General Discussion

I am frankly sick to death of today's MMO's. They all offer the same World of Warcraft experience. Nothing more to them then mindless combat and rep / quest grinding. And whats really sad is I dont see anything changing anytime soon.

The latest MMO's in develpment all seem to focus on this formula. And its clear why, the thousand pound gorilla in the room - WoW - has all the attention.

Ive tried WoW many times and I always cancel. No offense to those playing, but I feel too smart for it.  I can see the other player - mice running around in the maze box looking for cheese. I watch them find the cheese only to see Blizz put a bigger piece of cheese somewhere else in the maze. And all the players start again.

Do these players actually enjoy running around on that silly new island Blizz added grinding more rep ? Whats the point of all that ? So they can get that necklace which will lead to more grinding ? Dont they recall the same awful grind in silithus and argent dawn that was pointless ?

Ive asked them in-game and surprisingly they do like it. Thats just strange to me, enjoying mindless repeating quests over and over for a necklace and some gold.

Then we gets devs who make games like Second Life which is the total opposite.

Cant we get a happy medium ? Cant we own a tavern and kill some stuff in between beers ? Where is the choices anymore ?

Dam I miss Star Wars Galaxies. Im tired of settling for dumbed down games like wow

You seem to have forgotten: A Tale in the Desert, The Saga of Ryzom (or whatever it's called these days), EVE Online, Roma Victor,  Face of Mankind I guess, Rise & I suppose Vendetta Online to an extent.

lol boring.

I second the mention of Ryzom. Currently, while the new owner is stress testing the servers and getting whatever set up in the background, even old unsubscribed accounts and trial accounts can be on the mainland for free. Mainland = very optional and non-pretentious missions, Silan (starting island) = quests for the sake of tutorial.

WoW grind isn't so bad, simply because the game has awesome content and lots of it, and the world itself feels like a real world with breathtaking scenery and a wonderful atmosphere, which most games don't have.  I could grind all day in that game and never get bored.

MMO's will always tend to be dumbed down, they have to meet the approval of the masses.   That in fact is much of the attraction to an MMO.    You can log in, turn your brain off, and just grind away.    It leads to the addictive nature of the MMO.

For more challenge, you really need to play a different genre of game.   When challenge is added to an MMO, the players revolt and demand nerfs.  

what has been said a few times already is sadly true. masses don't like challenge, masses don't like more than a handful of choices. if you try any of that as a developer you can say goodbye to a lot of possible customers. for some reason those ppl are happy to first pay 50 bucks for a game and then another monthly toll for a simple grinding experience with extremely linear gameplay. it's quite amazing really, i know i would want more than a ridiculous small added content if i'd pay enough to alternatively buy a new game about every three months.

Simple answer is NO, bottom line will always be money that can be made.

www.ryzom.com

Originally posted by admriker4

I am frankly sick to death of today's MMO's. They all offer the same World of Warcraft experience. Nothing more to them then mindless combat and rep / quest grinding. And whats really sad is I dont see anything changing anytime soon.

The latest MMO's in develpment all seem to focus on this formula. And its clear why, the thousand pound gorilla in the room - WoW - has all the attention.

Ive tried WoW many times and I always cancel. No offense to those playing, but I feel too smart for it.  I can see the other player - mice running around in the maze box looking for cheese. I watch them find the cheese only to see Blizz put a bigger piece of cheese somewhere else in the maze. And all the players start again.

Do these players actually enjoy running around on that silly new island Blizz added grinding more rep ? Whats the point of all that ? So they can get that necklace which will lead to more grinding ? Dont they recall the same awful grind in silithus and argent dawn that was pointless ?

Ive asked them in-game and surprisingly they do like it. Thats just strange to me, enjoying mindless repeating quests over and over for a necklace and some gold.

Then we gets devs who make games like Second Life which is the total opposite.

Cant we get a happy medium ? Cant we own a tavern and kill some stuff in between beers ? Where is the choices anymore ?

Dam I miss Star Wars Galaxies. Im tired of settling for dumbed down games like wow

How else do you propose to keep the players playing & paying?

As Players we should all have a idea of whats driving the Grind. If you don't its fairly simple: to keep players playing & paying at the least expensive means possible to the developer. To keep players playing & paying requires perpetual game mechanics - game mechanics that can be played/replayed  forever.  Pratically any game mechanic can be replayed forever. The problem is that Humans get bored. To counter boredom, developers add new content. Adding new content is expensive, so devs slow down the access to new content to keep players playing & paying with the old stuff for as long as possible. A simple way to manage this is to provide a system of leveling to manage progression through their content.