Old School MMO Design: It's On Its Way out

Convenience will be the death of games.  At some point there'll be official Blizzard/Bethesda/Epic representatives who'll just describe the gaming experience to you instead of you actually playing it.  That'll be £30 please.

 

I think they will change really slow, just to keep people tied to the game

 

I agree, especially when you reach the stage want to get more done in your day.

Its awesome that Warhammer does little stuff like give you horns from mobs for a quest WITHOUT you having to loot. I was talking to some buds and I was saying last night, why the hell should I even have to loot a mob to get the gold. That's just a boring mundane task, it should automatically loot for me. Why should I have inventory space? I mean I can make mules, and thats all dumb **** that just takes time.

For those of you clamoring that convenience is the death of games, you are right, just not here. Look at sf2 HD remake. There is an easy mode where a simple button press makes you do a shoryuken, and the game still plays fine. WHY? Because the real game is a good game and can never die. It takes place in the mind of 2 opponents fighting for superiority... 2 people looking for any way to outsmart the other. That's what a game is about... not farming X so i can get what I should have. People may differ on what is fun and whats not, but there are certain lines that are clearly defined.

 

Good blog. The new MMO's coming out have made improvements over such trailblazing games like EQ, which really was a big MMO for a while, and catered to a lot of people. Games such as WoW, cater both to hardcore and casual players. Blizzard's current marketing strategy to keep subscriptions is to make good gear easier to get. There's still massive timesinks in the game, regardless of what the typical wowfanboi will tell you. After playing multiple mmo's, started in EQ, played it, went to AO(Anarchy Online, decent sci-fi game when you ignore the bugs), played City of Heroes(great game, just lackluster once you get to the highest level, also a lack of villains/pvp at the time), and eventually WoW(who hasn't played it....), and now WAR. WAR improved a lot, and I'm certain they pushed hard and got people like Blizzard to notice that they have to improve in order to maintain their playerbase. It'll be another month or two before the first WoW: WotLK which has more end game content, and even then, it'll probably be defeated within hours of being LIVE. But WAR pushed hard to make things less tedious and more fun, but I still had issues with the game. I think there were entirely too many servers at launch, leading to underpopulated realms, which led to lackluster RvR in the RvR lakes. Scenario's, like Battlegrounds, kill World PvP. But I have to credit WAR with having the better PvP system. Actual rewards, recognition, and balance is part of the gameplay. As for WoW's PvP, it is terrible. There's entirely too many crowd control and escape abilties put into the game. Sometimes, your character wouldn't even be able to fight back before he died. With WAR, rarely would you encounter a situation where you weren't able to fight or survive, but the drawback was that if 4 Bright Wizards(substitute Sorc's) were set on you, you just wanted to cry as you were turned into mush very very quickly. Unlike WoW, Mythic made sure that high DPS had significant drawbacks like limited survivability and limited crowd control. Unlike Blizzards design of DPS classes, which have a dozen abilities to make sure they survive or keep you from killing them.

Less tedious crap like looting quest items is good(WAR +1), lots of quests(WoW +1), great PvP(WAR +1), shorter travel time(WAR+1), and epic story raids(WoW+1), hardcore combat effects(AoC +1), dynamic stats system(AO +1), would make a great game.
But the fantasy market is swamped as is. WoW, WAR, AoC, LotRO, EQII, Darkfall(LoL), Lineage II, etc are all competing for the same market share. Yet, there's still no decent Sci-Fi mmo's out there that can really introduce fun gameplay and immersing story. Tabula Rasa was terrible. Anarchy Online suffered hard because Funcom cannot make a non-bug ridden game. Star Wars Galaxies was terrible, well, because of Sony mainly. And EVE.... well, EVE isn't bad, but it really doesn't appeal to most people, but it definately does have its very own niche market.

 

I like alot of the changes that WAR brought. Leveling thru pvp was my fave.

 

The amount of content and things you complete in a video game are always tied to the amount of time you spent achieving it. In all reality though the content achieved is relative, so though you may feel like you're getting more done in these newer action-paced video games, everybody is moving at the same quicker pace - so no real ground is broken. MMO's were made to be used as gateways of gameply with other people. I think the most important implementation to be made to this festering genre is to more prominantly have people closer to each other, interacting and coping in their environments. It feels so microcosmic right now. Like sitting in a LFG for hours etc... I want to play these games to PLAY WITH OTHER PEOPLE. And this shouldn't be exclusively against other people either. I've got my Call of Duty games, RPG's need to offer me more than a skin slapped on the interface of CTF.

 

I tried WoW... after some time I wanted to scratch my eyes out and I felt like I had to run... run away from it. I was not the least compelled to get something better, or fight for something worth something.

I've then tried LOTRO, and man was that something that got my attention
Many ppl have told me that LOTRO is basically just a copy of WoW with better graphics and a different story line. Even if that is all true, it beats WoW anyway. The landscapes and places you travel was beautifull and doing quest was not only fun but also the storyline feels like it does blend with the Middle Earth lore.

Another MMO i've been playing for a long time is EVE-Online. Hands down the best MMO i've ever got to play. So imence and deep that even after playing a year, maybe a year and a half I was still learning and discovering new things. And with every update/expansion it just gets better and better.

Sticking with something that works is good, but game developpers must play around and test new things. It's a gamble, we know, but how else will it be known if this new idea works better or not. And EVE imo have broken like half of the normal MMO rules, making it so unique in many aspects. By trial and error and fixing bugs regularly and updating the game, they've developped an MMO different to any other, and that is one thing I know many MMO fans are afraid of. Not checking out the new, but rather sticking with what they know.
Sol Invictus: "The player's "mastered" it, so he can't leave it without giving up his mastery of the game world."

Face the fear, and discover the new. Newer is better... It's why it's called improving :P