General Discussion

OP: Joined 2005, first post ...now!  Nice restraint man.

I, like OP, started my true MMO experience with UO.  Unless you count Diablo 1 as an MMO...some people do.  I think a lot of people latch onto that first great immersive world that they fall into.  I've played almost all the other big name MMOs as they came out, and I still fantasize about UO at times.

Other games DO have good things...they just get changed or the bad outweighs the good.  Shadowbane was good in theory!  It was just soo....laggy and buggy.  EQ was OK, but I never got into raiding...that's why so many people got hooked I think.  AC was awesome as hell!  There was just too much afk leveling and the need to constantly grind to keep up with people to compete...I remember the first few weeks on Darktide.  THOSE were just as intense as UO Pvp.  SWG was good for awhile.  My rig couldn't run it well at the time and I got into it late.  But we all know the story there.  AC2 was a sad sad affair.  Anarchy and FFXI just felt soooo...cloned.  I recently gave up WoW after playing on and off these last few years with brief forays into the other MMOs that have come out since then...vanguard, eq2, lotro, ect...  I played AoC beta and didn't get that hook I wanted. 

I guess I'm just waiting for WAR.  I think I give up on the vaporware (you true UO fans know what title Im talking about) to come out.

Good luck ex-UOers.  Old school Great Lakes, signing off.

Well, I do agree MMOs are getting worse in some ways...but in other ways they are better.

I'll use a quote that my teacher tells me once in awhile, usually when I'm feeling down

"It has to get worse before it gets better"

Think the quote fits with whats happening with MMOs. I do know that people like current MMOs, they think they are great...but I myself would like to see more UO or Asheron's Call type MMOs.

Look at every other genre out there, all of them go through phases where there is a lack of good games.

Perfect example is the FPS Market.

Look at what happened after Halo, years of games trying to follow in its footsteps, and all of them were aweful. I think the first good FPS that came out after halo that was good was Half Life 2.

Now we have tons of great FPS games.

Just takes time, and since mmos have a longer development times than normal games, it will take a bit longer.

-Jive

What a fantastic post.  Usually the MMORPG.com boards give me a headache but this OP was excellent.  Great job, man.  You summed up the feelings of a huge chunk of the MMORPGer population.

I first got into MMOs with Anarchy Online and it was okay.  Then I moved over to SWG and was in love.  Until the CU that is.  Ever since that day in April of 2005 I haven't been happy, content, or even really interested in a single MMO I've come across.

Terrible shame that such shit products sell so well.  I don't think you can blame developers though.  It's the consumer that pays their bills and determines what is or isn't successful. 

So far consumers have liked some pretty terrible MMORPGs.

I agree. I don't even have time to play MMOs all that often so I'm usually behind the curve in terms of character development but even then I can live with pvp, open worlds, and harsher death penalties. Full looting is even fine when you take away green, blue, purple, etc colored items and replace them with very mundane weaponry.

Good luck with UO. I tried it out once before and as great as even the classic version is I just can't get into it. I need something new. Something where I don't feel like a zombie grinding my life away.

Can I just say a quick word here about game sales.  I think companies have a distinct advantage when it comes to the sales of their games because, unless you've beta tested it, most people have little or no clue about how it's going to play.  And since everyone is looking for a great game to fill the void of the last game they left, they are willing to give it a try whether it's good or not.

That was the case with in every game I've played since EQ.  I played EQ for 2 years and finally got bored with it.  I immediately began to look forward to the next great MMO.  Since that was my first, I figured they would continue to improve.  They would keep adding more content, more options and the graphics would just keep getting better.  Well the graphics did get better, but that was about the only thing that improved.

At the time I quit playing EQ, EQ II was well in development.  Most single player games I played got better with each version.  It was only natural to assume that MMOs would be the same way.  2 would be better than 1.  Boy was I wrong about that.  So I gave up on EQ II and was so let down that I didn't even bother with WoW.

As a result, the void never got filled.  I waited for the next game and was disappointed by that one.  And then the next game and that was disappointing as well.  By the time AoC came out, I had very low expectations for that game, but since there was nothing else on the horizen, decided to give it a try.  Sure enough, it turned out to be poor.

So if there are a lot of people out there like me who are hungry for a game that gives them exactly what they want, companies are going to continue to get decent sales numbers upon the release of their games.  It's how long those numbers last that will better tell how good it is.

WoW?  I can't explain why WoW's numbers are so high and stay that way other than it being the first MMO for so many people.  And being the first, that is their impression of what MMOs are supposed to be like and so are not as disappointed as those of us who have more experience with them.  Also, in fairness to Blizzard, it did do some things extremely well, like make a relatively bug free game and also make a game that doesn't require high specs.  So that probably compensates for the mediocre gameplay.

Boy, I thought this was going to be a quick word.  Guess I was wrong there.

Originally posted by Zindaihas

Can I just say a quick word here about game sales.  I think companies have a distinct advantage when it comes to the sales of their games because, unless you've beta tested it, most people have little or no clue about how it's going to play.  And since everyone is looking for a great game to fill the void of the last game they left, they are willing to give it a try whether it's good or not.

That was the case with in every game I've played since EQ.  I played EQ for 2 years and finally got bored with it.  I immediately began to look forward to the next great MMO.  Since that was my first, I figured they would continue to improve.  They would keep adding more content, more options and the graphics would just keep getting better.  Well the graphics did get better, but that was about the only thing that improved.

At the time I quit playing EQ, EQ II was well in development.  Most single player games I played got better with each version.  It was only natural to assume that MMOs would be the same way.  2 would be better than 1.  Boy was I wrong about that.  So I gave up on EQ II and was so let down that I didn't even bother with WoW.

As a result, the void never got filled.  I waited for the next game and was disappointed by that one.  And then the next game and that was disappointing as well.  By the time AoC came out, I had very low expectations for that game, but since there was nothing else on the horizen, decided to give it a try.  Sure enough, it turned out to be poor.

So if there are a lot of people out there like me who are hungry for a game that gives them exactly what they want, companies are going to continue to get decent sales numbers upon the release of their games.  It's how long those numbers last that will better tell how good it is.

WoW?  I can't explain why WoW's numbers are so high and stay that way other than it being the first MMO for so many people.  And being the first, that is their impression of what MMOs are supposed to be like and so are not as disappointed as those of us who have more experience with them.  Also, in fairness to Blizzard, it did do some things extremely well, like make a relatively bug free game and also make a game that doesn't require high specs.  So that probably compensates for the mediocre gameplay.

Boy, I thought this was going to be a quick word.  Guess I was wrong there.

  I can help you understand this a bit better.  EVERY MMO offers mediocre gameplay.  To try and metaphor this....

  If all restaurants cooked the same dish, you'd choose the one with the shortest drive and best seats.  WoW is just that, the easiest MMO to get to (Low Reqs) and has the best seats (fluid UI with easily the most user-friendly functionality every produced).  Blizzard didn't change the dish, they just made everything else better.  This formula shouldn't surprise you, as its the same principle they have applied to EVERY game they make.

  The RTS games were, after all, the same dish as well...simply served in a setting that was much more appealing to its customer.  Hell, the most innovative GAMEPLAY they have actually done was with the Diablo series.  Realistically, they still didn't invent the hack n' slash.  They just, essentially, invented the fully randomized dungeon.  I'm not even completely sure about THAT.  I think some sega RPG's actually did it first...but I can't remember.

  You know what, I take that back.  The actual gameplay was still borrowed from other games.  The combat was fairly borrowed from the "legend of -" games and everything else was, basically, UI changes to make it easier and faster for the user to work with.  Blizzard have long been kings of taking the wheel already invented, and placing it effectively on a bicycle that is much easier to use than everyone else's B.C. "spoke" to ride on.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Aside from the love of full-on, full loot, FFA PvP; I agree with what the OP said.

I personally think that pre-Trammel style PvP is not necessary for a sandbox.  In fact, I think it is the #1 reason why nobody seems to want to touch sandbox.  It's hard to justify why new players two weeks out of the box need to get ganked, robbed, and /defecated on for sandbox to work.  I do, however, think that PvP these days doesn't give PvP players what they want.

I always liked the pre-CU SWG way of handling PvP: you could go around as a card-carrying member of a faction for full PvP, or you could go "incognito," and be safe as long as you don't blow your cover by shooting at members and NPCs of the opposite faction.  It made sense in a Star Wars universe to do it that way.  It might make less sense in a fantasy MMO (hard to play a "covert ork" when your skin is green).

This is why I'd love to see more MMOs designed to accomodate different rule sets.  Why not have a PvE server and a Faction vs Faction PvP server and a FFA server?  A sandbox style MMO with all of these servers would make many of us happy...