MMO's, Where did it all go wrong? (long)

[Emeda]

I really don't see how grinding for endgame that take months instead of days is any better. Its still grinding, and a longer grind = more boring grind.

 

Wow made it more casual so most players can enjoy. People like the OP are elitist who only want a very small minority to enjoy the content so they can feel better over the rest of the playerbase.

 

I still remember in BC, blizzard was going on and on about the Black Temple. Had big ads in front of homepage and stuffs to proclaim Black Temple! Most of us like, whatever, we won't ever step foot in it. Its only available for the highest raid guids. Pretty dumb actually.

 

The day of endgame grinding is over, people are bored. making it longer doesn't make it better. Its time for game companies to give us a new endgame gameplay that isn't about grinding for gear.

 

You are just looking at it wrong.

 

Its not about elitist its about having something to do. Everyone should have something to do in an MMO. Be it the 1 hour a month player to the 10 hour a day player. Be it the dont know anything about the game to the perfectionist that plays at the highest level possible.

 

The problem is that they all cannot be doing the same thing and all be happy.

 

Also the biggest area where MMO's went wrong is that they now no longer designing the game with the players best interest but rather with the best profit potential.

[jakarai]

If you guys want that grind back and uber feeling once you obtain your gear go play a Korean MMO like Aion, Tera is coming out soon to. I am looking forward to Blade and Soul myself whenever that one comes stateside.

[supertouch]

the problem with mmos is the casual crowd controls the direction of the genre.

 

wow had some challenging raid content, but the rest of the game was sterile and linear.

Edited January 30, 2012 by supertouch

[LaManoNera]

 

do you guys remember mmo's of a bygone age? where we were able to create our own content (daoc, swg) or where gear was something you could pride yourself on, when you NEEDED to grind all your blue set out before you could even look at a raid, you had to EARN the right to go and wipe for a week or two on each new boss, it felt epic - it had an amazing community, the whole atmosphere was on another level entirely, those lucky enough to get some coveted purple items would be gazed at wonderously by scores of people stood around the capital cities, everyone knew which guilds had killed what, which players had what item

 

 

Do YOU remember those MMOs? Because getting good gear in them didn't require WoW levels of grinding. It required cooperation and socialization. Gather/purchase/trade for the mats to trade to a master crafter to make it for you. Join your faction to take over a hotspot that unlocked the top tier dungeon/boss.

 

Now, it's just grind your heart out on your own accord. All the BIS gear is bound on acquire and bartered for with tokens or randomly pulled out of a magic bag. There is no trading, bartering, crafting, or teamwork. Sorry, but I hardly consider 4 people playing Simon says in a raid group "teammwork", barely tolerating each others' existence, when any other time those people would have nothing to do with each other.

 

To reiterate: the focus of the founding MMOs was NEVER grind or arbitrary difficulty. It was always SOCIALIZATION.

[DirtyDiggler]

the mmorpg that puts its soul into pvp and balanced pvp at that will be the game everyone will play.

[Arkerus]

this exactly, i wish people would make good games for a given audience to enjoy and stop trying to just attract the "mass", you will fail, cultural fads can not be planned that way

 

Bioware already said they are building a specific experience. They were never trying to grab all the WoW players. Some will enjoy this game, some won't. Predicting everyone who builds a casual experience WILL FAIL is silly at best. You have no basis for that assertion. You can point at games that didn't work (like WHO) but I can also show you why there fatally flawed and it has nothing to do with casual verse HC. In WHO's case, the engine was garbage, the combat was weird, and the realm vs realm didn't work.

 

So my question to all the people here asking Bioware for more "sandbox" content...

 

Why are you here? Its obvious from the design and the gameplay this will never be a sandbox MMO.

 

I guess you can pay and play all you want, but if you are complaining about it the whole time then I pity you. Just enjoy it and perhaps the perfect game for you will come along someday.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Arkerus

[Mannic]

Here's the problem, IMO.

 

MMOs were originally made because someone said, "hey, we have this technology now to allow literally dozens of players, even hundreds, to play a game at the same time! Let's design a game for that!"

 

So early MMOs were designed with multiplayer as the reason for the game's existance. But because the servers and the bandwidth to run them was ungodly expensive in those days, games like UO and EQ that had large player bases charged a subscription.

 

What happned was that those games needed 150K or so subscriptions to turn a small profit off subscriptions at the end of the year, but UO got up to 400K subscribers, and EQ at one point had over 500K. They were turning huge profits, the kinds of profits that could completely finance new projects and made their MMO's way more profitable than single-player titles, while also providing a games developer with something they never had up until that points-- a steady, predictable revenue stream.

 

Larger developers then began to want to make MMOs, not necessarily because they loved the genre, but because they saw the operational benefits of selling a game that had both a large burst of initial revenues and then a steady stream of revenues after that. From a business perspective it was a dream come true for game developers.

 

However, since these big developers weren't necessarily MMO-lovers or innovators in their own right, their method of designing MMO's was to copy other MMO's and put very little in the way of innovation into their games. They saw MMO's as an established market of consumers rather than as an emerging technology in need of advancement.

 

Because of this, MMOs have actually seen less innovation in the last 6 or 7 years than we saw in their first 10 years, despite the fact that the typical client and server is about 200 times more powerful than what people were running UO on.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Mannic

[maxbaby]

TL;DR: I want grind my *** of and shine!

Sorry, boy, the game is supposed to be fun. A hobby. Not work.

You want a grind? Try creating Tier 2 prefix item out of Rakata craftable item.

RNG+Grind and you will shine.

 

The game should be accessible to everyone. It should be hard but not impossible.

It shouldn't rely on extra reflexes, memorizing patterns and spells to millisecond or wiping 500 times in a row.

Yes, there are masochists. But the world is not comprised of them.

 

People want to have fun.

[Emeda]

TL;DR: I want grind my *** of and shine!

Sorry, boy, the game is supposed to be fun. A hobby. Not work.

You want a grind? Try creating Tier 2 prefix item out of Rakata craftable item.

RNG+Grind and you will shine.

 

The game should be accessible to everyone. It should be hard but not impossible.

It shouldn't rely on extra reflexes, memorizing patterns and spells to millisecond or wiping 500 times in a row.

Yes, there are masochists. But the world is not comprised of them.

 

People want to have fun.

 

So whats fun for you is whats fun for 2 million people?

 

Or are you saying it should be accessible to everyone but everything can only be fun for you.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Emeda

[gurugeorge]

do you guys remember mmo's of a bygone age? where we were able to create our own content (daoc, swg) or where gear was something you could pride yourself on, when you NEEDED to grind all your blue set out before you could even look at a raid, you had to EARN the right to go and wipe for a week or two on each new boss, it felt epic - it had an amazing community, the whole atmosphere was on another level entirely, those lucky enough to get some coveted purple items would be gazed at wonderously by scores of people stood around the capital cities, everyone knew which guilds had killed what, which players had what item

 

Yes, and I remember that I was also a student in those days, with more time on my hands than I have now.

 

This is the problem: when MMOs started off they were made for young nerds by young nerds who were fired up by the idea of virtual worlds as an alternative to the real world - somewhere you could spend time in as a virtual life and have virtual achievements, as a hobby.

 

As time has gone on, the audience has broadened to both kids on the one hand and to the same older players, now adults, and now with jobs.

 

MMOs had to go "casual" to survive. I won't hear a bad word said about WoW, it's a beautifully well-made game, and certainly wasn't an ez-mode game when it started. The problem wasn't WoW, it was the assumption amongst developers that "casual" = "solo".

 

CoX was the only game that bucked that trend, the only game that allowed casual players to play socially a lot (because PUG-ing wasn't as annoying as in most MMOs). But that experiment in PUG Heaven hasn't been followed up (not even by Cryptic, who seemed to forget what they'd done with CoX when they made CO and STO).

 

Yet there are still MMOs you can sink your teeth into - EVE Online is still going strong, and it's still a second job. If you want fantasy, the Darkfall community is pretty strong, and Mortal Online is virtually a carbon copy of early UO in 3-d graphics. Unfortunately it's true that there are no hard PvE games that have the same virtual world quality as EQ (Vanguard was very close, and could so easily have been The One, but it was stymied by severe problems at launch and never recovered), but the three games I've mentioned are the closest to being functioning old skool games. But they're also a niche - again, because people have fuller lives, with many other forms of entertainment competing for their dollar and time.

[Kalfear]

Truthfully, I've never played any MMO where I didn't get bored with the end game. The so called "end game" in most MMOs means "grinding for uber gear day after day with your uber friends so you can prove to all those more casual gamers who have families and demanding jobs that prevent them from playing 30 hours a week that your more uber than they are."

 

I am not a MMO novice. I played EQ, DAoC, SWG, WOW, Warhammer MMO, Asherons Call, Guild Wars, and several others.

 

I am glad that this game targeted a more casual audience. The hard core crowd may not stay here long because they wont stay far ahead of the rest of the pack forever, but thats okay with me. Star Wars Galaxies had practically nothing for end game contact, but I played that for ages, even past the first CU. I did not leave it for good until they completely ruined it after the rework. Their crafting system was by far the funnest I've ever seen, player cities were great, and there was real open world pvp - that stuff was actually fun. They had no significant class story line I can recall, no war zones, and and very few dungeon instances.

 

I do think rate of leveling guild progression SWTOR is a little faster than it should be for people who play every day, but for someone who can only play on weekends, it's probably about right. So to me that says its targeted at more casual players.

 

I agree I don't like being forced to que for any WZ and having no choice. I'm sure that will come later. The world PVP zone is still a failure, but I expect it will get better. I still think DAoC had the funnest world PVP Ive done, with Warhammer in second. Allot of that is due to being able to have objectives that you can take and hold. And the fact that these objectives are defensible by a much smaller group giving the minority group an incentive to come out and fight.

 

But all in all, this game has not disappointed. Its been out all of 6 weeks and the hard core people are already poo-pooing it. I am sure there are other MMOs that will cater to their tastes. I for one, have confidence this one will continue to improve.

 

There is 2 MMORPGs that didnt bore me at End game!

 

1 is the FIRST MMORPG (and no its not UO and anytime you hear someone make the claim UO was the first, STOP READING as its false and the person typing it knows it by now...sorry people doing revisionist history to prop themselves up annoy me to no end).

 

Original NeverWinter Nights on AOL was the first MMORPG ever (unless you go into MUDs but NWN was graphical driven with character design and everything, where as Muds are not). Anyways, NWN had AMAZING End game but that was because of the select player base and game mechanics.

 

The game was damn expensive to play so you didnt have the modern day trolls and idiots out to ruin your experience. The game was simply to costly to waste your time trying to ruin other peoples fun. So the RPs got allong with the PVPErs who got along with the PVEers who got allong woth the Raiders, ect. Was an amazing community that has never been matched since.

 

The PVP was turn based. Now I know the kids today all moan and groan at turn based because they dont have the attention span to sit and stratagize for a few seconds between movement. But NWN PVP was all stratagy as Only 1 build could PVP. Everyone was the same ability wise so it came down to stratagy and knowledge. Lag and FPS had ZERO effect on outcome. It was all on you. So when I made top 10 on a PVP ladder of hundreads, it was because I defeated people to earn my way up the ranking. When Panzer and I became #2 in the partner PVP rankings, its because we earned our way up to it. AMAZING Feeling of accomplishment.

 

But times and technology change and I had to change with it.

 

Enter DAoC. Prior to RAs (PVP rewards) and TOA. DAoC was lights out, hands down the BEST post NWN PVP experience Ive ever encountered. It aLMOST had it all right, from the get go. All they needed to do was increase PBAOE cool downs and remove AOE CC from RVR and the game would have been perfect at launch.

 

Sadly thats not what they did and instead they made everyone strong and stronger and stronger till the skill and stratagy was gone and it was a who hits first match thats so popular today.

 

But early release DAoC End game was nothing short of EPIC.

The leveling was fast but not so fast that all feeling of accomplishment was gone.

The Relics were amazing and your adreneline was pumping when you and your realm mates defended your relics or stole someone elses.

Keep seiges and defences were almost perfect (this is where the instant PBAOE became a game breaker, longer cool down would have fixed that issue)

And when they added Darkness Falls, it was a home run concept and idea.

And even Crafting was usefull and a thriving economy was developed (until they ruined it with Auction houses eliminating any item quality below 100%).

 

Those two games got end game right!

 

But End game should not be the start of game as so many players like to think it should be. END game shoudl be the completion of the journey! THE JOURNEY IS WHAT SHOULD MATTER!

 

As for casuals. I know lots of casual players and only a coupel make the claim they need to be max level fast. And to be honest, while both of them are personal ooc friends, I will not play games with them online.

 

You dont have a right to max level because your a casual player.

I hate that WOW created that mentality because it KILLS gaming worth.

Im not a speed leveler or hardcore gamer either. I play lots but level slow.

So this NOT a hardcore vrs casual issue as you like to make it out to be.

This is a GAME QUALITY vrs Casual player issue.

 

ALL PLAYERS have a right to having a epic journey in the game and thats it.

You dont have a right to instant max level

You dont have a right to access to all content solo

You dont have a right to having everything dumbed down so it all can be done in minutes.

 

Those other non casual players have rights to so why should they get lesser games so the casuals that will leave in 1-3 months (regardless if the game to hard and cant be instantly finished or to easy and finished over night) are going to leave no matter what product is made. So why shouldnt developers focus on the players that want to stay long term if the game offers them that oppertunity!

 

I WANT to play TOR for years.

I came into tOR with that mindset

Chances are, based on everything I seen, Ill cancel my subscription at the end of 6 months rather then reup because its all been to easy, given away, I dont feel like Ive earned anything at all!

 

So Ive gone from a player that wanted to sub for 3-5 years minimum to a player that will probably drop after 6 months. All because the Devs focused on letting players that were going to drop in under 3 months anyways, get to max level and experience everything.

 

Sorry, I dont see the logic

 

history tells us that if a player feels the goals are worth while and meaningfull, they will go out of their way to attain those goals, no matter how long it takes.

 

So why exactly is it in anyones best interest to shorten those goals so players acheive them faster and move on to next game by some other developer?

 

I dont see the logic.

[supertouch]

Yes, and I remember that I was also a student in those days, with more time on my hands than I have now.

 

This is the problem: when MMOs started off they were made for young nerds by young nerds who were fired up by the idea of virtual worlds as an alternative to the real world - somewhere you could spend time in as a virtual life and have virtual achievements, as a hobby.

 

As time has gone on, the audience has broadened to both kids on the one hand and to the same older players, now adults, and now with jobs.

 

MMOs had to go "casual" to survive. I won't hear a bad word said about WoW, it's a beautifully well-made game, and certainly wasn't an ez-mode game when it started. The problem wasn't WoW, it was the assumption amongst developers that "casual" = "solo".

 

CoX was the only game that bucked that trend, the only game that allowed casual players to play socially a lot (because PUG-ing wasn't as annoying as in most MMOs). But that experiment in PUG Heaven hasn't been followed up (not even by Cryptic, who seemed to forget what they'd done with CoX when they made CO and STO).

 

Yet there are still MMOs you can sink your teeth into - EVE Online is still going strong, and it's still a second job. If you want fantasy, the Darkfall community is pretty strong, and Mortal Online is virtually a carbon copy of early UO in 3-d graphics. Unfortunately it's true that there are no hard PvE games that have the same virtual world quality as EQ (Vanguard was very close, and could so easily have been The One, but it was stymied by severe problems at launch and never recovered), but the three games I've mentioned are the closest to being functioning old skool games. But they're also a niche - again, because people have fuller lives, with many other forms of entertainment competing for their dollar and time.

 

i'd say casual players comprised more than half of eq's population during its prime. i didn't play much during the week because of priorities but i still enjoyed the hell out of the game.

[Qilz]

 

To reiterate: the focus of the founding MMOs was NEVER grind or arbitrary difficulty. It was always SOCIALIZATION.

 

This is what every current generation gamer in this thread fails to see.

 

They all point out grind this, grind that, blah blah blah. The grind wasn't a grind because you were playing to play with others. That was the MM in MMO. You barley even noticed the grind because you were playing for the fun of playing.

 

This current crowd of players (I can't even call them gamers) is all about me, me , me, now, now, now. Max level, full raid gear, full PvP gear in 6 weeks? ROFL.....disaster in the making.

[Kalfear]

Here's the problem, IMO.

 

MMOs were originally made because someone said, "hey, we have this technology now to allow literally dozens of players, even hundreds, to play a game at the same time! Let's design a game for that!"

 

So early MMOs were designed with multiplayer as the reason for the game's existance. But because the servers and the bandwidth to run them was ungodly expensive in those days, games like UO and EQ that had large player bases charged a subscription.

 

What happned was that those games needed 150K or so subscriptions to turn a small profit off subscriptions at the end of the year, but UO got up to 400K subscribers, and EQ at one point had over 500K. They were turning huge profits, the kinds of profits that could completely finance new projects and made their MMO's way more profitable than single-player titles, while also providing a games developer with something they never had up until that points-- a steady, predictable revenue stream.

 

blah blah blah f2p blah blah blah

 

Might wanna check your numbers

 

EQ was at 2 million subs for a few years, not capped at 500k

 

And the first MMORPG (NWN on AOL, circa 91-97) was pulling in over a million dollars a month in fee charges from all released financial reports (and in 91, for a computer game, that was huge scratch).

 

So this delussion that the subscription fee was in because of high over head costs only is silly.

 

This genre has always been about profit margin and you make more profit by charging a subscription fee then doing the F2P route.

 

And you tend to get a much higher quality community/player base (though since WOW thats been very debatable).

 

Quantity does not = higher profits and better quality

Quantity = quantity, and nothing else.

 

Personally I cant understand why someone would make a B2P or F2P game because why would you give it away to cheap o's that refuse to pay a small monthly subscription fee to support the game?

 

Id rather have 100k player base paying $15.00/month to play

then

1,000,000 player base where 50,000 paying $30.00/month in microtransaction fees and supporting the other 950,000 free loaders.

 

Course I never understand the complaints about $15.00/month

 

In NWN on AOL we paid $20.00 for 20 hours /month and then $2.95/hour (american) or $3.95/hour (canadian) after that.

 

THAT WAS COSTLY

 

$15.00/month for a product you like?

Not a issue!

[ReRuined]

MMO's went wrong when they introduced solo content. It completely defeats the purpose of MMO's in the first place. I loved that older MMO's forced you to group to progress. Sure, you can group in most newer MMO's, but it becomes ridiculously easy since the content is designed to be soloed. Edited January 30, 2012 by ReRuined

[VorpalK]

MMO's went wrong when they introduced solo content. It completely defeats the purpose of MMO's in the first place. I loved that older MMO's forced you to group to progress. Sure, you can group in most newer MMO's, but it becomes ridiculously easy since the content is designed to be soloed.

 

Forced grouping kills games.

 

It was possible during a brief period of time where there was no other option.

 

That will never be the case again.

 

Sorry that no one wants to group with you. Trying to force everyone to not solo isn't going to fix that.

[Nozybidaj]

MMO's, Where did it all go wrong? (long)

 

Honestly, With the huge success of WoW, which in all honesty I think it deserves, and continues to deserve (despite it being "cool" to hate WoW). Its not even so much what WoW did, its the fact that their success made every other developer think they could just copy elements of WoW and magically recreate that success. TOR, Rift, are pretty good examples of that. Fact is Blizzard is honestly just a cut above other developers, their polish, their attention to detail, their strong design principals that make ever feature and element of the game blend nicely into a whole, no other developer can duplicate that level of artistry (aside from maybe Nintendo).

 

The reason all other MMO's fail is the think they can just take this part here, that element there, slap it all together with a new skin and "WOW now we'll have 10M subscribers too!!!!". Its the lack of creativity and daring to do something different that is really why MMO's are in such a slump the last several years. Eagerly looking forward to GW2 to see if they really deliver on trying to do something different.

[Nightfalll]

So, MMO devs CATERING TO THE CASUALS IS THE CATALYST.............

 

 

"You guys' were the ones screaming for FAIRNESS.....ITS NOT FAIR IF OTHERS HAVE MORE PLAYTIME AND CAN GET STUFF I CANT BECAUSE IM EMPLOYED/JOB/KIDS/LAZY etc...

 

 

Now, we're reaping what we've sewn.

 

 

Its called Karma......And your reaping it baby.............Enjoy!

[tapikoks]

"i know alot of people will tell me "lol you rushed to 50, we're still enjoying alderaan!" and all that other stuff you love to say, i put this to you: what happens when you hit 50 and most of the other L50's already quit? when there is no tangible community at level cap to join? or are at the least less active, when guilds have already been destroyed by entropy, when players have left the game because theres basically little or no fun to be had (the one thing i get to enjoy in swtor is raiding atm, pvp is awful without full premades)"

 

What Ill do ? Ill move on. Ill look for another game cos Im almost 25yr old and games are not so huge part of my life as they were few years ago. At least not MMORPGS.

Edited January 30, 2012 by tapikoks

[Phishums]

So tired of all the "WoW ruined TOR" and "WoW ruined all MMOs ever!!" griping. Pretty sure if something's wrong with this game, it's BioWare's fault, not Blizzard's.

 

And yes, they're businesses. Businesses need to make money, and to do that it's best to cater to as many people as possible, which is not the handful of elitists who want to spend the majority of their time being a bada** in a game. So all of that "Blizzard created a monster by becoming a big successful company!" QQ needs to go away too. Games that cater to the super-elite 5% of their playerbase are going to lose lots of the other 95% that feel like they'll never have the time to be awesome at the endgame.

 

Not saying that the OP didn't have some valid points, just that all the whinerbabies blaming WoW for their TOR problems need to get over themselves.

[jdela]

This is completely a personal things and almost certainly dependent on when you started MMOs. For example, I was an EQ guy. So when I played WoW, it was the easiest game I have ever seen and I hated both the art and presentation of the game as well as how simplistic it was.

 

I am sure someone who played UO in the early days can easily say that us EQ players were so carebear because there was no open PvP and we had classes not just skills.

 

For me Rift was by far and away the most convenient MMO I have ever played. It lacked a soul completely for me, but it streamlined everything that a WoW era MMO is.

 

I don't mean this to sound a knock on WoW, but it changed the MMO genre dramatically. When you get a title that is so successful it stops innovation dead in it tracks. Why? Because you are stuck trying to either ignore the elephant in the room or cater to the people that played WoW and have certain expectations. It is still far too dangerous from a monetary and marketing perspective to stray too far from the WoW path, just look at these forums.

 

I figure in about 5 - 10 years when WoW has finally mostly run its course we will begin to see the MMO genre start going into new directions. The genre needs to mature, more tools need to be available like the Hero Engine so that you don't have to re-invent the wheel each and every time and can focus on more innovative features and new things. Let's face it, the Unreal engine has been a huge boost to the variety of FPS games available and actually others as well. The Hero Engine may not be the best yet, but perhaps in 5 years the engine will be great and the tools around it already look pretty impressive from a developer and management standpoint.

 

And for people that think GW2 will do this, from what I have seen it is not far different from WoW either. It evolved a tiny bit, but I can guarantee you that the forums will be awash in people saying WoW has this and that, why does GW2 not have it? It happened in every game I have played since WoW was released (WAR, Rift, AoC, etc). WoW needs to be less influential for true innovation to happen. And that is still a long way from happening, but it is starting slowly.

[knightblaster]

Do YOU remember those MMOs? Because getting good gear in them didn't require WoW levels of grinding. It required cooperation and socialization. Gather/purchase/trade for the mats to trade to a master crafter to make it for you. Join your faction to take over a hotspot that unlocked the top tier dungeon/boss.

 

Now, it's just grind your heart out on your own accord. All the BIS gear is bound on acquire and bartered for with tokens or randomly pulled out of a magic bag. There is no trading, bartering, crafting, or teamwork. Sorry, but I hardly consider 4 people playing Simon says in a raid group "teammwork", barely tolerating each others' existence, when any other time those people would have nothing to do with each other.

 

To reiterate: the focus of the founding MMOs was NEVER grind or arbitrary difficulty. It was always SOCIALIZATION.

 

This needs to be put in the broader context, though.

 

Since that time, the ways and means of socializing on the internet have been revolutionized. Facebook, Twitter and so on replaced virtual worlds -- people prefer to socialize online with people they know offline, if possible. That's why Second Life, the ultimate "socialization" based virtual world, slowly died --> it turned out that most people don't care to socialize online with people who are real life strangers. There is a niche for that (still exists --> see EVE), but it's not the mass market. The mass market socializes in one medium and pwns mobs/players in another. And prefers to group in a game either in a totally turnkey random way (where there is no socialization with strangers expected) or with guildmates who they "know" -- in many cases in real life.

 

The social aspects of the internet in general have impacted how people play MMOs, as MMOs moved out of their niche market to the mass market (which prefers to socialize on the internet in the mass market way).

[souloferdrick]

So tired of all the "WoW ruined TOR" and "WoW ruined all MMOs ever!!" griping. Pretty sure if something's wrong with this game, it's BioWare's fault, not Blizzard's.

 

Blizzard proved that you could make millions up millions in raw profit with a mediocre product while basically laughing in the faces of their customers. Others were sure to take note.

[The_Stig]

It is all wrong.

[HalusW]

Just my thoughts:

 

MMOs should go in one of the 3 following directions.

 

1. If your game is going to be about endgame progression, just skip the leveling process already and start everyone at max level. Why waste all the resources making all that under 50 content that people enjoy for such a small percentage of their game time, and then in a lot of cases just to hurry through to get back to max level. Imagine if every area of the huge worlds of games like WoW were full of things to do at max level.

 

2. If your game is going to about the journey, like SWTOR supposedly one, then make the journey a HELL of a lot longer. Like, say, 10-20X longer. Every level along the way needs to feel like an accomplishment. Dungeons as you level should be explored and explored again before you out-level them. When you get a new skill, it should be exciting because you finally reached the level you could get it. I started playing MMOs in the Kunark days of EQ. I didn't even know what end-game meant, because the thought of maxing my character's level seemed so far off. Some of the best times I had were grinding a specific dungeon with a few people, and it was cool because we could do it day after day for a while before we out-leveled it.

 

3. If your game is going to be about just plain casual fun, do what GW2 is attempting to do. Leveling is easy, there is no gear grind, the game is just based around fun gameplay, but there is no subscription either. They can make content at their own pace and sell it when it's ready, and meanwhile people can put as much or as little into the game as they want to without feeling forced to get their money's worth every month.

 

I like this. Plus you can tack PvP onto any of them. That's what happens to my beloved PvP most times anyway.