why is a decent MMO impossible to find?

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: pontifex
thats because there's nothing in but a few gas clouds, meteor belts or a planet that you can't do anything with.

Lets see within a month I figured out a market to exploit and undercut some guy holding a ton of stock to the point he sold for 1.7b less then he would have if I wasn't there. I forced his hand with as little as 50 million after I sold everything to attempt this. Now I am sitting on 4 ships and 300mill in the bank with 2 months of playtime on my guy (1 month in markets) I have buy orders and am sitting on product to move as well.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: pontifex
thats because there's nothing in but a few gas clouds, meteor belts or a planet that you can't do anything with.

Lets see within a month I figured out a market to exploit and undercut some guy holding a ton of stock to the point he sold for 1.7b less then he would have if I wasn't there. I forced his hand with as little as 50 million after I sold everything to attempt this. Now I am sitting on 4 ships and 300mill in the bank with 2 months of playtime on my guy (1 month in markets) I have buy orders and am sitting on product to move as well.

And none of that involved any objects actually in space; especially not any planets which is what the "that you can't do anything with" applied to.

 

[KMFJD]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: pontifex
thats because there's nothing in but a few gas clouds, meteor belts or a planet that you can't do anything with.

Lets see within a month I figured out a market to exploit and undercut some guy holding a ton of stock to the point he sold for 1.7b less then he would have if I wasn't there. I forced his hand with as little as 50 million after I sold everything to attempt this. Now I am sitting on 4 ships and 300mill in the bank with 2 months of playtime on my guy (1 month in markets) I have buy orders and am sitting on product to move as well.

And none of that involved any objects actually in space; especially not any planets which is what the "that you can't do anything with" applied to.

He's playing a spreadsheet

 

[MStele]

I'm gonna jump in while the punch stings. I've made my comment about Eve earlier, but I will say that what Eve DOES offer than most games don't is a well established player made economy. In truth, that is its greatest strength. If you removed this important aspect to the game, its no different from wow........now before people get all huffed and puffed about eve strategy, while it is true that there is much more gear diversity in Eve, ultimately your still getting within range and autoattacking while using ship abilities (gear) to adjust for combat conditions. This is no different than wow and its different talents and gear builds. Eve uses the same tired weapon animations and sounds, and unless your a control freak, your gonna just set your preferred attack range and let your ship circle and attack on auto.

My point is that Eve is no better than wow in most of its implimentation. Its wow in space, but with a fraction of the PVE and twice as much ganking. Fighting in Eve rarely happens on even turf..more often than not one ship is gonna be alot more powerful than the other...and battles are quick.

That being said, Eve has the best player driven economy in any game around.. Period. The crafting cannot be topped for sheer availabiliy and diversity. If people want to defend Eve on this aspect, I say that have a case, but if they try comparing other aspects of even to all the other popular mmos out there (WOW, War, EQ2, LTRO) i'm gonna be ready to call them out. There are many aspects of Eve that are deplorable and downright bad design, so when compared, these games should be judged by the sum of their parts and not over specific aspects that vary in importance from one person to another.

 

[JSt0rm]

well i have to move product in space from different systems and worry about gettign flipped when I have 100mill worth of shit on me.

 

[JSt0rm]

let me add that if you want to play a mmo where you fly around and go pewpew this is it. So for some people the bad design choices are made up by the game world (ie space sim). If you don't care about that at all well then it gives you no bonus and well the world would be a boring place if we all liked the exact same shit

 

[Auryg]

People mistake why the liked UO. It wasn't because of full looting, open PvP, etc...It was because it was a *world* you got to live in and do what you wanted to. MMOs nowadays are just rollercoaster rides. You're stuck on one track (2 if there's meaningful crafting). That's it. You want to be a pirate? You can in UO. You want to start a guild that specifically goes after criminals? Go for it. Want to just do blacksmithing all day? Sure. Want to be an adventurer that has seen every corner of the continent? The list goes on.

The only MMO like it is Eve, but a lot of people, myself included, find the time based skill leveling to take any meaning from the game..not to mention the space combat is boring. But they both have the same idea - a world/universe that is completely up to the players. It's what an MMO should be.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

No.

MMOs didn't become uber-popular until WOW took that tired, horrible old concept from UO and EQ and threw it in the trash can. There is a reason that WOW is immensely popular, and that is because it got rid of many of the draconian principles from past MMOs that simply weren't fun.

Wow is popular for a lot of reasons and it isn't because they made any drastic changes.

No, it wouldn't. What would end up happening is that the elite, crazy raiding guilds who play 80+ hours a week would down the boss, and then no one else would get to see that content. Ever.

We clearly define MMORPG differently. I define it as a persistent world with characters focused on role playing. Not a FPS where the level resets and everyone gets their turn. Name one story where everyone gets to play the hero , it just doesn't happen. The moment you allow everyone to do everything you kill immersion.

Not only is that a huge bummer for 99% of the playing community

I don't see it that way. I would rather hear tales of how a player brought down a boss than I would to read "MY LVL 99 just killed the boss" . Big deal so has everyone else . It is what kills the end game for so many players. You get to play to the top level and do what everyone else has done over and over and over.
People rush to get to the top level like there is some special treat just for them when in reality all that is there is the same thing over and over .

, it would also be a gigantic waste for the developer to sink all this time and money into creating content that is only seen by a minuscule fraction of their player base once.

Who says only a small fraction would see it ? When I say boss I don't mean a monster that sits in a room with some guards and 10 people can fight their way in and kill him in one sitting. I am talking about how a real boss type monster would be set up. In a persistent world, monsters wouldn't respawn. Want to kill the boss ? Fine, be prepared to take out the entire zone of his army , one by one, over the course of about a week. It would be a cooperative effort among many players not just one group logging on. The monsters wouldn't respawn , instead it would take time for the boss to gather re-inforcements and send them to defend him. Want to stop the reinforcement ? Then you better get players to kill off where the armies are coming from before they get there.

There is a reason why WOW is immensely popular and the other MMOs aren't: Blizzard ditched that terrible design philosophy of "only people who can play like its a second job get to see the content".

Every player can see all the content in WOW without having to devote their life to it. This model has been extremely successful for Blizzard, and it has been a big hit with the players.

People don't have to see all the content to enjoy the game. That is the problem with games based on the WOW model. There is no substance to the game other than getting the next item or getting the next level. If the game has a story and the world exist where the NPC also interact with each other keeping the story going while the player is not playing then it doesn't matter what level you are, who gets to kill the boss or what items you get. It is an experience just to be in that world.

The problem with WOW and its clones is the world is static, non changing and everything remains the same, whether you are lvl 1 or lvl 2000.

Why anyone would want to go back to the horrible days of UO or EQ is beyond me...the deceitful rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, I guess. UO, EQ and other "serious" MMOs are still available for those who pine for the "ye olde days". The vast majority of the gaming community has spoken however, and the WOW model is the way to go. Progress is moving forward, not backwards.

If games get anymore like WOW then the MMORPG is dead. WOW barely classifies as a RPG. It is like the games before it and after it. They are massively multiplayer and they are online, but they are not RPG except only in the very basic forms .

The worlds are dead and is why I quit playing the genre.

 

[CKent]

WoW made MMOs big business. Where before they satisfied a niche market because they slipped under the radar of the big corporations, they can no longer do so now that they're synonymous with profit. Not sure if you've noticed, but the average person, to whom MMOs are now marketed, is a complete fucking idiot. Even as easy as WoW was, its developers had to make it easier to continue appealing to its target demographic. The idea of an actual battle with objectives was difficult, so now you duel for gear. The idea of taking an enemy out of the battle with sheep and not hitting that sheep was too difficult, so now you kill everything in an area-of-effect zerg. Even the tiny little details... like how water no longer dismounts you because apparently people were too stupid to press space and jump over streams and such. WoW has always felt like a theme park ride, a fake experience controlled by its developers - fun at times, but nothing like a real immersive, persistent world where you chose how to enjoy yourself like EQ. But whereas before it was a roller coaster, these days it feels like that teacup ride for young children >.> And of course the rest all have to copy it since the games are all about business now.

 

[MStele]

I think we're going to see a major evolution of MMOs coming. Blizzard has announced that there new MMO will be nothing like wow, and thus will not compete directly. Also, as bandwidth becomes less and less and limitation and server capacity continues to grow, you will find that the world that is built around us will also grow in complexity. Look at game development over the past 10 years. With better hardware, they are able to do things under the hood that were only pipe dreams back in the day. World of Warcraft was teh best they could do when it was developed...it was a fresh outtake on the game that Everquest and Ultima started, but I agree that it is a tired design, and developers know it. I'd even say that its the main reason all the various "wow killers" can barely pay their bills let alone compete directly with wow. Its the whole "its tastes just like chicken" thing. If its tastes like chicken, just give me the chicken...i don't like surprises. If its looks and feels like World of Warcraft, I might as well just play World of Warcraft. Developer have no choice but to find another angle, and in the next couple years you are going to see exactly that, because regardless of what people thing there is tons of money to be made off a successful MMO....even more so than any single player game could ever do.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: CKent
WoW made MMOs big business. Where before they satisfied a niche market because they slipped under the radar of the big corporations, they can no longer do so now that they're synonymous with profit. Not sure if you've noticed, but the average person, to whom MMOs are now marketed, is a complete fucking idiot. Even as easy as WoW was, its developers had to make it easier to continue appealing to its target demographic. The idea of an actual battle with objectives was difficult, so now you duel for gear. The idea of taking an enemy out of the battle with sheep and not hitting that sheep was too difficult, so now you kill everything in an area-of-effect zerg. Even the tiny little details... like how water no longer dismounts you because apparently people were too stupid to press space and jump over streams and such. WoW has always felt like a theme park ride, a fake experience controlled by its developers - fun at times, but nothing like a real immersive, persistent world where you chose how to enjoy yourself like EQ. But whereas before it was a roller coaster, these days it feels like that teacup ride for young children >.> And of course the rest all have to copy it since the games are all about business now.

I played WoW again for a few days last week and earlier this week. It is even easier new (last played immensely in 2006). The items that you can loot even glow:disgust:

 

[Arglebargle]

Originally posted by: pathos

It certainly seemed evident in the discussions of Bethesda's Oblivion, where people who started out on Morrowind or Daggerfall tended to not like it. But the Daggerfall starters thought Morrowind was a wimp as well. And people who'd started out on Oblivion tended to like it more.

hey, hey now.

Arena was the shit. Daggerfall on blew nuts

edit - and yes, I am kidding

From what I know of Arena, you'd have to be joking. Or looney....and I don't mean a
Canadian dollar...

 

[Arglebargle]

WoW owes it's success, in great part to being at the right place, right time. Like Ebay, it was situated at the beginning of an era. It's not like Ebay is a particularly good service, it is just the one everyone knows about.

Same with WoW. It's the game that most non-gamers know about. If someone with no particular knowledge of the field gets interested in online gaming, WoW is what they've heard of. In many ways it is the gateway drug for the various other MMOs. Trying to be 'another WoW' is fruitless, imo, because that time and place is gone. If companies can have a realistic vision of how well they can do, they should be able to develop money making ventures that fit all sorts of player groups. Aiming any new game for WoW status is recipe for failure.

 

[CountZero]

Originally posted by: Arglebargle
WoW owes it's success, in great part to being at the right place, right time. Like Ebay, it was situated at the beginning of an era. It's not like Ebay is a particularly good service, it is just the one everyone knows about.

Same with WoW. It's the game that most non-gamers know about. If someone with no particular knowledge of the field gets interested in online gaming, WoW is what they've heard of. In many ways it is the gateway drug for the various other MMOs. Trying to be 'another WoW' is fruitless, imo, because that time and place is gone. If companies can have a realistic vision of how well they can do, they should be able to develop money making ventures that fit all sorts of player groups. Aiming any new game for WoW status is recipe for failure.

I think you are right except that it wasn't pure luck it was a calculated move. EQ was dominant at that time but I imagine that there were many folks like myself that played EQ at a time when free time was easy to come by but that free time was largely going away and WoW was perfectly designed for people that had less free time. For everything up to max level they nailed it for folks that didn't have all the time in the world. By TBC they had further hit upon the fact that this was where the majority of their players came from and WotLK is the total embrace of this mentality while trying to appease on some level the hardcore players (for lack of a better word).

The difficulty is convincing a company to not shoot for the stars and instead carve out a niche. On the flip side how do you convince a hardcore top ranked WoW guild to go to a niche hardcore only game. There's no fame to be had in defeating boss X from a game if no one else (relatively speaking) plays that game.

 

[Via]

This thread actually prompted me to get an AC 14 day free trial key.

I'm gonna kill some drudges (if they still exist).

 

[Arglebargle]

Originally posted by: CountZero

Originally posted by: Arglebargle
WoW owes it's success, in great part to being at the right place, right time. Like Ebay, it was situated at the beginning of an era. It's not like Ebay is a particularly good service, it is just the one everyone knows about.

Same with WoW. It's the game that most non-gamers know about. If someone with no particular knowledge of the field gets interested in online gaming, WoW is what they've heard of. In many ways it is the gateway drug for the various other MMOs. Trying to be 'another WoW' is fruitless, imo, because that time and place is gone. If companies can have a realistic vision of how well they can do, they should be able to develop money making ventures that fit all sorts of player groups. Aiming any new game for WoW status is recipe for failure.

I think you are right except that it wasn't pure luck it was a calculated move. EQ was dominant at that time but I imagine that there were many folks like myself that played EQ at a time when free time was easy to come by but that free time was largely going away and WoW was perfectly designed for people that had less free time. For everything up to max level they nailed it for folks that didn't have all the time in the world. By TBC they had further hit upon the fact that this was where the majority of their players came from and WotLK is the total embrace of this mentality while trying to appease on some level the hardcore players (for lack of a better word).

The difficulty is convincing a company to not shoot for the stars and instead carve out a niche. On the flip side how do you convince a hardcore top ranked WoW guild to go to a niche hardcore only game. There's no fame to be had in defeating boss X from a game if no one else (relatively speaking) plays that game.

Blizzard had good business sense, certainly. I'd agree that they didn't just wander into it, like a yokel stepping in a cowpatty in the dark. But there are timing bonanazas. I always remember that early on Intel went to Apple to license their OS, and got turned down. So they turned around and went to this small company called Microsoft...

I personally don't care for most Blizzard games, didn't like Warcraft, and tried WoW early and didn't care for it, so probably not the best guy for ingame advice there.

For the niche games, you'd have to make the particular game style such that it clearly trumps the competition, in that area. And then you have to sell that your game is the real thing....

 

[Koudelka]

Originally posted by: TankGuys

Originally posted by: loki8481
LOTRO is $10/month, isn't it?

in any event, I'd be surprised if we ever saw a truly unforgiving MMO ever again (lootable players, de-leveling, etc). it's just not where the $ is.

Yep, don't see it happening. I played EQ quite a bit, and yes, there was a certain thrill and excitement about the bigger risk of death. Made you be more careful, and you had to play your class better.

My wife and I play EQ2 now, which is far, far more forgiving. And honestly, it's a lot more fun. I don't miss those obnoxious corpse runs. My wife would *never* have the patience for it, and that's not a "fun" way to spend your evening. The trade off of hours of frustration if you died at the bottom of a dungeon, vs. the little bonus in excitement just isn't there.

EQ2 is definitely far easier than the orignal EQ was. It is, however, a lot less wasted time running across the world or trying to retrieve your body, and a lot more time doing actual FUN stuff.

The point of EQ was that most of us ENJOYED everything about it.

I do not enjoy an MMO with everything handed to me on a silver platter like WoW, or EQ2.

There is no challenge there. Yeah, a corpse run sucked, but where's the thrill in crawling really deep in a tough dungeon if there is absolutely NO penalty for dieing or wiping?

There is still a hardcore audience out there that would love an MMO reminisce of EQ1, and while numbers not be record-breaking like WoW for subscribers.. i'm sure they would be substantial.

 

[JSt0rm]

play sacred2 hardcore online. Your stomach will sink when you die and thats it your dead. 30 hours in a character and dead. All stuff gone.

 

[JoshGuru7]

1. There is a lot of variety out there and a lot of MMOs that are good on their own merits rather than simply copying "MMO X" that you loved 10 years ago point for point. The newer MMOs are much easier, but that's because they are more accessible and more social which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

2. I take issue with the idea that WAR wasn't a "decent" MMO. Sure there was little to no endgame to speak of after you ran Serpent's Passage for the 50th time, and the open world RvR had some limits in place I wasn't thrilled with. It was still pretty enjoyable for three months or so as I maxed both a zealot and a shaman through 90%+ PvP experience and I probably got around 360 hours of fun out of it (90 days * 4 hours/day). That's far better than a game like Oblivion which was considered amazing largely because it boasted 40-60 hours of gameplay, and I just don't get the vitriol directed at it or the fanboyism of MMO players in general. WAR was a really good "level from 1 to 40 strictly doing PvP" MMO as far as I'm concerned.

3. Conquer Online is a reasonably hardcore F2P MMO with a lot of grinding (130 levels three times), open PK, inventory drop on death, and a very large user base. You can visit the website at http://co.91.com/index/ if that's what your looking for.

 

[pwnagesarus]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
play sacred2 hardcore online. Your stomach will sink when you die and thats it your dead. 30 hours in a character and dead. All stuff gone.

That reminds me of Diablo 2 hardcore. Some decked out guy 30 levels higher than you would join the game, and using his maphack he would find out your location, and when you are knee deep in monsters, become hostile towards you, roll up and wreck your shit. Game over XD

 

[KMFJD]

Originally posted by: Koudelka

Originally posted by: TankGuys

Originally posted by: loki8481
LOTRO is $10/month, isn't it?

in any event, I'd be surprised if we ever saw a truly unforgiving MMO ever again (lootable players, de-leveling, etc). it's just not where the $ is.

Yep, don't see it happening. I played EQ quite a bit, and yes, there was a certain thrill and excitement about the bigger risk of death. Made you be more careful, and you had to play your class better.

My wife and I play EQ2 now, which is far, far more forgiving. And honestly, it's a lot more fun. I don't miss those obnoxious corpse runs. My wife would *never* have the patience for it, and that's not a "fun" way to spend your evening. The trade off of hours of frustration if you died at the bottom of a dungeon, vs. the little bonus in excitement just isn't there.

EQ2 is definitely far easier than the orignal EQ was. It is, however, a lot less wasted time running across the world or trying to retrieve your body, and a lot more time doing actual FUN stuff.

The point of EQ was that most of us ENJOYED everything about it.

I do not enjoy an MMO with everything handed to me on a silver platter like WoW, or EQ2.

There is no challenge there. Yeah, a corpse run sucked, but where's the thrill in crawling really deep in a tough dungeon if there is absolutely NO penalty for dieing or wiping?

There is still a hardcore audience out there that would love an MMO reminisce of EQ1, and while numbers not be record-breaking like WoW for subscribers.. i'm sure they would be substantial.

You should play Darkfall, if you want a hardcore challange

 

[SkyBum]

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: Fanatical Meat
Yeah eve really intrigues me but I am stuck on the can't leave the ship aspect. I know this is a whine/long rant I am really wondering if anyone else feels the same. Why is it so tough to make a decent mmo that has some risk and depth but is worth paying 15 per month?

Why would you want to leave the ship in space?

If you mean in stations, Dominion is coming out around December and it has the ability to walk around stations and visit Corp offices and Race bars.

Well....yes and no. The Dominion expansion is coming out in Dec. but unfortunately Incarna (walking in stations/ambulation) is not to be included.

Lastly, for those of you interested in the Walking in Stations feature where EVE's capsuleers will be given avatars -- it will not be part of the Winter expansion. More info should be forthcoming about the feature at Fanfest, but it's no longer known by its "Walking in Stations" or "Ambulation" codenames. The "Walking in Stations" feature has been named "Incarna".

back on topic, I can understand the frustration of trying to find a suitable MMO. I'd practically given up on MMO's personally, until I tried EVE. It's definitely not for everyone (a bonus in my opinion), but it suits my MMO needs to a T.

 

[pathos]

Originally posted by: Arglebargle

Originally posted by: pathos

It certainly seemed evident in the discussions of Bethesda's Oblivion, where people who started out on Morrowind or Daggerfall tended to not like it. But the Daggerfall starters thought Morrowind was a wimp as well. And people who'd started out on Oblivion tended to like it more.

hey, hey now.

Arena was the shit. Daggerfall on blew nuts

edit - and yes, I am kidding

From what I know of Arena, you'd have to be joking. Or looney....and I don't mean a
Canadian dollar...

Mostly why I was kidding is I actually enjoyed playing Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion. Least favorite was Oblivion, but i still liked it.

Hell, good times, back on the 386 playing Arena. I went and bought a pentium 166 just to play Daggerfall, since I liked Arena so much.

Now, you want to talk about a sad, sad game, and that would be Battlespire. I'd lump in Redguard, but it was actually decent....except for the fact it took 3 hours to beat.

 

[pathos]

I thought I'd actually reply to the topic at hand, but honestly, I think there are quite a few good mmo's out there.

I do, however, invariably grow bored with them over time. Generally, I don't like raiding. And although I do pvp occasionally, it's not a draw for me. So, when I get a character up to max level, then what? Farm the same dugenon over and over again? No thanks. Do the same pointless things over and over again for some silly achievment? hell no.

About the only thing for me to do is reroll, and start a new character. And I do that, at least once. Eventually, no matter how good I think a game is though, I will get bored, and drop it.

If I started ticking off mmo's I played, liked, but eventually dropped, it would be quite long.

 

[JSt0rm]

I think its safe to say that no matter how good a game is you wont be playing it for the rest of your life.