One of the biggest problems for a current MMO: The People

[xViiRGIL]

It's really not. Society is full of whiny, impatient people that make a bigger deal of things than they oughta. Just look at what happened with Chick-fil-A.

 

Your right I call it the "drama queen" genration. My seventeen year old boy is a bigger drama queen than most of the drama queens i remember from high school lol. It's just sickening sometimes.

[NoxiousAlby]

It's really not. Society is full of whiny, impatient people that make a bigger deal of things than they oughta. Just look at what happened with Chick-fil-A.

 

Dont confuse the "whingy & whiny" on the forums with cancelled subs, fact remains many left in the first 6 months because the game was only half finished. Those of us who stayed did so in the vain hope that over the course of a year to 18 months we would start to see missing content added to the point where the game should have started at.

 

Now it's going free to play, it will be all about pet's, mounts, & skins until EA realise that they wont sell enough so decide to make the game P2W. I dont think I have ever been more dissapointed in an MMO as I feel now

[Socialist]

People got used to playing instant gratification ultra-commercial crap like CoD and Madden, now they apply their criteria regarding those game into MMOs.

 

I mean, we won't see again a mainstream hardcore MMO in the West anytime soon.

 

Nor a long-lived cult gathering MMO, people no longer have the patience like they had 8 years go to wait for the game to grow, they want it all in the first month. That is not how MMOs work, BioWare foolishly tried to do it and failed where I believe everybody would have.

[NoxiousAlby]

This exactly, All the haters spout the line about "not having standard features at launch" thing all the time, but just look at the archived threads here from before launch and look at all the posts from WoW baby's that demanded that they NOT put a LFG tool in ToR. Most of them claimed LFG's "Ruin a servers community", and now where are those people that said "no LFG in ToR" funny thing is they are a lot of the same people that quit after the free month, and now trash the game to no end.

 

So as a dev now a days, getting payed to build a MMO, would be on my short list, right up there with willingly letting a horse kick me in the jimmy lol. Because it seems that your damned if you do, and damned if you dont.

 

Your just taking claims out of context, if servers had managed to stay full there would never have been a need for the LFG tool. Given the rate at which people were abandoning "Tortanic" there was no choice but to add a LFG tool.

 

Furthermore if you quit after the free month and dont have a current subscription then you cant post, seems to me your the one talking through your hat.

[Riven]

Blaming the players is simply bad form. They are the customers and if it is your buisness to sell something to those customers you can't sit there and complain if they don't like it.

 

Fact is that developers have been trying to play it safe for the most part. Entertainment in general, games and especially MMOs hardly take any risks anymore to try something vastly different from the established norm. People are tired of the same old stuff dressed up in a different skin. If players are to blame for anything it's for buying into stupid rehash franchises like CoD, BF, Madden, etc. which basically have hardly evolved at all since their first appearance and hence support developers (and mostly the decission making suits) in thinking they can make the most (safe) money from selling something withing the established norm.

[CorellianWannabe]

I miss wiping on Nef and Cthun and KT for weeks and the feeling you get when you finally kill them.

 

Not the joke 2.0 Nef or KT either.

 

Isn't that like saying "I miss beating my head against a wall because it feels so good when I stop"?

 

EQ is somehow still going- perhaps that would satisfy your masochistic urges.

 

I guess MMOs have to punish more than reward or you don't feel your getting your money's worth.

[CorellianWannabe]

I admit you can't make a game exactly like EQ and youre right this soft minded 2nd gen gamers wouldnt be able to take it, but you can make a game where it isn't go to this hub do 4 quests and gain a level.

And you can make a game where you pack your expansions with raid content and you can put in a system where the raids are levels instead of a new 50 doing the "end boss" in a month

And you can separate pvp and pve so you dont have to balance characters worrying about both sides because that is an epic fail as well

But this genre was about teamwork exploration working to figure out mobs and pattern and that is gone now and replaced with mindles******** of buttons and everyone wanting new shineys after 2 hour of play

 

Figuring out mobs and patterns? You mean watching a video clip of someone else beating the boss and copying it?

 

I'm sorry but any computer game will consist of pushing buttons-since keyboard and mouse are the only widespread means of input.

 

Please feel free to go back to EQ or run nightmare ops in quest gear if you want a challenge and feel like some leet player with mad skillz.

[Phenyr]

I feel a huge part of the problem in this gen of MMO's are the people not necessarily the games. And I'm not slamming the people either I just think that they way people play games have changed affecting how MMO's are played and perceived. .

 

At a certain point yes the people have their fault into making a mmorpg fall. But the hype is a marketing thing, and people starting to make or have ideas about what that new mmorpg will be like, and hype only amplify those expectations. Also people, players come from different backgrounds have different experience and expertise over so they know what they want.

 

Whats sad is that since the mmorpg genre got apealing over the gaming market only WoW got it right like or not, while any other project failed or didnt make it on big horses as WoW did.

 

Im not saying that WoW is the mmorpg of our times but it apeal to the masses and that enough to make it most succefull so far.

[Aharx]

I feel a huge part of the problem in this gen of MMO's are the people not necessarily the games. And I'm not slamming the people either I just think that they way people play games have changed affecting how MMO's are played and perceived.

 

There is an MMO herd that roams through the digital landscape like a plague looking to devour new games and content. People get overly hyped and psyched about a new MMO. The MMO launches, they move in and blow through content fast, get bored, rage quit, slam the game and look to the next product. I'm not saying people are right or wrong for doing this. I'm saying that gamers habits and tastes have changed.

 

I think this has come about due to the amount of games that are launching constantly. There are so many games in general releasing all the time, and specifically so many MMO's releasing that MMO's have turned into normal games that people play for a couple of weeks to a month then move to the next game.

 

Sometimes it is warranted though. Some MMO's have been very bad at launch. When I think of a bad MMO launch and just poor game mechanics in general I think of the Vanguard launch, FFXIV (I would consider that a failure), APB etc.

 

There have also been some great MMO's that have released that I know a lot of people blew through in a week, quit, uninstalled and will never go back. I put SWTOR, Tera, and Rift in that crowd. In my opinion they are nowhere near deserving a the tags "failure", and "suck".

 

GW2 is the next target. Everyone is hyping it up like crazy, the same way everyone hyped up SWTOR. The herd is going to move in, devour, quit and move on. A month after release people are going to be in the same boat talking about how GW2 and how it fell way short of the hype.

 

All this talk of losing subs, failure, F2P ruining the game etc, is part of the process of how a large portion of MMO players relate to games now since the majority of people do not want to play a game for more than a month no matter what it is. I think in no way that means that some of these great MMO's suck and are failures.

 

I'm a huge MMO fan. I always have been since the launch of EQ. I think SWTOR is a great game. Not perfect, but still great. I'm excited to see where they take the game and excited for the F2P crowd to jump in and start playing. It's all about building a product/franchise now after launch in the best way possible as opposed to having one shot at launch with succeed or failure states. I think F2P makes a lot of sense.

 

Agreed. I've been playing MMOs for about 12 years now and one thing I've noticed that has changed the most over the years are the people. I remember playing SWG when the game first came out... I don't know if it was because a more mature player base was playing MMOs at the time or what... but there was alot less whining and complaining from what I remember.

 

The communities were also alot more fun back then from what I've seen now. Who knows! I still love playing MMOs. Once you find a nice group of players then it isn't so bad but it's the random players now-a-days that have changed.

[mangarrage]

Figuring out mobs and patterns? You mean watching a video clip of someone else beating the boss and copying it?.

Yea that was the wow generation too lol

Has nothing to do with mad skills or should I use your skillz instead.

I do not recall ever watching a video of a boss kill in EQ ever. I do not remember ever anyone frapsing any raid

Guilds figured it out for themselves

 

Honestly I think the first raid video I ever watched was in Rift in all honesty. The guild I was in folded right after RoS came out and the new guild required to be familiar with the encounters, so I watched Warmaster, Plutonus etc

 

You do know alot of people do not require the use of others to beat end game content, apparently you arent one of them

[Blackardin]

I feel a huge part of the problem in this gen of MMO's are the people not necessarily the games.

 

Exactly. Just read the nonsense written from so many armchair quarterbacks and one can see it like a flash burnt across the sky. It is, sheer and utter nonsense most of the time.

 

This game is not broken, the players are.

[mightylawngnome]

So as a dev now a days, getting payed to build a MMO, would be on my short list, right up there with willingly letting a horse kick me in the jimmy lol. Because it seems that your damned if you do, and damned if you dont.

 

Can't say this isn't true. I don't like the way BW has handled some of this stuff, but I also see a lot of the completely irrational freak outs people have.

[DarthTHC]

I would ask are they taking on new subs and growing or is that the amount they settled with after launch? 8 Years from now would SWTOR be sitting at 350K - 400K subs? There is definitely a good chance of it.

 

SWTOR was developed by BioWare, for over a decade one of the most respected game developers on the planet.

 

EVE was developed by CCCP games, a virtual unknown before EVE shipped.

 

SWTOR uses one of the most, if not THE most, popular IP in existence.

 

EVE uses a home-grown IP.

 

To say that SWTOR might be sitting at the same subscription level as EVE Online is showing the complete, massive failure that SWTOR is.

[NoxiousAlby]

Exactly. Just read the nonsense written from so many armchair quarterbacks and one can see it like a flash burnt across the sky. It is, sheer and utter nonsense most of the time.

 

This game is not broken, the players are.

 

If the game wasnt broken then why is it going F2P? unless of course your gullible enough to believe all the claptrap on CNBC from EA's CEO.

[Blackardin]

Agreed. I've been playing MMOs for about 12 years now and one thing I've noticed that has changed the most over the years are the people. I remember playing SWG when the game first came out... I don't know if it was because a more mature player base was playing MMOs at the time or what... but there was alot less whining and complaining from what I remember.

 

The communities were also alot more fun back then from what I've seen now. Who knows! I still love playing MMOs. Once you find a nice group of players then it isn't so bad but it's the random players now-a-days that have changed.

 

Been 20 here, and I can verify that there has been a very steep downward spiral in the player base. Back then people were far more knowledgeable, had degrees and experience in the particular fields that they were speaking of in relation to the game. They were far more qualified, far more respectful, far more reasonable.

 

Today, they are just angry drama queens that ramble on about things they know very little about and fire off angry conjecture as if it were viable. The worst part is their inability to see how unreasonable and uniformed they actually are, "I want an alternate universe of lifelike proportions for the cost of 1/3 of my morning coffee, and I'll show you how to do it." LOL

[Eldrenath]

MMO players are the whiniest, most obnoxious, fickle, and frustrating fans of anything ever. They hate every game. With the exception of LOTRO and CoH, there are no AAA MMO titles out there without tons of people complaining on the forums about how awful the game is and how anyone that likes it is somehow mentally deficient, etc etc. LOTRO still gets plenty of bashing, but there and in CoH it doesn't seem as bad (and those are each F2P games, btw). Everybody on every MMO forums constantly talks about how awful the game is and how as soon as <<insert nextbigthingZOMG!!!!>> releases the game in question will die. There is no major MMO in release that doesn't have tons of people bashing it, saying it sucks, etc. It's frankly bizarre: MMO players love to complain about gaming more than they like gaming. They get so emotionally invested in trying to get other people to hate what they hate that it is frankly quite creepy. They're like a big group of Sith, but with less lightsabers and more Mountain Dew and Hot Pockets, trying to spread hatred and despair throughout the interwebs.

 

And all gamers always complain the the dev won't listen to them. Why WOULD they? Listening to the players is the LAST thing any MMO developer should do. The minute they do it, the other players that disagree with the group that got listened to start to burn the company in effigy and insult the other players with whom they disagree.

 

MMO players constantly whine that they aren't listened to. They are literally impossible to please.

Edited August 2, 2012 by Eldrenath

[Blackardin]

If the game wasnt broken then why is it going F2P? unless of course your gullible enough to believe all the claptrap on CNBC from EA's CEO.

 

Case in point. Knows nothing about marketing, finance, or game design so randomly pulls something from his small knowledge base and attempts to reason based on that. In short, he is correct, but all the educated, experienced "clap-trappers" are wrong. LOL

[DarthTHC]

And all gamers always complain the the dev won't listen to them. Why WOULD they? Listening to the players is the LAST thing any MMO developer should do. The minute they do it, the other players that disagree with the group that got listened to start to burn the company in effigy and insult the other players with whom they disagree.

 

MMO players constantly whine that they aren't listened to. They are literally impossible to please.

 

So basically you're saying that EA is foolish for listening to peoples' exit surveys and making the game F2P? Glad we're on the same page...

[Blackardin]

MMO players are the whiniest, most obnoxious, fickle, and frustrating fans of anything ever. They hate every game.

 

Stopped reading right there, not because I feel your post would be invalid, but because you encapsulated everything that needed to be said right there, in a nut shell, Mr. chipmunk. ;p

[Arasys]

I disagree. I think people just want new multiplayer games on a regular basis. People are getting bored of games in general a lot faster now since there are so many out there.

 

really ?? is that why there are still people playing the first MMOs like UO and AC1 ? Don't make up reasons, just accept the fact that SWTOR failed big time, and it is admitted by EA. Oh and, never blame the customer for a ****** meal. Ever heard of over-marketing a bad product ? People get frustrated and feel cheated by companies. That's why disappointment turns into hate. Before you come up with such conclusions, learn to search threads from different pages on these forums. You will see why this "precious" game failed, they deserved this for continuously lying to people with fake promises. Cannot be happier lol.

[Nydus]

One of the biggest problems for a current MMO: The People.

 

I'm not sure they are a "problem" but your underlining point is that gamer tastes and preferences have changed. I'd absolutely agree with that and not sure if people can really disagree with that.

 

For example, I'm a guy who thinks the golden age of computer games was the early 1990s; where the publishers and developers were often the same entity, and the people who funded and created games were the same people who played them.

 

It is completely accurate to say that the gaming market of that time (which was a profitable niche market) is entirely different from the market out there today. Now as the whether the games are better today because the market is larger, that is a matter of personal preference.

 

There are decent modern games but I would personally submit that we live in a much less creative time. I remember when the FPS, RTS, and top-down RPG genres were created. They literally didn't exist and then some developers pioneered them. I don't think there has been a revolutionary game concept in 10-years.

 

- Arcada

Edited August 2, 2012 by Nydus

[NoxiousAlby]

Case in point. Knows nothing about marketing, finance, or game design so randomly pulls something from his small knowledge base and attempts to reason based on that. In short, he is correct, but all the educated, experienced "clap-trappers" are wrong. LOL

 

Actually i'm a CPA Accountant who retired at 42 after investing in China's demand for resources back in 2001. I know a great deal more than your articulate way of saying a great deal while actually saying nothing other than to attempt to insult others as a means of denegrating their arguement.

 

Your post shows absolutely no indication that you are either educated or experienced.

Edited August 2, 2012 by NoxiousAlby

[CorellianWannabe]

Your right I call it the "drama queen" genration. My seventeen year old boy is a bigger drama queen than most of the drama queens i remember from high school lol. It's just sickening sometimes.

 

So why did you raise him to be like that?

[agamemnon-]

Perhaps it is the devs that are responsible.

 

What I mean is, take EVE Online for instance. It's a niche game that would only appeal to a certain group of people How does that relate? I get the impression that Bioware tried hard too appeal to every corner of the MMO genre: a grind for PVP gear for the hardcore players, voice overs for the "oooooo shiney" crowd, and an insanely easy single player mode for the casual gamer. However, trying to appease all, while have a game with unaddressed bugs, shallow gameplay etc, you will alienate everyone.

 

Really, you can't blame the people completely. The people didn't put in a rail shooter masquerading as space combat. The people didn't decide to make the bulk of your gaming experience corridors and set paths. The people didn't demand to have all the class stories revolve around the same on or two themes. The people didn't fail to deliver promised fixes and added content. The people didn't ship the game with three pvp warzones with in inability to choose what you wanted to play. The people didn't decide to include seperate pvp gear with the expertise stat. The people didn't decide to put armors in the game that look straight out of an Elder Scrolls game. The people didn't decide to ignore everything that made KOTOR great and sell out for a quick buck.

[CorellianWannabe]

Yea that was the wow generation too lol

Has nothing to do with mad skills or should I use your skillz instead.

I do not recall ever watching a video of a boss kill in EQ ever. I do not remember ever anyone frapsing any raid

Guilds figured it out for themselves

 

Honestly I think the first raid video I ever watched was in Rift in all honesty. The guild I was in folded right after RoS came out and the new guild required to be familiar with the encounters, so I watched Warmaster, Plutonus etc

 

You do know alot of people do not require the use of others to beat end game content, apparently you arent one of them

 

Right- no one ever posted strategies on a website, right?

 

Because the content consists of 'tank and spank and beat the enrage timer'-hardly difficult to figure that out.