Waypoints: Saying No to MMOs

[Ayjona]

Thanks for that. I'll check it out! I'll have to carefully consider this though, because I'm no longer a MMOron (Har har. Funnyz!)

Hmm, I feel a bit bad now, encouraging other to play MMOs. If I wanted to strive towards a better world, I should be doing exactly the opposite

But yeah, you might actually like this game. I know I do, and I share your feeling on MMOs. Better warn you that the game is developed by only three fellas, the graphics are not overly advanced (but in no way bad or ugly), there is MUCH that still needs to be done in the game (the main dev posts frequently and shares his vision and goals, and he also listens closely to the community, mainly because it is so small that we can speak to him directly every time we log in ), and that the game might feel a bit sparsely populated at times.

But in spite of all this, I'm recommending it. Says something for the quality of the freedom and combat mechanics it offers. Bleh, I hate being a fanboy...

 

[Mariena]

I've already made my first post on their forums.. I'm just wondering how the PvP / PvE is. I don't like PvP; I love PvE. I hope there will be enough for me to do and not too much being ganked.

 

[BoredKellon]

www.vendetta-online.com

Great example of good gameplay in an mmo, unfortunately it's not near the "world" that something like EVE is. Now imagine if EVE played like vendetta, that'd be a game.

You either like MMOs or you dont! I know a Halo player would not like to hear my opinion about their old and milked series.

I have to completely disagree. I personally HATE most mmo's, but I love mmo's. The mmo clasification (since it's not really a genre) is quite varied and although most that same standard format and gameplay there are quite a few unique ones out there. For pretty well any kind of player there is an mmo somewhere that suits them, a lot of people will just never find them.

 

[kyrieee]

MMOs are such a waste of time.
They are designed to be a waste of time.
You don't need to do anything (except invest time) to get a sense of accomplishment. It's so fake, and when you decide to do better things with your time you'll find that real accomplishments are much more meaningful.

Now you might make the social interaction argument, but come on. What's the time to social interaction quota in an MMO compared to meeting people in real life? It's ridiculous. Friendships over the internet aren't comparable to real life friendships 99.99% of the time.

I've enjoyed playing MMOs, but I make myself not play them. People playing them makes me sad (I don't think the players are sad, the thought of people wasting their time to such an insane degree is)

 

[PirateRose]

I know it's not confirmed yet, but with the strong rumors of Knights of the Old Republic 3 being a MMOG instead of a RPG really frustrates me.

LucasArts can't just close the story of the series with a third game, they've gotta try to cash in on the MMO hype somehow since Star Wars Galaxies isn't working.

 

[slyder35]

I'll be very interested to see if the 3 upcoming CONSOLE MMO's - The Agency, DC Universe Online and Champions Online (think that's what it's called) - hold some ground/virtues against their PC brethren. You'd think the interface would be less intrusive at the very least.

 

[Vortigar]

I'm not a fan of MMO's but I've never looked at it like that. The buttonbar/minimap/lifebar/whatever always seemed pretty normal to me for an rpg. Take something like Final Fantasy for example... Or an RTS with their 1/3 of the screen gone.

Hellgate London was an awesome experiment and I can't help but applaud Flagship for its guts in trying something like this. I hope to see a follow-up in that direction sometime as I think it could definately work. There's a lot of groundwork that should be completely overhauled though, just a little bit closer to the shooter side in some aspects and just a little bit closer to an rpg in others, more actual in-game maneauvers that affect the way you play. Like being able to take cover being a skill, using grenades, dropping off the radar, stuff that affects gameplay like CoD4's skills only expanded into a level system. It should work, but how do you spread a levelling arc on this for a 100+ hour experience? RSV2's way? They're creeping awfully close together.

slyder35:
I've been picking up bits and pieces of news about the Agency since forever. Too bad its looking at a subscription payment model. I ff-in hate those things, they are my main reason for not playing MMO's.

 

[sheomad]

In an MMO I only want is more complex lving system. for example lvs 1-5 in a town that gives quest till your lv 5 then u get a quest to go to ANOTHER town. 5-10 etc etc

 

[Lemony]

MMOs offer a way for people to take on another personality within a world that is different from our own. In these worlds people can do stuff they never could do in real life like cast spells or ride wolves. Make weapons and stuff out of **** in their bags and not have to go to bed. *Note: I'm not mentioning those crazy bastards who go to an extreme level of video game addiction*
Other than that, games like WoW provide a game that ANYONE could get into within a few minutes. FPS and RTS game require hours of play to get the hang of how it runs and then another few hours to get decent at playing.
People also like in MMO's that you get something for doing anything. In reallife you finished a very long work report. What do you get? Zilch most of the time and no "Good job". In MMO's you go kill a dog and what do you get? Experience. Do a job that is so easy a blind person could do it and what do you get? Money and items. People LIKE rewards for doing things and MMOs give that out like candy.

 

[dochmbi]

You want a challenge instead of a boring grind? Try aoe grinding in WoW with a mage. It's much faster than any other form of leveling and it takes lots of skill.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Frost_AoE_grinding

 

[nezroy]

I like to be in control. Playing a MMORPG does not feel like I'm in control. I am, in a way, but I'm not aiming, I'm not powering up, I'm not doing anything.. other than selecting a creature, then tapping a button. The rest is done automatically. I want to choose how to hold my weapon, my posture. I want to swing it where I want it to swing. I want to choose how much power I'm going to put into it.

It sounds like a lot of what you don't like about MMORPGs is simply the RPG part, as you've just described the play mechanic for most single-player RPGs as well. Certainly there are a few RPGs that have taken a more interactive approach, such as Oblivion. But for a classic RPG like Neverwinter Nights, there is little more to the game than "selecting a creature and tapping a button". You choose the target, pick a skill/spell/talent to activate, and wait for the results. The enjoyment of the game is identifying with your character, finishing quests (ideally with multiple story paths), following the (usually well written) main plot line, and immersing yourself in the artwork of the environment and the back-story of secondary quests.

One of the biggest benefits of the RPG game-play mechanic is that, frankly, you don't have to be very "good" as a gamer, by most definitions of that term. Regardless, the MMORPG genre is likely never going to go away and probably not going to change much... these mechanics are specifically attractive to the same people that like single-player RPGs, which is a long-standing genre that won't be going away any time soon either.

While several MMOs have attempted to break out of the RPG mould, there are simply a lot of technical and accessibility challenges with that. Unfortunately, none of the MMO{insert non-RPG genre here} games that I've seen have not really hit the mark yet. Interestingly, some of the best MMO games from other genres don't bill themselves as MMOGs at all, but still provide persistent universes with persistent character development. A game like "Battlefield 2142", for instance, meets many criteria of what you might otherwise call an MMOFPS.

 

[Smokescreen]

Not to belabor a point, but kyrieee, Frybird and BigBoote66 seem to capture the essence here.

There are different kinds of games because there are different kinds of people. I don't play MMO's for a lot of reasons, (bad habit, level grinding, trying to deal with assholes online) but mostly those games just aren't fun for me. They don't look like fun, the experience that people describe to me doesn't sound like fun, and so I don't get involved with it.