General Discussion

I think many of us (the people on these forums) are starting to realize that we are a minority. Many of us complain about the current state of MMOs but apparently the vast majority of MMO players are perfectly content.

When I would look on the WoW forums everyone QQd about their classes being nerfed and everyone else's being overpowered. Everytime Blizzard made a change to balance the classes the same people complained. It seemed like no one was happy with the class changes. But apparently most people are because Blizzard still has about 10 million subscribers.

Many people, including myself, talk about how lazy and unimaginative game devs are. Yet the very games we are criticizing are being played by millions of people that are perfectly content with the game.

Now if every single one of us had the exact same opinions on everything, maybe our outcrys would be heard by the game devs. But we all have different opinions! So not only do we make a small minority of the gaming population, but our ideas about games are vastly different. There's no way game devs would look at a forum like this and actually listen to our opinions to try and make a game to better suit us because we all want different things!

I know it's sad, I know it makes us feel hopeless, but companies like Blizzard are doing exactly what they should to get and keep high subscription numbers.

Maybe by the time the millenials start making their way into the gaming industry we'll start seeing some new ideas that better suit our interests.

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Originally posted by Master_Razor
but companies like Blizzard are doing exactly what they should to get and keep high subscription numbers.

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Size is not everything. :)

If you get away from those mainstream games, i think that even an old MMO-vet can be happy in a game that has maybe 20-200k subs. I found them to be very entertaining, and those developers often have very nice ideas in their games.

I feel that it is in large part, lethargy. In other words, these players are so casual with it that they either don't notice or noticeably care when changes are made to a game. For many players the only indication that they are not satisfied with the game is when they suddenly disappear without so much as a word. The only times a majority of players come out to say something is when the changes are so massive and all-encompassing than even the most apathetic player can't help but notice if its not a positive one. Probably why SWG has so created so many vocal forum goers.

WoW's base formula has changed so little since its launch that it hasn't created the hordes of malcontents other games have. Typically the only people that really notice much of the changes are those who "powergame" or really number crunch their statistics. When new things get tossed in, changed, or removed they tend to get their pants in a bind about it because of all the hours they had spent streamlining their are then perceived as wasted. But even still, this is a rather small group of players.

But still, I will talk to a friend who played WoW casually about the kind of game I'd like; classless with not levels and lots of metagaming and player generated content, and they are interested as well. Just not interested enough to stump for it like people here do but they would buy it. I think a lot more people would be interested in it than the bean counters at the major companies right now realize.

T.V. sucks but people still watch it.

I think many of us (the people on these forums) are starting to realize that we are a minority.

Yup, we sure are. The vast majority of people just want casual, accessible fun instead of the deep an immersive environments that "veteran" MMO gamers are seeking. The biggest pipe-dream we have is that one day a freshly developed old-school MMO will rise above all other contenders, do everything right (by our estimation), and become a shining beacon of what MMO's should all aspire to be.

The reality of course is that it'll never happen. As you say, most people are content with a game that they can just jump into for an hour or two a night. They don't really care about the limitations of the design concepts or the lack of depth, because they're not really invested enough in the game to worry about that sort of thing. I'm sure developers are all pretty dismissive of forum posts; the only thing that can grab their attention is mass cancellations citing a specific common cause, but that almost never happens.

I'm just glad that I got to experience the inception of the MMO market and the complex and innovative old-school MMO's like UO, EvE and SWG. I don't expect the next generation of popular games to contain titles that compare.

Aa much as i can agree with your points, the problem is there are hardly any better MMOs around. The MMO market really started to live after WoW comercial success, thats when other major companies started to take MMO more seriously. We have AoC/WAr upcoming in "Near future" but those get bashed as well, time will show how much better or worse than WoW they will get.

Majority of market however still is based on lineage-like korean grindfest games, i dont mind them, but personally get bored with them quite fast, plus im not fan of cash shops.

Then there are older MMOS, some are really old thus not really that appelaing anymore orjust lack polishing. You may cmmplain about WoW easyness or lack of effort in many parts, even lack of PVP balance, but name a game that offers both 'decent' pve progress along with options to participate in bigger pvp activities.

Yes i play WoW. I also played other games before and during my WoW time. Apart form EVE none managed to hook me up for longer, but EVE is so differentinc oncept from WoW that there is no point in comparing those two.

Until some polished, fun, userfriendly MMO with progressive pve and pvp will show up dont expect WoW to loose much. The expansion is on its way, and even if it will be in some way redoing the same things it still will mostlikely have enough of freshness to keep people playing it.. Churchil once said that "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried" and it pretty much works with WoW too.

I've been saying it for years:

"Developers and Publishers read the words of Gamers in the form of Dollars, not outcries on Forums."

It's well known in MANY Development Circles that the groups that scream the loudest are often the smallest, and most vocal.  Actually there was an E3 RoundTable on it when I was a CM, quite intriguing actually.

The Round Table had a great speaker:

"Your Forums are not the place for ideas.  Less then 5% of your players will use them, and less then 25% of your players care to know they exist.  Anybody who reads Forums will know the largest groups of Forum Users will do everything in their power to supress anybody who dare disagrees.  Take everything you read there seriously, seriously with a grain of salt."

She went on to illustrate how to tell the difference between a Forum User who cares, and a Forum User who's insane post:

"A Forum User you will want to listen to will never tell another Forum user to go back to WoW as the solution for their idea."

I'm not kidding, she said that.  And it's true, I've ceased listening to anybody who uses that as their answer to a Arguement or Discussion on this, or any other, Forum.

Finally, I was quite releaved when she added to the end:

"Never let your Forums have Open Registration.  Tie them to an account, if they're subscribed, those are the ones you want to listen to."

Around here, those are fighting words.  But, they make sense.

If you analyze general posts around here as often as I do, and not respond, you'll see that there's a flux of people who, after years, are still holding onto something that's no longer there.  You all know what I'm talking about.  Their screams are drown out by anybody of power to change anything by the pursuit of a grander payback for their work, because generally speaking, they're a Minority.

While you feel that Forums are a great place to Complain, realize that, when you do, chose your words carefully.  One or 2 key phrases might nullify your entire argument to a potential Developer reading your ideas... and we (yes me too) DO read your ideas.

 Or the ole standard die hard mmorpg players have moved to console gaming until something they like comes along and have discovered they do not have to pay a monthly fee to chat, and or basically no matter what the skin most mmorpgs are alike might as well play one of the ones that work better then the other

I have to disagree with the OP...

While there are many disagreements between posters regarding details (such as death penalties, amounts of gore, fantasy vs sci-fi settings etc) there are quite a few points that almost everybody agrees should be included in new games but are sadly lacking as of now. Namely:

- Dynamic world setting - regardless of whether it's players influencing the world individually or there are some sweeping outside trends, the players want the game state visibly changed over time. Each time you log in there should be some new development. "Frozen"