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The Elder Scrolls Online announcement spawned this mild rant.
I have to say that I've fallen out of touch with the video game community nowadays, but I have to ask if I am the only one tired of MMOs?
I purchased SWTOR, because I loved KOTOR and KOTOR 2. I stopped SWTOR, because I found while playing that though that I didn't like having other people in the world.
The reason I find immersion to be difficult is because tons of players are just running about. The equivalent would be the dialogue and actions of strangers being inserted into a story I'm reading.
I treat my RPGs like books, they are both something I enjoy doing to relax veg out.
When I want to play games with friends I usually bring out the dice, but that's just me.
Thoughts?
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Absolutely. To quote Dr Who You Are Not Alone.
My other issue with MMO's is that they are utter time sinks. Tired of Taris in KOTOR? You only have to wait a few hours of gameplay to get out of there. Tired of Corellia in KOTOR? Tough. You will spend another ten hours there. Why? Because it earns the publisher money.
TOR was fun for a while. WOW I played for a couple of years. But eventually it becomes about high level raids which become a chore. It's a case of replaying the same raid over and over and over. How is that fun?
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the core of mmo's has been reduced to repetition. there's no finite point of success, because the business model depends on setting higher goals. The people who are 'the best' at it are snobbish and secular, at best, being unwilling to drop back down and assist or teach (you run with me, you have to be this high).
That and constantly being confronted by the worst of humanity, usually in the form of a 10-18 year old male spewing hate at anyone because they will never be held accountable for what they're doing. They're willing to say anything, do anything, just to grab that miniscule attention (albeit its because of the greater forced anonymity of the internet) and the knowledge that these little pissants are likely 1/4 of my education, and don't have 1/10 of my life experience.
I can ignore the constant general chat dickery for only so long, usually the point where the storylines "end" in a game, then I'm out. there's no point after that, because competing with little teddy for tier 14 gear is the definition of insanity.
Don't feel bad or lost because your preferences have matured. It may just be that the mmo environment is key to a certain age group, and you finally are searching for validation in the 'real world'.
I say bravo. welcome to being a real adult.
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The problem with SWTOR is that it's one of the most linear MMOs ever made. Yes, there are a few differences between the class quests, but the game had almost NO replay value because 90% of it was exactly the same. Combine that with the same kind of raiding found in most MMOs, and you have a recipe for disaster that very few saw coming.
Now, that's not to say SWTOR is a bad game. The storylines are enjoyable, the dialogue system is nice, the game plays smoothly, and the end raids are, admittedly, pretty darn cool. The problem is that you don't WANT to grind in SWTOR, you want to explore the galaxy, and the game gives you no incentive to do so, and forces you to stay for long periods of time on planets you may not even like (I'm looking at you, Hoth).
That said, I think it's a problem in the MMO industry, but I also think that games like Guild Wars 2 and TERA are looking to help change by creating environments that are not only fun, but rewarding exploration as well as keeping all existing content challenging across all level, allowing the player to decide what they want to do, and rewarding them for it.
It's true, lately it seems like the MMO industry has been lacking, but it also seems to be on the cusp of some amazing opportunities that will (hopefully) change it for the better.
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The Elder Scrolls Online announcement spawned this mild rant.
I have to say that I've fallen out of touch with the video game community nowadays, but I have to ask if I am the only one tired of MMOs?
I purchased SWTOR, because I loved KOTOR and KOTOR 2. I stopped SWTOR, because I found while playing that though that I didn't like having other people in the world.
The reason I find immersion to be difficult is because tons of players are just running about. The equivalent would be the dialogue and actions of strangers being inserted into a story I'm reading.
I treat my RPGs like books, they are both something I enjoy doing to relax veg out.
When I want to play games with friends I usually bring out the dice, but that's just me.
Thoughts?
100% agreement
I'll also add that I've never given MMOs more than a few minutes of my time before dropping that garbage like a rabid squirrel. Video games are a private experience for me and I cannot wrap my head around the appeal of dealing with real people in a medium that's supposed to be all about escapism.
While I don't argue against MMOs being developed, the Elder Scrolls MMO news made my heart sink. The main franchise might not suffer too much, but it will suffer some; we all know it. It seems everything I like is invaded by corporate interests determined to butcher gameplay in favor of marketing it to non-fans. This approach to game development has got to stop.
I'll stop here before the rant slips free and spills the coffee.
I agree, but for different reasons.
MMO's are about social interaction. The problem with SWTOR IMO, is that there isn't much need for me to interact with a lot of people for 90% of the game. It felt like they took a single-player game, but made everyone play at the same time and together.
I raided hardcore WoW for about 5 years (last few months of vanilla up to the introduction of firelands). I had a paid account every day for 6 years and 10 months. I did a few raid bosses in SWTOR, recently reactivated my WoW account to compare, WoW is better. Also, I'm now playing both on and off and WoW just feels that much more polished as a game. I know Blizzard had more time, but it feels like Bioware could have learned a few more lessons earlier on.
I'm very interested to see what happens with the Pathfinder MMO. I think the developer's blog post about the problems of developing a WoW-like game is very illuminating as to why new games like SWTOR seem all exciting and new at first, but the shine quickly wears off. There's content to plow through, but once you've seen all the sights and killed everything, there's nothing to do. You can do it over again, but you can't actually build anything or make anything happen in the world.
That said, if I could pay $5/month and only have access to play huttball, I would reactivate my account.
Also, Planetside 2 is in development right now. I expect it to break my heart, but the thought of hotdropping out of Galaxy to assault a tower from the roof gives me a woody.
Hell, I think if companies just allowed for their games to be sold as RPGs they would be okay. Some people really enjoy MMOs. The only MMO I ever really got into was City of Heroes, and a lot of that was spawned by the character creator they released. I did a Super Group once and it just sucked so much time.
I can't say that I've ever been a fan of MMOs. They definitely have a market, but the idea that every game with a cult following needs an MMO is a bit ridiculous. I'm just waiting for the day when the decide Devil May Cry and Frogger are in need of being turned into an MMO.
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The guy who really gets left behind is me. Is it so much to ask for an RPG to have multi-player but not be an MMO? I have a few friends who wont play MMOs anymore even though we loved gaming together in the past. I broke down and bought a PS3 so we could do some online gaming like the old days. There is nothing out there for us. Every single game is either MMO or single player.
I was really excited when Mass Effect 3 announced multi-player only to be let down by it being some co-op battle arena. Dont get me wrong I appreciate the efforts but I want to run around Skyrim or fly in the Normandy with just a few of my friends.
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The guy who really gets left behind is me. Is it so much to ask for an RPG to have multi-player but not be an MMO? I have a few friends who wont play MMOs anymore even though we loved gaming together in the past. I broke down and bought a PS3 so we could do some online gaming like the old days. There is nothing out there for us. Every single game is either MMO or single player.
I was really excited when Mass Effect 3 announced multi-player only to be let down by it being some co-op battle arena. Dont get me wrong I appreciate the efforts but I want to run around Skyrim or fly in the Normandy with just a few of my friends.
This came up in another thread, maybe two months ago. I used to love getting a group of people together, two tv's and duking out some HALO. Or buying a couch co-op game and taking turns (4 of us played through both X-men games taking turns on levels/deaths).
When game developers started to shift to the online co-op, we did that for a while, but it slowly fell apart. Partly because people have busier lives these days, kids and what not, but it just wasn't as engrossing being in separate rooms.
That thread made me realize that board games are now the form of entertainment that I like sharing with my friends. There are all sorts of cool board games, from RPG-like ones, to cooperative games, to short funny ones, to long strategic battles, etc. There are games built for 2 people, games built for 6, or whatever number you have. They usually cost about the same as one copy of a video game, though sometimes less as well.
You don't get the visuals from video games, but IMO, board games are the way to go for a socially good time that doesn't require the prep or intensity of table-top RPG's.
Yes, you are the only person who is tired of MMORPGs. No one else has ever expressed that sentiment before, especially not on the internet.
That and constantly being confronted by the worst of humanity, usually in the form of a 10-18 year old male spewing hate at anyone because they will never be held accountable for what they're doing. They're willing to say anything, do anything, just to grab that miniscule attention (albeit its because of the greater forced anonymity of the internet) and the knowledge that these little pissants are likely 1/4 of my education, and don't have 1/10 of my life experience.
I can ignore the constant general chat dickery for only so long, usually the point where the storylines "end" in a game, then I'm out. there's no point after that, because competing with little teddy for tier 14 gear is the definition of insanity.
This is known as GIFT or Greater Internet F***wad Theory.
This states that Normal Person + Annonymity + Audience = Total f***wad.This doesn't happen just in MMOs. It happens all over the internet, and age isn't necessarily a factor.
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I was never fan of MMOs in general. If I could play single player version of World Of Warcraft, Lord Of The Rings, Runes Of Magic or The Old Republic I would gladly do it without bothering for other players. It's a shame that so many good single player ideas are wasted on MMOs.
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This came up in another thread, maybe two months ago. I used to love getting a group of people together, two tv's and duking out some HALO. Or buying a couch co-op game and taking turns (4 of us played through both X-men games taking turns on levels/deaths).
When game developers started to shift to the online co-op, we did that for a while, but it slowly fell apart. Partly because people have busier lives these days, kids and what not, but it just wasn't as engrossing being in separate rooms.
That thread made me realize that board games are now the form of entertainment that I like sharing with my friends. There are all sorts of cool board games, from RPG-like ones, to cooperative games, to short funny ones, to long strategic battles, etc. There are games built for 2 people, games built for 6, or whatever number you have. They usually cost about the same as one copy of a video game, though sometimes less as well.
You don't get the visuals from video games, but IMO, board games are the way to go for a socially good time that doesn't require the prep or intensity of table-top RPG's.
Well I do have a TT group and a board game group already. What I don't have is online gaming option for my friends who live 100+ miles away. I want to rock out on a Sunday night with my high school/college friends and a console with a headset/bluetooth allowing us to chat. We are busy guys now and dont have the time to put into an MMO. I wish developers wold take us into consideration while we may lack time we don't lack money.
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The guy who really gets left behind is me. Is it so much to ask for an RPG to have multi-player but not be an MMO? I have a few friends who wont play MMOs anymore even though we loved gaming together in the past. I broke down and bought a PS3 so we could do some online gaming like the old days. There is nothing out there for us. Every single game is either MMO or single player.
I was really excited when Mass Effect 3 announced multi-player only to be let down by it being some co-op battle arena. Dont get me wrong I appreciate the efforts but I want to run around Skyrim or fly in the Normandy with just a few of my friends.
Yea, you know Neverwinter Nights had servers of up to 60 people. I heard nothing but praise from the guy telling me about it. No one wanted to do or say assinine things because they were up front invested in the effort of making the RP efforts. Community message boards clinched the deal, by being able to post players with bad reps from a server. If you wanted to be a douchebag, you had to restart an entire account, not just move your character.
*not firsthand experience*
I had hoped they would have followed the same for NWN2, but sadly no.
This is known as GIFT or Greater Internet F***wad Theory.
This states that Normal Person + Annonymity + Audience = Total f***wad.
This doesn't happen just in MMOs. It happens all over the internet, and age isn't necessarily a factor.
absolutely agreed on that point. I unfortunately have come to butt heads with one of my friends because his main hobby, it seems, is to jack with other people on message boards. I've been through it with him because he trolls everyone equally.
I, as a person who has a hard enough time interacting with humans in general, take any and all conversations I have seriously. I expect you to have a legitimate point to argue, and some actual knowledge of what you are arguing.It's come to the point where I have to remind myself to never engage him in conversation that isn't face to face, and in the company of other people. Unfortunately, I've been the recipient of the GIFT 90% of the time on mmo's because That's where the bulk of my chat viewing was done, that is, until recently, where I've forced myself to start posting on message boards related to my comic and my hobby.
The only MMO I've ever played for an extensive period of time was EVE ONLINE, so I'm certainly not 'tired of MMOs' in the sense of being tired of playing them.
Tired of seeing lots of news and posts about them? Sort of, although it's not hard to ignore them when they come up. My main objection to MMOs mainly comes down to a lack of fulfilling the potential. EVE ONLINE I enjoyed because the playerbase decided the economy of the game and their actions gave direction to the metaplots and storylines. Most other MMOs have a much more artificial feeling, where it feels like the players are jumping through arbritary hoops set out by the designers. That can be fun, but it also feels like it's not really engaging with the possibilities inherent in a game where thousands of players are present.
The only area where I really object to MMOs is if their presence cancels out the expansion of the franchise into further single-player games. THE OLD REPUBLIC effectively prevents KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC III being made, so that's annoying. WORLD OF WARCRAFT prevents WARCRAFT IV from existing (at least, for now; I suspect that a WC4 could be produced to bridge WoW and any potential sequel it generates), so that's disappointing as well.
ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE I have no objection to, however, because it does not prevent an ELDER SCROLLS VI from being made 5-6 years down the line (since it's a prequel and nothing in the game or story will impact on the present-day ES universe). It does look a shame that the game appears to be an uninventive WoW clone slapped into Tamriel, but that's going back to the lack of innovation in the field rather than the MMO genre being worthless in the first place.
Removed a post. Please keep it civil, thanks!
I lost interest when MMO's became 'too easy'.
After starting with the toughest of all, EQ, everything else was just a slow descent into lowest common denominator gameplay. MMO's went mainstream, and with it the developers dash-for-cash soon followed - make the games easier for 'accesibility' and the widest possible audience.
The F2P model has been quite interesting, but if you had a great product we'd be happy to pay for it, sadly they stopped making great product a while back.
So I'd love to see the return of a good MMO, but I never expected the likes of the new Star Wars to deliver (they already had one go, remember...)
I've been playing the MMOs since City of Heroes and I'm still playing WoW to this day since it's release. I've tried others such as Rifts, SWTOR, etc. but have always come back to WoW though it's not because of the addiction anymore.
The reason I'm still playing is the friends I have made in the MMOs. We are casual now (as opposed to vanilla WoW), and we pretty much hang out in our private Vent server and chat all night long while we play. I have a main toon in a pretty good raid guild for the times I feel like raiding and I park every other toon in my friends guild.
My guildies and I have gone on to play other games together (co-op, MMO, etc) like Borderlands, StarCraft, Red Alert, etc.
About the "Barrens Chat", or "Trade Chat Syndrome".... I find it easy to ignore general chat without using the ignore list feature. Between vent chat and what we are doing with Raids, questing, Dungeons, I have a hard enough time even noticing trade/general/raid chat let alone reading it.
Tired of MMOs? Kind of. It is a timesink, I hate farming or Grinding levels but I love the social aspect of it all with the right people.
My advice is find the right people and keep busy with the fun parts of the game. Ignore the things about it that get you upset or quit if you can't deal with this genre of game anymore. Idiots will be idiots, and MMOs will always be full of them.
Side note- My pals and I are looking to try Guild Wars 2 (looks interesting), but if "teh shiny" wears off, we will wind up back in WoW until the next thing to try comes along. It happened to us with Rifts then SWTOR....
/sigh
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I don't like MMOs. Always been disappointed; the ones I liked best was Conan and what's the name that was inspired by Elmore.
The problem for me is always the same : after the first few level where you learn to play, you have to endure Timmy and his pals because you are forced to group in front of absurd difficulty just to bash stupid monsters with sub-par loot.
The first 30 levels of Conan were great ... after that meh then Bleaargh !
I won't even mention the other MMOs I tried.
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The Elder Scrolls Online announcement spawned this mild rant.
I have to say that I've fallen out of touch with the video game community nowadays, but I have to ask if I am the only one tired of MMOs?
I purchased SWTOR, because I loved KOTOR and KOTOR 2. I stopped SWTOR, because I found while playing that though that I didn't like having other people in the world.
The reason I find immersion to be difficult is because tons of players are just running about. The equivalent would be the dialogue and actions of strangers being inserted into a story I'm reading.
I treat my RPGs like books, they are both something I enjoy doing to relax veg out.
When I want to play games with friends I usually bring out the dice, but that's just me.
Thoughts?
My friends and I are still having fun in The Old Republic but I do understand your point. Games are meant to be fun, if games are not fun you need to do something else. I got really tired of the drama from the population of WoW. Everything was about gear and maximizing dps. Playing WoW became more like a job than fun. Eve felt the same way.
I am now mostly a very casual player. I rarely group outside of real life friends and a couple of their guildies. Still, playing with my friends in The Old Republic or Mass Effect 3 coop is quite fun. So I catch up with them on the weekends quite a bit.
This may be a necrobump but...
Anyone played FFXI?
Personally when I get on I have no idea what to do. I wind up standing in one spot for hours. I do nothing more than something. I have called this game the "log on and wait game". And my question is.. Is all that waiting fun? Am I getting bored of this MMO? Sometimes I used to do stuff that was fun but now there's just WKR and that's it for me. A lot of things that I want to do which is delve is usually too hard. I suck and I can't cure as white mage and the linkshell group I do the event with usually doesn't need me unless I can go whm or brd and I don't like going as either. Half the time I feel as though the gameplay is very repititive. So I should ask... Why am I playing when a game makes me feel this way?
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I wonder why MMOs want you to log in and grind for hours replaying dull content? It makes no sense, they don't earn any more from keeping people grinding instead of giving them what they want instead... right? Why not hire story writers and have an evolving setting with a constant supply of fresh adventures or challenging multiplayer PvP or PvE? Isn't that what people want? It is no wonder so many MMOs fail.
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I wonder why MMOs want you to log in and grind for hours replaying dull content? It makes no sense, they don't earn any more from keeping people grinding instead of giving them what they want instead... right? Why not hire story writers and have an evolving setting with a constant supply of fresh adventures or challenging multiplayer PvP or PvE? Isn't that what people want? It is no wonder so many MMOs fail.
I think this is why the MMO market is free to play these days. I miss subs to be honest I cant stand the grinding and the shops for every damn thing. Probably for the best I dont need to throw away my time anymore on these sinks.
It has nothing to do with free to play. Look at World of Warcraft. Most of it is grinding and has always been, even before you could play up to level 20 for free (which is about the time it took for me to get utterly sick of it)
MMOs don't fail because of being a grind either, WOW still thrives. And that's why most of the others really fail, they try to give players something they already have plenty of. With other types of games this business model might work, because when you have a game that ends at some point players might want more of the same and look for similar games to fill the need. With an MMO there is always more, so the average WOW player will not need a different game.
If it isn't already obvious: I am also quite disenfranchised with MMORPGs, and the constant grinding is only a small part of it. I can also empathize with the OP's issue, that other people just running and jumping around doesn't exactly help the immersion, and then there is the fct that most MMOs are not really RPGs. As in ROLEPLAYING games. You just run around and do inconsequential quests and level up. No actual interaction with NPCs or even choice. There are a few select exceptions but often enough the instances where you get to make a decision of your own, other than "do I do the quest at all, or leave it be and skip the XP too" are few and far between.
The difference between a roleplaying game and a game with classes and levelling is a whole other rant i don't want to get into right now.
My third gripe is that even if you remove the other players and were to play entirely on your own server, many MMO worlds are still not very immersive. NPCs just stand around in one spot never interacting with anything except maybe the one or two things they are scripted to be constantly interacting with and monsters just wander back and forth unmotivatedly and completely without context waiting for someone to come by and kill them only to return thirty seconds later out of thin air.
Also what's up with the HUGE environments? I dont mean the massive gaming world, i mean the physics defyingly large trees and buildings that consist exclusively of large halls with wide open entry gates. Makes you feel like you are part of a society of gnomes living in the former homes of giants. Okay the buildings are probably this big because they often need to let a lot of players in to do their merchant/crafter runs, but why is everything else so oversized? Also a immersionbreaker for me.
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Well threeshades I can only speak for myself and say that free to play has soured my experienced on a few MMOs. There had been quite a change in philosophy in both how the devs developed the game and how the players themselves see the game when it came to DDO. Mechwarrior online had a point system that required you to buy more and more or grind and it wore me out after only a couple months. Part of that was slow content release. I dont know much of anything about WoW so I cant comment on it other than a free trial wasn't enough to hook me, in fact it sent me packing.
Eve was great I played it for years. The game was developed around the players interacting with one another so you didn't need NPCs to be immersive. I liked the huge marketplace social aspect of Eve I dont want MMOs to be single player servers. After awhile I just tried of it as I probably would of just about any game. Though I typically think of Eve as one of the examples in which I compare a new MMO I wish to play.
I think the grind is pretty much a necessary evil. The developers have to find a way to get people to keep coming back. That usually means loot and crafting supplies or even quest advancing mcguffins so people have a need to repeat content. I think the right path is making sure you have a diverse package of activities and release content on a regular basis. I think the cost of that development is just too much to make that a reality.
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Yeah, you see, that is the part of multiplayer I despise. Why coudln't someone make a single player game like that? I would have played the heck out of it. But nooo. I have to be careful because some douche in a ship twenty times the size of mine thought it would be fun to train his nuke cannon on my tiny ship and blow me up just for kicks.
I. Hate. That.
Or people like that. The moment I find out someone ganks people in MMOs I make sure not to hang around that person.
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No need for name calling. I get it the game is not to your preference. You do need to realize its not griefing or ganking when its working as inteneded for the game. Eve isnt about you stay alone over there and Ill sty alone over here. Its supposed to be dangerous and that adds to fun for those who enjoy it.
Though its clear you can add PVP and lack of safe areas to the list of reasons people are tired of MMOs.
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I didn't call you. I called people who thought it would be fun to pulverize someone infinitely weaker than them.
I don't mind PvP when I am in a zone specifically meant for PvP, what I do mind, however, is when I am minding my own damn business and someone takes it as their personal calling to make my life living hell till I rage log out. That is not fun. And they do it because they can.
See I love PvP as long as I can control when it happens. Lack of safe areas would drive me away from a game. But PvP is a valuable tool I can use to help learn advanced strategies... I just have to accept that I will die a lot till I can master them.
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See I love PvP as long as I can control when it happens.
Same here. PvP was awesomely fun in Dark Ages of Camelot or Warhammer Online or Warcraft (and sometimes Star Wars the Old Republic, although I grew to loathe Hutball...), and I'd sign up for it all the time in those games. PvPing in DAoC with my Theurgist or Runecaster was amazingly fun, and doing keep and castle sieges (defense or offense) was very fun. City of Heroes/Villains also could be fun, but since I usually played a Controller or Mastermind, I assume it was less fun for the Scrappers and Blasters I was crowd controlling and pet-swarming. :)
Ultima Online was just tedious. Wander outside of town and there a group of casters who have on their bodies exactly one reagent to cast their biggest blast (so that if anyone killed one of them, they lost exactly nothing), waiting to nuke you out of your boots, loot all your stuff, and then send the one of them that didn't blast you into town to store everything and buy them another set of reagents, so that they can blast the next sucker to leave town.
I do agree with the notion that some games are so solo-able that it almost seems a waste to have them as MMOs. SWtOR, for instance, had some amazing storylines, but there was really no reason to group outside of world bosses or whatever (and those were strictly optional). I'm fine with that, since I prefer only grouping with my friends and family and guildmates, and not random groups, being social only on my own terms, but it does create situations where you end up meeting someone at the maximum level in the game that has not the first clue how to do anything in a group, or what abilities other classes have.
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I guess I am an outlier when it comes to MMOs. The thrill of Eve was that it was dangerous to leave high security space. You had to plan well to evade the dangers and they could come at any time. That gave the game a sense of wonder that few can match. PVP was exciting more so than any game I have played because it could happen anywhere anytime and not just when you walked into a pvp approved area. whether you were hunting miners or a guy simply looking to get paid you had to play the game and it was thrilling.
DDO when it launched had to be played as a group. Game was simply too damn difficult to solo. It was also default hard mode. A few years into its life and then came free to play and all its changes. Suddenly its no longer desirable to play with strangers so the game now has a solo mode. Curses and blindness are no longer perm but have timers. Resting areas that were one shots that served as pacing mechanics became mutli-use so people could be reckless and blast away. Hell they even added spell point potions to get around the unique system that DDO had going for it. Its a shame really.
Id love to have a game with a dangerous open world concept of Eve. Id also like a challenging PVE system that takes group work to succeed at like DDO had. These things seem to send players packing in droves so it looks like I am all out of luck.
The guy who really gets left behind is me. Is it so much to ask for an RPG to have multi-player but not be an MMO? I have a few friends who wont play MMOs anymore even though we loved gaming together in the past. I broke down and bought a PS3 so we could do some online gaming like the old days. There is nothing out there for us. Every single game is either MMO or single player.
I was really excited when Mass Effect 3 announced multi-player only to be let down by it being some co-op battle arena. Dont get me wrong I appreciate the efforts but I want to run around Skyrim or fly in the Normandy with just a few of my friends.
Yea, you know Neverwinter Nights had servers of up to 60 people. I heard nothing but praise from the guy telling me about it. No one wanted to do or say assinine things because they were up front invested in the effort of making the RP efforts. Community message boards clinched the deal, by being able to post players with bad reps from a server. If you wanted to be a douchebag, you had to restart an entire account, not just move your character.
*not firsthand experience*
I had hoped they would have followed the same for NWN2, but sadly no.
I can give firsthand account on this. I played NWN online for years - I got my copy of NWN and SOU in late 2003, got HOTU as soon as it came out, and played almost constantly through the last of my years out in Arizona, up until about 2011. The main thing that got me to stop playing was an overload of interpersonal drama and change of play style on the last server I played on; most of the people I had gotten close with over the years had moved on or quit playing by that point, so I'd lost a lot of my investment.
But awesome years they were, while they lasted. The characters, the stories, the plotlines, the roleplay, for the most part it was all amazing and fun and clinched my love of RPGs and introduced me to D&D in the first place. Yes there were problem players - always are, when you risk being among the online crowds. But with the combination of in-game DMs to keep the peace and discussion forums to bring these things to light and ask the staff to tend to them, they tended to straighten up or ship out more often than not. (Well, barring the times where you ended up with the inmates running the asylum - that and servers shutting down were the reasons for the vast majority of my relocating from community to community over those years.)
I'd love the living daylights out of another game that came along and provided what NWN had - a solid game engine that wasn't difficult to learn or use, accompanied by a user-friendly toolset that allowed you to build and host your own world. NWN2 failed badly on the user-friendly part of that. There was a Kickstarter last year for a thing called Dungeonforge that proclaimed to be aiming for a NWN-style toolset and similar gaming experience, but it didn't make its goal.
And I don't see any other game companies stepping up to release that sort of thing - likely because people making and hosting their own servers and playing freely after purchasing the game and expansions (if needed) doesn't earn them as much money as charging monthly fees for MMOs. Nature of the beast, admittedly, but I still am disappointed.
DDO when it launched had to be played as a group. Game was simply too damn difficult to solo. It was also default hard mode. A few years into its life and then came free to play and all its changes. Suddenly its no longer desirable to play with strangers so the game now has a solo mode. Curses and blindness are no longer perm but have timers. Resting areas that were one shots that served as pacing mechanics became mutli-use so people could be reckless and blast away. Hell they even added spell point potions to get around the unique system that DDO had going for it. Its a shame really.
When did this happen in DDO? Last time I played you HAD to be in a group. And it was nearly impossible to find a good group. Want to solo up a couple levels? Sorry we will flatly kill you dead if you DARE enter a dungeon as a solo player EVEN if you are 5 to 10 levels higher than it. That was when I quit DDO... even the guild I was in wasn't interested in helping a lower level member catch up... I just got left behind and the game kicked me to the curb hard. That and leveling got to be such a grind even with a group... play the same few dungeons over and over and over seemingly endlessly till you finally get to level. That's probably why nobody ever wanted to group with a lower player they had already played that content 50 times themselves and they were mighty sick of it.
When did this happen in DDO? Last time I played you HAD to be in a group. And it was nearly impossible to find a good group. Want to solo up a couple levels? Sorry we will flatly kill you dead if you DARE enter a dungeon as a solo player EVEN if you are 5 to 10 levels higher than it. That was when I quit DDO... even the guild I was in wasn't interested in helping a lower level member catch up... I just got left behind and the game kicked me to the curb hard. That and leveling got to be such a grind even with a group... play the same few dungeons over and over and over seemingly endlessly till you finally get to level. That's probably why nobody ever wanted to group with a lower player they had already played that content 50 times themselves and they were mighty sick of it.
From my experience, it never really went away. They changed it so you could solo through the first docks quarter, but around level 4, when you got out into the main game, it was still Team or Die.
The game probably has the best mission layout of any MMO to date, but I found it next to impossible to actually experience it when you're forced to team with players who's done it a million times before and really just want to blitz through as fast as possible.
There were a lot of elements to DDO that I really enjoyed, but I just couldn't play it at my pace. And that's a deal breaker.
(That said, the first three levels are some of the most fun I've had in an MMO.)
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I had that problem with DDO as well. I like to play at my own pace and had a different work schedule than my guildmates, so they were all level eight or so, and I was still struggling with level 2. Anytime I did get a few to group with me, they were steamrollering through stuff I couldn't touch (and barely had time to see).
Weirdly, I loved that sort of pace, in other situations (being part of an all-robotics Masterminds villains team, where we would send in two to five robot minions apiece and just watch the carnage, or being part of a fire Controller hero group that would group teleport from encounter to encounter annihilating stuff with AoE fire control effects and fire imps), but in DDO it just frustrated me.
And my guildmates, after years of EQ, etc., had hit the level cap in the first two weeks, and moved on to something else, so I was alone in a game that seemed to have no place for solo play.
So many MMOs, and almost all of them added something new that moved the field forward. DAoC had versatile class trees and combat styles (so that even melee types had buttons to mash) and PVP zones. Anarchy Online, a horribly flawed game, still introduced instanced zones, so that your missions weren't swarming with other people and the spawns / mobs you needed would always be available for you. City of Heroes had an entire game with no 'stats' and no 'loots,' and, while famous for it's costume / character designer, in which you could get lost for hours, that sort of character customization started with the ill-fated Star Wars Galaxies, perhaps the first MMO in which it could be said that the game didn't die, so much as was murdered by its designers.
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Anyone have a recommendation for a game (MMO or not) where I can reconnect with my cartoon characters?
Champions Online has a pretty distinctive 'comic-book-y' visual aesthetic, but for fantasy fare, Allods Online (a free to play European game) is pretty cartoon-y, and has some fun classes (and races).
The problem with keeping a game challenging enough to require grouping is that it must maintain a population large enough to make grouping quick. No one wants to stand around waiting for a half hour until a cleric shows up. They want to quest now. DDO has been forced to shift its focus to solo questing,because it no longer has the player base to support easy grouping. Of course, epic elite difficulty still requires the vast majority of players to group, but that simply causes the best players to segregate themselves from the more casual players...
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The problem with keeping a game challenging enough to require grouping is that it must maintain a population large enough to make grouping quick. No one wants to stand around waiting for a half hour until a cleric shows up. They want to quest now. DDO has been forced to shift its focus to solo questing,because it no longer has the player base to support easy grouping. Of course, epic elite difficulty still requires the vast majority of players to group, but that simply causes the best players to segregate themselves from the more casual players...
Yeap dems da breaks. The worst thing Turbine did was allow people to view each others accounts. The elitism and arrogance was astounding.
Anyone have a recommendation for a game (MMO or not) where I can reconnect with my cartoon characters?
You may also want to look at Wildstar. The design is somewhat cartoonish (check out the Aurin race - has a very "anime lovechild" quality) and the game has a Warcraft in Space style. There's also some overt humor in how they setup the game that adds to the cartoony effect. Stuff like the announcer voice yelling: "You leveled-up, Cupcake!", etc.
The style does cater to more of the hardcore MMO fan and raider gamers that sort of contrasts the look of the game.
When did this happen in DDO? Last time I played you HAD to be in a group. And it was nearly impossible to find a good group. Want to solo up a couple levels? Sorry we will flatly kill you dead if you DARE enter a dungeon as a solo player EVEN if you are 5 to 10 levels higher than it. That was when I quit DDO... even the guild I was in wasn't interested in helping a lower level member catch up... I just got left behind and the game kicked me to the curb hard. That and leveling got to be such a grind even with a group... play the same few dungeons over and over and over seemingly endlessly till you finally get to level. That's probably why nobody ever wanted to group with a lower player they had already played that content 50 times themselves and they were mighty sick of it.From my experience, it never really went away. They changed it so you could solo through the first docks quarter, but around level 4, when you got out into the main game, it was still Team or Die.
The game probably has the best mission layout of any MMO to date, but I found it next to impossible to actually experience it when you're forced to team with players who's done it a million times before and really just want to blitz through as fast as possible.
There were a lot of elements to DDO that I really enjoyed, but I just couldn't play it at my pace. And that's a deal breaker.
(That said, the first three levels are some of the most fun I've had in an MMO.)
This perfectly summarizes my experience with DDO.
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I got tired of MMOs after playing WoW for, like, 6 levels. I don't really care about computer games as a social activity and the gameplay of MMOs is not interesting to me. Further, I find that a computer game where your goal is to collect more stuff and level up to be very uninteresting. I just don't see the point. I need a story.
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I got tired of MMOs after playing WoW for, like, 6 levels. I don't really care about computer games as a social activity and the gameplay of MMOs is not interesting to me. Further, I find that a computer game where your goal is to collect more stuff and level up to be very uninteresting. I just don't see the point. I need a story.
Star Wars: The Old Republic has an individual storyline for each of the classes, and then further storylines for each of the companion NPCs that you travel with. A few quest lines, such as the Gree Enclave quests on Coruscant, also have a bit of story built in. It's nothing quite like a tabletop game, for story, but's miles above anything you'll see in most other MMOs.
Age of Conan had a great storyline, for the first 20 levels, and then turned into a vast empty wasteland for the next 30 levels. I ended up making five different characters up to 20-ish, but never could 'max out' one of them, as it was so boring afterwards!
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I got tired of MMOs after playing WoW for, like, 6 levels. I don't really care about computer games as a social activity and the gameplay of MMOs is not interesting to me. Further, I find that a computer game where your goal is to collect more stuff and level up to be very uninteresting. I just don't see the point. I need a story.Star Wars: The Old Republic has an individual storyline for each of the classes, and then further storylines for each of the companion NPCs that you travel with. A few quest lines, such as the Gree Enclave quests on Coruscant, also have a bit of story built in. It's nothing quite like a tabletop game, for story, but's miles above anything you'll see in most other MMOs.
Age of Conan had a great storyline, for the first 20 levels, and then turned into a vast empty wasteland for the next 30 levels. I ended up making five different characters up to 20-ish, but never could 'max out' one of them, as it was so boring afterwards!
Being a huge story fan myself, the climb from 20 to 80 in AoC was very rough at times. I really enjoyed the ending story quest at 80, but there were a lot of tedious quests in AoC along the way. My favorite was getting a kill the demon quest way down a very, very long path after just having been there to keep the priests right in front of the temple stairs leading up to him. He was like 20 feet from my position. I logged off immensely unhappy that night.
I do agree that SWToR has the best story in a MMO, but I also enjoyed the personal story & living story in GW2 as well.
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I really liked the approach to story in Eve. Instead of some grand campaign or series of modules your character acted out, Eve made you part of the world. The setting material is fantastic and its up to you how much you dive in or not. It also helps immerse in the sandbox with this understanding. I can see though if you want a grand campaign or well written module designed just for you that probably wouldnt be appealing.