going after slim picked over pickings, as every dev knows that player base sticks around, even if things suck, because of friends... it's the easy route.
An even easier route is "forcing" you to group, so even if you're not playing with friends, you're playing with other people for an extended period of time. FFXI was actually the only MMO where I made what could have turned out to be an actual real life friend in it, mostly because you come into contact and spend time with other people so much. He contacted me on AIM after I had stopped playing and I was highly disturbed that my virtual gaming life had invaded my real life and I responded back that "I'm sorry I can't play ffxi anymore" and blocked him.
But I made many virtual aquantances in that game, and it was a game that promoted coorperation above all else, because you really NEEDED other people to do anything. That spirit is totally gone from today's games, and it may have something to do with the Japanese culture of being humble. I remember in my first week being confused as to where to go in my hometown to continue the story quest, and through the translator a Japanese player figured out what I was talking about and then led me right where I needed to go (taking like 20 minutes out of his playtime to do so- try to get someone in your own freaking guild to do that nowadays, let alone some stranger that doesn't even speak your language). Later on, for one of my artifact quests, I asked around in the main town of Jueno for help and received a response from a JP player that he would help. I also got two friends to come and help, but they took a long time getting there (like 45 solid minutes). The JP player waited patiently for my friends to arrive and then led the way straight to where we needed to go and basically soloed the boss, so waiting for my friends was not even necessary, but he did anyway, without complaint. Both instances blew my mind that people from halfway around the world were willing to help by giving up significant chunks of their real life and play time. I helped others when I could, too, although not to the extremes these two players went.
Helping eachother was the inherently rewarded by a virtual karma system. You constantly needed help on almost anything, so you naturally wanted to help too.
Anti-social behavior was heavily punished. For example, I was in a group leveling and the tarutaru got sick of us talking or something and said, "More xp, less talk". There was plenty of time to talk and level, so we kicked him. He called a GM on us and went down the hill from where we were camped waiting for the GM staring at us. It was one of the funniest incedents in an online game I can remember, just this little tarutaru fuming at us for socializing while playing.
In another example, there was a scam people could perpetrate on new players by listing in their personal sales what looked like stacks of 12 crystals but were only actually 1 (you could sell stuff on your person in ffxi). I bought what I thought was 3 stacks for crafting and the guy quickly logged out. I found out soon that I had been screwed. So, later on I looked up the guy and went to his party and explained what he had done. Two of the people in the party refused to play with someone that would do that and the group disbanded.
Nowadays, screwing and scamming people is encouraged because the entire atmosphere of the game and most games nowadays is "me first", thanks to the ways the games are set up. This is disappointing, because the real world operates that way, and games are meant to have rules and be fair, no matter how competitive they may be.
The best thing you could do to improve your character was to improve his reputation in ffxi. The best thing you can do to improve your character in this and games like it is to screw as many people as possible for your own benefit, because of how the game is set up. Lancers kicking zerkers, people messing with loot rules, people getting kicked without a word of explanation. All of this is not community-promoting nor all that fun. It's more like some random guy giving you the finger on the street.
Imagine mass entertainment that could only happen if you were grouped? Nope, can't listen to your MP3 player or watch television unless there are four more people with you... it just wouldn't work. The real large audience out there is solo. There is a reason that most people in society don't play sports... the smart devs should notice that.
Those are solo activities, which actually are more fun if you do it with other people, so not only are you wrong there, but there are single player games if you want to play a game by yourself. Actually most video games by far are single player games, so MMOs should take advantage of the distinction of being able to play with other people.
In the end the MMO that brings out scaleable instances that can seemlessly cater to ALL people, solo or group, has a combat system like this game, and cool graphics (like this game) will clean house in my opinion. Of course they will have to bring out weekly content, like a television series, but wow the money would be something to behold...
Catering to all people is not going to happen. Weekly content updates can't happen.
Besides, people by nature usually pick the easiest course of action. Getting a group together is a pain in the [filtered] a lot of the time. If it isn't basically mandated by the game, it's rarely going to happen (hence the "forced" in the phrase "forced grouping"). So the game you describe would be better off being a single player game with weekly additions (which actually could happen- single player content is way easier to create/implement than MMO content).
It's a pain in the [filtered] to get 18 guys and an umpire together to play a game of baseball but it's a lot more fun than throwing a baseball up and down in the air by yourself. It's a pain to get a group of people to go on a hike together, but again- more fun than by yourself. Sometimes you just want to hike by yourself for introspection or whatever, but ffxi had solo activities you could do on the side. But to progress, just like in real life, you NEEDED other people.
Human beings are social animals. MMOs wouldn't even exist if we didn't want to interact with others on an almost constant basis, especially because they impose many more limitations on the possibilities of game play and graphics compared to single player games due to everything having to go through a server and communicated almost instantaneously to many different computers in many different areas.
When stripped down to their core, fantasy MMOs are basically a chance to play Dungeons and Dragons with people from all over the world who you never met. Dungeons and Dragons is no fun by yourself, and the push toward "forced soloing", meaning it's more beneficial to do most things on your own, in recent games especially during the leveling period has been a huge step backward in my opinion.
Harking back to the days when I had to pay $2 to get a beta disk for a MMO that was sent in the mail... I would say that today, MMO's have a much larger market and a more diverse player base. If you only go after the "you have to group to do anything" segment of the market, then you are going after slim picked over pickings, as every dev knows that player base sticks around, even if things suck, because of friends... it's the easy route.
An even easier route is "forcing" you to group, so even if you're not playing with friends, you're playing with other people for an extended period of time. FFXI was actually the only MMO where I made what could have turned out to be an actual real life friend in it, mostly because you come into contact and spend time with other people so much. He contacted me on AIM after I had stopped playing and I was highly disturbed that my virtual gaming life had invaded my real life and I responded back that "I'm sorry I can't play ffxi anymore" and blocked him.
But I made many virtual aquantances in that game, and it was a game that promoted coorperation above all else, because you really NEEDED other people to do anything. That spirit is totally gone from today's games, and it may have something to do with the Japanese culture of being humble. I remember in my first week being confused as to where to go in my hometown to continue the story quest, and through the translator a Japanese player figured out what I was talking about and then led me right where I needed to go (taking like 20 minutes out of his playtime to do so- try to get someone in your own freaking guild to do that nowadays, let alone some stranger that doesn't even speak your language). Later on, for one of my artifact quests, I asked around in the main town of Jueno for help and received a response from a JP player that he would help. I also got two friends to come and help, but they took a long time getting there (like 45 solid minutes). The JP player waited patiently for my friends to arrive and then led the way straight to where we needed to go and basically soloed the boss, so waiting for my friends was not even necessary, but he did anyway, without complaint. Both instances blew my mind that people from halfway around the world were willing to help by giving up significant chunks of their real life and play time. I helped others when I could, too, although not to the extremes these two players went.
Helping eachother was the inherently rewarded by a virtual karma system. You constantly needed help on almost anything, so you naturally wanted to help too.
Imagine mass entertainment that could only happen if you were grouped? Nope, can't listen to your MP3 player or watch television unless there are four more people with you... it just wouldn't work. The real large audience out there is solo. There is a reason that most people in society don't play sports... the smart devs should notice that.
Those are solo activities, which actually are more fun if you do it with other people, so not only are you wrong there, but there are single player games if you want to play a game by yourself. Actually most video games by far are single player games, so MMOs should take advantage of the distinction of being able to play with other people.
In the end the MMO that brings out scaleable instances that can seemlessly cater to ALL people, solo or group, has a combat system like this game, and cool graphics (like this game) will clean house in my opinion. Of course they will have to bring out weekly content, like a television series, but wow the money would be something to behold...
Catering to all people is not going to happen. Weekly content updates can't happen.
Besides, people by nature usually pick the easiest course of action. Getting a group together is a pain in the [filtered] a lot of the time. If it isn't basically mandated by the game, it's rarely going to happen (hence the "forced" in the phrase "forced grouping"). So the game you describe would be better off being a single player game with weekly additions (which actually could happen- single player content is way easier to create/implement than MMO content).
It's a pain in the [filtered] to get 18 guys and an umpire together to play a game of baseball but it's a lot more fun than throwing a baseball up and down in the air by yourself. It's a pain to get a group of people to go on a hike together, but again- more fun than by yourself. Sometimes you just want to hike by yourself for introspection or whatever, but ffxi had solo activities you could do on the side. But to progress, just like in real life, you NEEDED other people.
Human beings are social animals. MMOs wouldn't even exist if we didn't want to interact with others on an almost constant basis, especially because they impose many more limitations on the possibilities of game play and graphics compared to single player games due to everything having to go through a server and communicated almost instantaneously to many different computers in many different areas.
When stripped down to their core, fantasy MMOs are basically a chance to play Dungeons and Dragons with people from all over the world who you never met. Dungeons and Dragons is no fun by yourself, and the push toward "forced soloing", meaning it's more beneficial to do most things on your own, in recent games especially during the leveling period has been a huge step backward in my opinion.
Hell, I was proud of myself for memorizing Kelethin. To this day people I played with for five years (and still do in other games) got lost in that city.
I think it took me a year to finally memorize Kelethin and it was my home city! (Wood Elf Druid)
And I freakin hated Kedge Keep. Never could remember my way down to the boss.