Still Humming Along

Lethe, in your argument I see a similarity to Sara Palin's "people who live in cities are not real Americans" argument. If WoW is the standard for MMOs, has 11 million players (or whatever it is up to now), and acts as a nexus upon which most other games in the genre revolve, how can players of it not be "real MMO players." Just because someone is from a small town or plays a small MMO does not make them more of a "real" anything. Anything that dominates and changes an industry is by the very definition of the word, a success. Just because you don't like WoW and Palin doesn't like cities doesn't mean they aren't thriving, growing centers.

I personally don't like cities. I personally don't like WoW (anymore). But I personally disagree with any arguments that say they aren't successful or important or popular or "real."

WoW is not a standard for MMORPGs. It has 11 million players most of which are not MMORPG players. WoW is not a real MMORPG, it's a cheap oversimplification of an MMO catered to players with limited intelligence and/or maturity and has done nothing to improve the genre.
 
WoW is not a standard for MMORPGs. It has 11 million players most of which are not MMORPG players. WoW is not a real MMORPG, it's a cheap oversimplification of an MMO catered to players with limited intelligence and/or maturity and has done nothing to improve the genre.

What standard are you using to decide a games genre? How does WoW not fit the mold when MMORPG in itself is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which is a genre of computer role-playing games (CRPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world.
Again, how are you deciding whose a MMORPG player?
How does "oversimplification" make a game any less of it's genre?
Your bias:catered to players with limited intelligence and/or maturity and has done nothing to improve the genre.

Your argument has nothing solid to prove your point, other then how much you dislike WoW.
As I said before, I'm not a WoW player/fan at all, but I have enough respect for Blizzard to know that they've done something right to earn the fandom and continued subscriptions of there players.
 
WoW is not a standard for MMORPGs. It has 11 million players most of which are not MMORPG players. WoW is not a real MMORPG, it's a cheap oversimplification of an MMO catered to players with limited intelligence and/or maturity and has done nothing to improve the genre.

Yet, let us break down the acronym MMORPG and see how WoW fits. Massively (check), Multiplayer (check), Online (check), Role-Playing (debatable, but you do still assume the role of a character so- check), Game (check).

Yes, WoW is an MMORPG. Since we've certified that, let's take your statement and change its subject to see if it make sense... how about cars. I will change only three words: players = drivers, WoW = The Yugo, and MMOs = cars.

The Yugo is not a standard for cars. It has 11 million drivers most of which are not car drivers. The Yugo is not a real car, it's a cheap oversimplification of a[n] car catered to drivers with limited intelligence and/or maturity and has done nothing to improve the genre.

What we see here is that people who drive Yugos are not actually car drivers because they drive Yugos, which are cars.

Summary: Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't what it is.
 
WoW is not by any stretch of the imagination a role playing game. And by real MMO players I mean those people who had been playing MMOs before WoW came out. Since WoW changed the genre so much it honestly should have been put in it's own category.

You fargin racist, sexist, ageist bastage!
Ageist? Maybe. Sexist/racist, where the heck are you getting that from?
 
WoW is not by any stretch of the imagination a role playing game. And by real MMO players I mean those people who had been playing MMOs before WoW came out. Since WoW changed the genre so much it honestly should have been put in it's own category.


Ageist? Maybe. Sexist/racist, where the heck are you getting that from?

Serious?! so any gamer aftear WoW isnt considered a real MMO player?
Genres aren't concrete....they reclassify with every new generation
 
Honestly, to a majority of old-school gamers, the market just doesn't cut it anymore. I'm not saying give up hope, I'm just saying bide your time and find something else to spend it on, because the market might never cater to old school DR (way back), EQ, UO, DAoC, or FFXI players again. Everything after WoW will be like it, because that is the most commercially succesful game currently on the market. Until a new company comes out and makes a brand new version of MMORPG gaming, that's what we'll be playing. I've pretty much given up on the genre, but I've got my eye on Aion, and might resub DAoC after 5 or 6 years as entertainment...
 
WoW and FFXI both suck in equal measure but different ways. So do basically all MMOs nowadays, just like Zink said. Nothing will come close to oldschool games like Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds (yes with all it's horrid gameplay, it had tons of social and event stuff that made it great), Dark Ages (before years of mismanagement) and Ultima Online. (before/during Renaissance)

Why? Because those games placed the focus not so much on the grind, but spread it around to multiple separate areas. Areas that don't sell games, so the focus will not be put on those areas any more except as a small by-product of the main game, a la crafting in WoW or apartments in PSU.

The closest "old school" like game out there right now in my opinion is Mabinogi. But even that doesn't have the same social structure and features by far than the old school games that made them a joy to play. But at least it requires player skill rather than time to be good and it's not a linear level grind and has plenty of focus on non-combat activities that can stand on their own without making you more involved in combat.
 
Time for people to learn just to let people play what they enjoy, and for people to let others not enjoy the same games or not like them, and let them say why. People like and don't like all sorts of things, we don't all have to be the same. The biggest problem has to be that people state reasons why "Games are bad" rather than "They don't like games"
 
Time for people to learn just to let people play what they enjoy, and for people to let others not enjoy the same games or not like them, and let them say why. People like and don't like all sorts of things, we don't all have to be the same. The biggest problem has to be that people state reasons why "Games are bad" rather than "They don't like games"

That's true. I wasn't trying to get anyone to like or dislike a game but trying to shoe why I hate certain games, rather than just saying "DO NOT WANT".
 
You might try providing reasons other than "they're just like WoW". What is it about WoW, and these other games, that you dislike specifically? Graphics clip too much? Art style too ... "Cartoony"? Too many quests? Too few quests? Bad solo play (why? how?)? etc.

The fact is, businesses want to make money. A business is not a business if they do not. WoW pulled 10 million plus users/accounts... soooo, all the other companies are trying to learn from Blizzards success. What did, or does, Blizzard do that attracts sooo many people, and how can they cash in on the action?

That question alone makes people say "it's just like WoW". Yet, WoW, is just like a combination of the best features of many games that preceded itself. I see things in WoW that remind me of Everquest (1), and Dark Age of Camelot. There's aspects of WoW that are like a lot of other games too, so Blizzard cashed in on their ability to take the best of many other games, and turned it into one solid game with their own flair and style.

Personally, I dislike the art style of WoW. I feel that you either raid or solo, and that if you solo, you must PvP. Since I don't spend enough time playing, I have to solo, and yet, I dislike PvP. Yet, I've been playing WoW since it was in early beta. Only until recently did I cancel my account ... and I may pick it up again since they released their 3.1 patch. I still don't like it much, but it is what most of my closest friends play, and I enjoy playing with them when I can.
 
WOW is cookie cutter. It's sandbox.

Here's my first log in into any game that I will later classify as a WOW-type game.

I log into the game. I'm given a character select screen. I am given certain options; race, class, and 10-15 ways to change the appearance of my toon. I choose a server (or I chose a server first) a First name, and maybe somewhere I can start.

My toon zones into the game, there are 5 NPCs around me with big yellow exclamation points above their heads. I talk to the first one, he tells me a quick story of woe and he needs 5 boar tusks; boars are right outside the gate. I talk to the second one, he tells me a quick story of woe and he needs 8 boar hides; boars are right outside the gate. The third, fourth and fifth ones tell me similar stories of woe, and they need either boars killed or items that drop from boars or items that can be harvested around the boar area.

There's a sixth exclamation point I see while running out of town, but this one is a different color. I click on him. He's my trainer. He gives me some noob weapon, and has all my spells and skills for when I need him. I run outside and start killing boars. 15 boars later I have all the tusks, hides, little blue flowers, widgits, and pink balloons that I needed, and I run back to town. I give all the items to the 5 gentlemen that wanted them, and I get some nifty gear I can put on! And I gained level 3 (level 2 I got while killing the boars).

They have more quests for me, but this time it's those bees I saw just a little further than the boars.


___ Flash to 6 weeks later ___

I walk into ubertown for the first time. I'm capped (or close to it). There's 5 gentlemen that have exclamation marks above their heads. Hey, one wants 10 vorporal daggers that drop off shadow highwaymen. One needs shadow highwaymen packs. One just hates shadow highwaymen and wants me to kill them. And the other two want me to gather some supplies that only are around where shadowy highwaymen gather.

Where is the fun? Seriously? I've played 10 games that were bloody identical to this. Where's the encouragement to group? How about letting me loose and letting me figure things out by myself. And they encourage and even force you to do the quests because the gear from quests is better than anything that's crafted or bought or that drop off mobs.


Last night I was leveling up my Paladin on FFXI. We were getting like 3500 xp/hr, a party I would usually leave (4000 is acceptable, 6000 is typical). BUT, how we were doing it was so challenging, it was so fun, I stayed just for the challenge. I could have leveled up somewhere else with a different party and PWNed and got 2 levels. But I stayed because I was always an edge away from death.

No NPC told us to go there to get Beetle carapaces or jaws, or to gather the rocks around the area. We came up with where we wanted to go, we found out that place was a bit too hard for us, but we stuck it out. We all had a hell of a lot of fun. Since our damage was slow, we set up Skillchains and Magic bursts, we set up a rotation of nukes and healing that worked very well. And by the end we were all a lot wiser on how to play our classes and where to party with what kind of group, and a lot better than we were when we started.
 
You should really check out Asheron's Call if you don't want to be told to do quests or have to do them to lvl.
It's an old game and not the high tech graphs but it's not a wow clone.
If you can't find a game that a clone of some other game you don't like then maybe it's time to make a game yourself that is just what you want.
Either that or stop playing games all together, no need to get stressed over something you can't change, life is too short.
I play games my friends are on, just to have fun and on cold stormy nights it gives me something to do, as there is mostly felgercarb on TV now a days.
FFXI sounds like its a game you like so stay with it. I play Wow because its a game I like to play as I don't have to think lol and its a game my friends play so if I want to game with them I play it.
I still play AC too, I switch back in forth as they are 2 different types of games. I have to think more in AC plus AC still to this day has the best pvp in the gaming system as far as I am concerned.
Ok I'm out of here
Everyone is allowed to have there own option of what they like, if we didn't it would be a pretty boring world. Just don't try and push your options on others and let them enjoy their own gaming likes
 
Last night I was leveling up my Paladin on FFXI. We were getting like 3500 xp/hr, a party I would usually leave (4000 is acceptable, 6000 is typical). BUT, how we were doing it was so challenging, it was so fun, I stayed just for the challenge. I could have leveled up somewhere else with a different party and PWNed and got 2 levels. But I stayed because I was always an edge away from death.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here because I do understand your point to a certain extent but at the same time, how is your experience in FFXI any different than WoW? Both seem like grinding to me only one guides you and the other is a bit more free form. Either way, you are still killing the same mobs over and over again.

As for challenge, there is nothing stopping people from grinding tougher mobs in WoW. It's just generally, people take the path of least resistance. And my guess is, once your party understood how to kill the mob, there was no real challenge involved because all you had to do is follow the same pattern of attacks, chains...whatever over and over again. The only risk at that point is messing up the timing or performing some skill at the wrong time. This sounds an awful like running new instances and raids in WoW where the unknown is the challenge.
 
Both seem like grinding to me only one guides you and the other is a bit more free form. Either way, you are still killing the same mobs over and over again.

I'm not sure the term 'grinding' can be considered in WOW. FFXI is a grind, Gemstone IV is a motha of a grind.

And it's not that WOW 'guides' you. It's that your experience is identical to everybody elses. It doesn't really give you a choice. You have to do the quests or your gear is gimped and you suck.

As for challenge, there is nothing stopping people from grinding tougher mobs in WoW. It's just generally, people take the path of least resistance. And my guess is, once your party understood how to kill the mob, there was no real challenge involved because all you had to do is follow the same pattern of attacks, chains...whatever over and over again. The only risk at that point is messing up the timing or performing some skill at the wrong time. This sounds an awful like running new instances and raids in WoW where the unknown is the challenge.

The party ended with the death of little Valendros, Taru Paladin. It never got easy. It got easier.



What I hope from Heros Journey if the bloody thing can ever actually come out. Is that your experience is not the same as mine. What I would REALLY like is if there were some logic to the quests.

Why would Dude B be asking me for 5 boar hides. He's got 5 boar hides from everybody else that's come through this bloody town. He must have a billion boar hides by now. Now if he asked me for 5 boar hides, and somebody else for 3 giant bee stingers, and he somehow made some cool cloak out of the two things, then he sold the cloak (at a discount for anybody who helped him get materials). Then he has 2 cloaks in stock, so now he's collecting items for something else.

If there were some purpose to it.

We're not here because we're free; we're here because we're not free. There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose, because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist.
It is purpose that created us. Purpose that connects us. Purpose that pulls us. That guides us. That drives us. It is purpose that defines. Purpose that binds us.
 
Val, I really like that concept for quests. Hopefully, if not HJ then another MMO, will take the time to add a bit of "logic" to npc quest givers.
 
I, too, agree with that.
It's very nice to see that i'm not the only one asking for Purpose in MMOs and a World that's actually in Character. There's so much to be gained in so many Ways, so much that would honestly be new in the Genre.

I can't help but curse the Success of WoW. Curse you Blizzard, for doing the wrong Things right !
 
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