@wanderingmist
What do you mean with end-game gear progression? Do you mean the fact, that Activision-Blizzard throws Epic gear around as if it was candy, or that Dungeons can give better gear then raids? xD
Both. The way Blizzard distributes gear ruins the player progression, character progression and makes half of their content worthless. Why do normal, heroic and mythic 0 dungeons when you get better gear from world quests? Why do normal raids when you can get better gear from literally any other piece of content?
The knock-on effect of this is that players are forced into content that they are prepared for, inevitably failing and quitting.
0
Options
AzryilMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
For Ashes, I would like to see gear have meaning again, If I see someone in town in full epic gear that should be a badge of honor for that player, not an expectation for all players.
I really hope it won't, the reason I even checked out MMORPGs is because ashes was different. I feel like there are a lot of other people like me checking out the game, I'm just super overly optimistic about it and am active here. If they do this right I think it will bring in a lot of new life to MMORPGs. Previously I'd never even thought to try one because the only big one I knew about was WoW. So I don't go on forever, I really do hope ashes will be something special. They could keep adding unique things, listening to their playerbase and improving after launch. It could be something really amazing .
I'm hoping they will make great content. Just going by the fact that raids won't drop gear, it's a huge step forward.
Maybe we won't get an expansion and our gear will become obsolete, they might make new recipes available to improve your current gear, or give aesthetics changes.
Personally I really dislike when one expansion makes old content obsolete, gives no reason to do it.
Also they have PvP, I mean, and it sounds like great PvP!
It sounds like they go way out of their way to allow someone to become corrupt and then work it off. Corruption makes you ineffective and gearless if you continue. Also, a non-combatant suffers more penalty than a combatant, such as more resource loss. So you're not friendly to PvE people. I'm basing this on a link from a post for new players trying to gather information. I was interested in this game until I saw that it is not friendly to PvE types.
I'm hoping they will make great content. Just going by the fact that raids won't drop gear, it's a huge step forward.
Raid will drop gear though xD
0
Options
ilisfetMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
My issue with MMOs is that they're bad on average, mediocre at best games. People talk about good MMORPGs and whatnot, but from the perspective of someone who doesn't play MMOs much, they all have lacking core gameplay, held up primarily by social interaction and a deluge of content to make you forget about the bad gameplay.
Ashes of Creation sounds like it'll try to be a good game rather than just a good MMO, which is why I backed it. What I've played of APOC is a good start. I hesitate to think about how tab target vs action balancing will go, but they have a good start to the action gameplay -- minus the hitscan nightfall bow.
With the amount of content an MMORPG is expected to have, some part of AoC will turn out mediocre. But at least it won't be for a lack of trying. Steven knows our feedback and he's played many games himself. Best of all, Intrepid is privately owned so there's no publisher or stockholders stifling experimentation. The question is whether they take the time and have the management to turn out a good game, rather than just a good MMO.
My issue with MMOs is that they're bad on average, mediocre at best games. People talk about good MMORPGs and whatnot, but from the perspective of someone who doesn't play MMOs much, they all have lacking core gameplay, held up primarily by social interaction and a deluge of content to make you forget about the bad gameplay.
Ashes of Creation sounds like it'll try to be a good game rather than just a good MMO, which is why I backed it. What I've played of APOC is a good start. I hesitate to think about how tab target vs action balancing will go, but they have a good start to the action gameplay -- minus the hitscan nightfall bow.
With the amount of content an MMORPG is expected to have, some part of AoC will turn out mediocre. But at least it won't be for a lack of trying. Steven knows our feedback and he's played many games himself. Best of all, Intrepid is privately owned so there's no publisher or stockholders stifling experimentation. The question is whether they take the time and have the management to turn out a good game, rather than just a good MMO.
@Ilisfet I agree. They should focus on being a fun game for all people, not just 'MMORPGers' who mainly consists of truly pathetic and desperate people
0
Options
Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
My issue with MMOs is that they're bad on average, mediocre at best games. People talk about good MMORPGs and whatnot, but from the perspective of someone who doesn't play MMOs much, they all have lacking core gameplay, held up primarily by social interaction and a deluge of content to make you forget about the bad gameplay.
Ashes of Creation sounds like it'll try to be a good game rather than just a good MMO, which is why I backed it. What I've played of APOC is a good start. I hesitate to think about how tab target vs action balancing will go, but they have a good start to the action gameplay -- minus the hitscan nightfall bow.
With the amount of content an MMORPG is expected to have, some part of AoC will turn out mediocre. But at least it won't be for a lack of trying. Steven knows our feedback and he's played many games himself. Best of all, Intrepid is privately owned so there's no publisher or stockholders stifling experimentation. The question is whether they take the time and have the management to turn out a good game, rather than just a good MMO.
@Ilisfet I agree. They should focus on being a fun game for all people, not just 'MMORPGers' who mainly consists of truly pathetic and desperate people
Sigh, where do I begin with this. First of all, you are making the assumption that what you find "fun", everyone else will find fun. That has never been, and will never be, the case. There is no such thing as a game being fun for all people. It is impossible to cater to everyone in a single game, and companies that try inevitably fail.
@Ilisfet What do you define as "good core gameplay"? Again just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad. I find card games like Hearthstone incredibly boring to play, but that doesn't mean card games are bad. And yes, most mmorpgs are focused around cooperation between players, and social aspects of the game. Does that make the game bad? BY that logic football is one of the worst sports in the world, because playing football on your own is one of the most boring things to do. It's only really fun to me when played with other people.
My issue with MMOs is that they're bad on average, mediocre at best games. People talk about good MMORPGs and whatnot, but from the perspective of someone who doesn't play MMOs much, they all have lacking core gameplay, held up primarily by social interaction and a deluge of content to make you forget about the bad gameplay.
Ashes of Creation sounds like it'll try to be a good game rather than just a good MMO, which is why I backed it. What I've played of APOC is a good start. I hesitate to think about how tab target vs action balancing will go, but they have a good start to the action gameplay -- minus the hitscan nightfall bow.
With the amount of content an MMORPG is expected to have, some part of AoC will turn out mediocre. But at least it won't be for a lack of trying. Steven knows our feedback and he's played many games himself. Best of all, Intrepid is privately owned so there's no publisher or stockholders stifling experimentation. The question is whether they take the time and have the management to turn out a good game, rather than just a good MMO.
@Ilisfet I agree. They should focus on being a fun game for all people, not just 'MMORPGers' who mainly consists of truly pathetic and desperate people
Sigh, where do I begin with this. First of all, you are making the assumption that what you find "fun", everyone else will find fun. That has never been, and will never be, the case. There is no such thing as a game being fun for all people. It is impossible to cater to everyone in a single game, and companies that try inevitably fail.
@Ilisfet What do you define as "good core gameplay"? Again just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad. I find card games like Hearthstone incredibly boring to play, but that doesn't mean card games are bad. And yes, most mmorpgs are focused around cooperation between players, and social aspects of the game. Does that make the game bad? BY that logic football is one of the worst sports in the world, because playing football on your own is one of the most boring things to do. It's only really fun to me when played with other people.
@wanderingmist *sigh*, where do I begin with your comment...First of all, I made no assumptions about what people consider 'fun' - I merely stated the fact that MMORPG community is made of people who are desperate for a 'good' game yet what they consider 'fun' and 'good' is disturbingly boring and dull for the majority of the gaming community today. As you should know, MMORPGers are now a part of a niche community which is no real surprise - the reason is neither 'p2w' nor lack of 'old school' elements; it is simply boring gameplay, nothing else. Here we come to your point of fun being relative: it is partly true as it depends on many external factors and people's experiences. However, things have changed - it is not 2007 anymore; most gamers have a general idea of what is fun and what isn't. The reason why most gamers play League of Legends, PUBG, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Dota etc is because they are FUN. Not because they're 'entitled children' (It's like saying MMORPG players are mostly old weirdos that look like the image below)
0
Options
Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@kayra I think you need to open a dictionary and look up the terms "fact" and "assumption". An assumption is something you believe is true without question or proof. A fact is something that is proven to be true. You have no idea what the "mmorpgers" consider to be fun because it varies from person to person. There is nothing factual about your post, only assumptions and conjecture based on your own personal feelings.
I've known some players who enjoy nothing more than putting on a film or some music and fishing for hours in an mmorpg (something I would find incredibly boring). I've known players who hate combat and prefer to either just explore or do crafting all the time. Are they wrong for having fun doing things you personally find boring?
Oh and on a side note, I've played all the games you have listed and didn't enjoy playing them.
@kayra I think you need to open a dictionary and look up the terms "fact" and "assumption". An assumption is something you believe is true without question or proof. A fact is something that is proven to be true. You have no idea what the "mmorpgers" consider to be fun because it varies from person to person. There is nothing factual about your post, only assumptions and conjecture based on your own personal feelings.
I've known some players who enjoy nothing more than putting on a film or some music and fishing for hours in an mmorpg (something I would find incredibly boring). I've known players who hate combat and prefer to either just explore or do crafting all the time. Are they wrong for having fun doing things you personally find boring?
Oh and on a side note, I've played all the games you have listed and didn't enjoy playing them.
@wanderingmist uhm, did you even read what I typed? - if you did, are you incapable of understanding what you read? I just said 'your point of fun being relative: it is partly true as it depends on many external factors and people's experiences.' 😓'There is nothing factual about your post, only assumptions and conjecture based on your own personal feelings.' help me god! - If there's one thing I assumed, it was your knowledge regarding the matter which I should be careful with before I leave a comment again...Lemme give you some facts about what I've just said: ' MMORPG community is made of people who are desperate for a 'good' game yet what they consider 'fun' and 'good' is disturbingly boring and dull for the majority of the gaming community today' - duh! majority of gamers today play competitive games that stimulates adrenaline which can be proven by numbers - PUBG (More than 50 million online players), Fortnite (39 million online players), Apex Legends (50 Million players online in ONE MONTH), League of legends (over 100 million active players each month in 2016 - who knows the number in 2019). Now, let's look at some of the most popular MMORPGs: World of Warcraft ( 5.5 million global subscribers in 2015 - much lower in 2019 and will most probably continue to decline which you can see below), Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (more than 14 million registered players - including free trial accounts), Guild Wars 2 (over 11 million players - total, not active). 'MMORPGers are now a part of a niche community which is no real surprise - the reason is neither 'p2w' nor lack of 'old school' elements; it is simply boring gameplay, nothing else.' It is a FACT that MMORPGers are now part of a niche community, there's no denying that - while boring gameplay as the reason for it was partly my observation. 'most gamers have a general idea of what is fun and what isn't.' yes, MOST do have an idea (proven by numbers again) - This doesn't mean all of them define 'fun' the same way which never was my point - have no idea how you came up with that as I was obviously generalizing. 'Are they wrong for having fun doing things you personally find boring?' Nope they aren't wrong. As mentioned, people define fun in different ways. Therefore, I said Ashes should have most of the elements what the majority of gamers around the world consider 'fun' AND all other stuff that MMORPGers of all kinds love about the genre.
'As a side note', the mentioned games are fun for MOST gamers. I'm not gonna try and find out why you didn't enjoy them as I couldn't care less..Tho I find it ironic that you have the profile picture of one of the icons in League of Legends
0
Options
Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@kayra oh boy, here we go. Yes the games you listed are very popular, but you have no idea why they are popular (unless there has been a study on it that I don't know about). You assume it's because those games are competitive and stimulate adrenaline. Again, you have no facts to back this up, so it is just an assumption.
I have my own theory which is that players these days prefer session-based gameplay rather than persistent game worlds. This is just a theory and I have no proof to back it up, same as you.
You appear to have fallen into the trap of thinking that Correlation equals causation, which is very rarely the case. You have a bunch of numbers but you have no idea what caused those numbers.
@wanderingmist well, I'm happy to see you've come with a logical argument. Yes, it is true - I can't give an exact reason why people play those games - I think it's just because they are fun and MMORPGs aren't..but that's just my opinion. In order to better understand the Ashes community I've asked several questions on this forum. One of them is this https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42243/which-mmorpg-do-you-play-constantly-and-actually-enjoy/p1 - ' Which MMORPG do you play constantly and actually enjoy?' There were 35 comments and most people seemed to play one or two MMORPGs yet only few said they 'enjoy' playing them (had the same results on ashes discord). Now I don't know the reason why they don't but the most probable reason is that common characteristics of MMORPGS are starting to show their age which were firmly established with early popular titles like Ultima Online and EverQuest. To collect some data I asked 'What features you dislike in MMOs and hope Ashes won't have?' https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42266/what-features-you-dislike-in-mmos-and-hope-ashes-wont-have/p1 . There were 75 comments including Lieutenant Toast's and yours. People complained about many things so it's hard to mention one single issue - which suggests that there are many wrong things about the genre. I think MMOs (not MMORPGs) will be the future of gaming as it can have all of the elements of fun games and put them into a persistent world combined with SOME of the established MMO features. I will try to find some academic and industrial articles regarding why people play the games they do just in case anyway.
2
Options
ilisfetMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@Ilisfet What do you define as "good core gameplay"?
What "core gameplay" should be varies by title and I'd have to elaborate that point on a case by case basis, but "good" comes from evoking the intended experience in players, being internally and externally consistent, and enjoyable either in the moment or on the whole.
Being consistent is a rather large part of keeping gameplay fun. This comes down to systems behaving as a player is led to expect. It's something most games do right, but I know ESO does wrong.
The way abilities behave in combat makes them unintuitive. For example AoE attacks: sometimes they miss for no apparent reason. Watching how they miss leads me to believe they synced up the damage with the attack animation but not the check for what is hit. It feels like when you use an AoE skill, the area is scanned the moment the button is pressed and isn't changed even if you move between button press and damage firing off. However if the enemy(s) move outside that area or dodge at any point between the area scan and damage firing off, the attack misses.
Roll dodge also behaves unintuitively. How rolling works is the invulnerable status (with many exceptions, primarily AoE) is applied for the full duration of the animation, then the player's location is updated. The player's hitbox doesn't move once the roll's started, but the graphical model does. It's only once the i-frames are done that the hitbox's position is updated. So to roll catch, you have to aim where they were not where they are. On top of that (something which has seen improvement in the last year), the i-frames cover more than just the rolling portion of the animation. In any other game with rolls, the getting up part after the roll wouldn't have i-frames and leaves the character vulnerable. ESO has i-frames there. So what seems like it'd roll catch still misses. What saw improvement is dodging broke tracking on all incoming projectiles, so if you use a cast time ability like Snipe or Crystal Fragments, the player can dodge at any time from when the casting starts till the projectile connects -- at least 2 full seconds. It results in projectiles missing targets who have long finished their roll because they dodged during the cast time. This part has been addressed, since tracking on projectiles is restored after 1 second.
But I hope you get my point about how frustrating inconsistent gameplay is.
Enjoyable gameplay on the whole comes in for games that aren't meant to be fun in the moment to moment. Say Darkest Dungeon or even standard strategy games. The moment to moment gameplay is stress inducing or non-evocative, but when recalling the experience as a whole: it's enjoyable. Conversely, moment to moment enjoyable gameplay like high speed movement, satisfying (not necessarily flashy) attacks, and funny writing are more immediately apparent as to why they're so fun. And key's to distinguish enjoyable from fun: something doesn't have to fun to be enjoyable, but fun is generally enjoyable. Defining games as needing to be fun rules out more evocative experiences like Papers Please.
2
Options
Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2019
@kayra I did wonder why you were asking so many questions like that on the forums. I think part of the problem mmorpgs face is that they are by far the hardest and most expensive games to make. This often results in mmorpg developers churning out repetitive content just to meet the demand of the players, who go through the content far faster than it can be made. Games like LoL and Fortnite are far easier by comparison to make new content for.
As for why people play mmorpgs, I can only speak for myself here but the reason I play them over other genres is because raiding allows me to work closely with a group of people to overcome a difficult challenge. We work together over the course of weeks or months to beat a boss, and the feeling I get when we finally kill the boss is so special to me. This is something unique to the mmorpg genre.
@Ilisfet I agree that consistency is hugely important in any game. One of the reasons why I left LoL was because the hitbox detection on the skills were so inconsistent. Sometimes the targeting reticle would be right on top of an enemy player, and the skill would somehow miss. And other times the reticle would be nowhere near a player's character and it would still hit them. It was incredibly frustrating to play with.
When talking about "fun" games, this reminds me of something Total Biscuit (Rest in Peace) said a long time ago. He said that not all games have to be "fun", make you laugh or smile, but they have to be engaging. "Papers, Please" is a perfect example of this, a game that is designed not necessarily for you to enjoy, but to make you think.
Well in other mmos I can clearly see that there is some thing called mmo stupidity (cause devs and owner are focused on squeezing out every penny they can out of the player base) But when is see the videos and devs and the game concept I see something called mmo intelligence. (Which is a really rare). So I see this game having a lot of potential.
I have made some post that deal with some of the inner workings of the game and may sound not too positive. But Truth is i do not even like to post that much only reason I post is because Ashes of Creation looks like a great game. And like to think my input might be helpful.
Ashes of Creation will be the game to play when it comes out. Glad they went with six pvp classes instead of trying to balance 64 classes. That is a huge plus for the pvp community helps level the field as far as balanced is concerned. That was A really smart move on their part. Plus they have made many smart decisions.
My only concern now is will the node system with all its systems and subsystems work. Will it work as intended ounce you introduce the human element. The human element as in people always like to exploit systems. If they pull it off and make the the node system work the way it is described (node vs node, sieges in game factions, the world economy plus all the other layers) then this will be a great game.
But let say that there is a mayor that gets elected that has some other nodes interest in mind.....is there a way to oust them...or maybe they just grounded and cannot play...what then.
Glad they went with six pvp classes instead of trying to balance 64 classes. That is a huge plus for the pvp community helps level the field as far as balanced is concerned. That was A really smart move on their part. Plus they have made many smart decisions.
I think people overcomplicate this whole issue really.
MMOs in itself aren't shunned for being persistent, they are shunned for being simply bad. WoW was an amazing hit and drew 12million subs. 12 million people paying every month gesus. If Apex had to be paid even 5€ every month do you think it could have lived up to those numbers?
WoW made questionable decisions that deviated from their initial allure that effectively built up that followerbase and you can follow that with sub numbers.
There hasn't been a single mmo since then that was really good. They only ever had some good/eyecatching elements and a shitton of bad ones.
Look at SW:ToR in it's beginning and the first..2? years or so. The leveling experience was amazing, everything else was sub-standard at best with rare nuggets of good.
It was hailed as the wow killer, then the wow clone, then a weak copy of wow because that's what it was at best, a bad game copying wow. At least it had the Star Wars universe going for it, that kept people hopeful for a while.
Every game since then follows that schematic, they stand out for one reason or two some just banked on their name even, the rest is garbage/overshadowed by business practice.
There is not a single MMO since WoW till now that I consider baseline good in every category of it's content.
Those games are simply that, bad games. Granted I can't refute other reasons but before I make a judgment on that, I would like to have a good mmo to judge and compare.
Naming Apex and PUBG as outliners is well and good, but overall Battleroyal isn't that sucessfull. There are a good 50 BR games that died in a matter of days to weeks or humour a small community at best. Why? Because they are bad games, simple as that, but what the BR genre has, that the MMO genre lacks, is an overall good game.
Edit: To clarify my issue with the arguments. If Apex/LoL was on a subscription a heck less people would play it. It's not that good and especially lol has bloated numbers with multiple accounts per person. PUBG PEAKED at 3.5 million players in a day and now struggles at around 400k. Why? It's not THAT good, not a lot of people that bought it kept playing.
It was just a new genre people hoped to explore.
Servers are shit, anti hacking is garbage, content to reignite interest is nonexistent, but we got loot boxes, hurray to that!!
50 million copies sold sounds nice on paper, but play statistics are underwhelming in comparison to that.
I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
@grisu
I think that one of the major reasons for SWTORs downfall was that it was released in the time when WoW and blizzard were in their prime. They had absorbed too much of the casual player base. Not many people wanted to finance two or even three monthly subscriptions per month, and the truth was sadly, that most casuals already invested too muvh time into WoW to start new in anothdf mmorpg.
This lead to the death of many actually good mmorpgs, like aion and swtor, they had to switch from a monthly subscription to f2p, leading in turn to cash shops and premium membership...
That's up to everyone to decide on their own, I played both and I stand to my statement, it was a bad game that had only 2 outstanding features. Leveling experience and Star Wars universe.
Granted the dungeon design <<AT TIMES>> was interesting(not good, mind you, interesting) and HUTBALL was the best in lore battleground I have ever seen, but everything else was absolut trash in my opinion and fell years short of WoW.
I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
0
Options
VarkunMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@grisu great post above pretty much sums up many of the issues and the general feeling I have towards most of the games that release nowadays. I see my guild mats jump on all of these flash in the pan games play for 2 weeks to a month them never go back to them. To me, they are just shallow copies of games I gave up playing 15 or 20 years ago. All I play now is MMO's and they have become shallow theme park rides of late, just hope Ashes can be something different and only time will tell on that one.
Close your eyes spread your arms and always trust your cape.
0
Options
Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited May 2019
@Damokles So do you believe that if SWTOR was released this year, it would be more successful? After all, I believe WoW is on borrowed time and this is the best time for a new mmorpg to rise up to challenge it.
@grisu I see where you are coming from but at the same time it's unreasonable to expect an mmorpg to have all amazing content across the board. More often than not mmorpgs have to focus mostly on a single element in order to stand out. Games like SWTOR and GW2 focused on the leveling, FFXIV focused on the story, and WoW focused on the end-game PvE. I would never expect WoW to be able to put in the amount of time and effort into the leveling as SWTOR did, whilst still keeping up their high quality raiding content.
Games need to play to their strengths rather than trying to make everything amazing. In the case of Ashes, it looks like their focus is in their community world-building and node systems, which is something I don't believe any other major mmorpg is really focusing on right now. If they stick to that niche they should be fine. I just hope they don't make the same mistake GW2 did of trying to incorporate WoW-style raids into a game that was never designed to support it.
@wanderingmist If they did it right yeah. I mean... the moment i logged in last year the first thing i saw where tons of races behind a paywall...
Do it right, and they have a good game tbh!
Thats a weird way to come up with a counter argument.
It's unreasonable to expect a good game? (Never asked for amazing, but good)
Wow was across the board good and it set a standard for the themepark genre.
If you want to make an mmo you need to consider before you start that its a broader game with more moving parts. Thats the strength of an mmorpg in the first place. It can offer so much more diverse content than a laser focused game. Simply put, its a bigger game nothing else.
I dont want to go into the charing, fundamental, flaws off all those mmos that came later. Baseline is, most of them didnt even work in its own design philosophy and fell way short of the standard wow set across the board. Wow itself failed to uphold that over time adapting the philosophy "less quality way less expenses", thats how you make money. Wink wink.
I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
0
Options
Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Thats a weird way to come up with a counter argument.
It's unreasonable to expect a good game? (Never asked for amazing, but good)
Wow was across the board good and it set a standard for the themepark genre.
If you want to make an mmo you need to consider before you start that its a broader game with more moving parts. Thats the strength of an mmorpg in the first place. It can offer so much more diverse content than a laser focused game. Simply put, its a bigger game nothing else.
I dont want to go into the charing, fundamental, flaws off all those mmos that came later. Baseline is, most of them didnt even work in its own design philosophy and fell way short of the standard wow set across the board. Wow itself failed to uphold that over time adapting the philosophy "less quality way less expenses", thats how you make money. Wink wink.
So here's a curious question. You say other mmorpgs fell short of the standard set by WoW, but were they really that bad compared to it? I think of games like Rift, Aion, City of Heroes, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, etc. and really they aren't that bad compared to WoW. In my opinion, the only reason why WoW succeeded was because of the franchise it came from, and that it came first.
Short answer yes.
Rift had attrocious combat imo and as far as I remember there was some business bullshittery going on, i mean NcSoft, nice.
Warhammer was a pvp centric game while pve was neglected. Also EA quality?
Aion in the old days might have been on par in its own rights true. I personally couldnt play it. The semi realistic style while also having a char creator for monstrosities turned me off. It just gnared on me ll the time. Im also fairly certai that aion was extremely competitive it was impossible to catch up without money. Business decisions undermining a probably good game and it turned certainly p2w over time.
City of heroes is the only one that flew totally past me. No idea there.
So yeah i stand to my statement in general.
Edit: Wildstar might be the best example in that regard. It came way after wows prime. The market was technically ripe for hte taking. It was a decent enough game imo but everyone following it knows what happened. Bad managment. Bad communication with the community (aka nonexistence) and a "it will be fine we don't need to fix things" attitude. There are good games out there that failed due to other reasons, hence the "short answer yes."
I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
0
Options
AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The Secret World tried to do something different. Put the game in a modern, real world environment (though you are exploring the secret supernatural and conspiratorial side hidden from everyone else). Give it a gruesome and creepy horror vibe.
Add missions very different from a traditional MMO; you do have missions where you kill X number of a kind of enemy but they are part of a larger ongoing story. You also have missions where you have to stealth and avoid traps, or investigate puzzles. That might involve translating from a real ancient language, or decoding Morse Code, or cruising real web sites created for the game. But make it very much not WoW.
Being non-traditional meant they never hit it big. They didn’t sell a lot of games, nor did they get a lot of subscribers. But because they offered something different, something that wasn’t that a clone, those who played stuck around. It’s in its seventh year and still going.
So yeah, you can be different and succeed (EVE Online was mentioned previously and is another good example). I will say now, AoC will never be the next big MMO. But if they do what they say they will and don’t screw it up, it might be around for a long time. I hope so, my lifetime sub better be worth something.
Comments
Both. The way Blizzard distributes gear ruins the player progression, character progression and makes half of their content worthless. Why do normal, heroic and mythic 0 dungeons when you get better gear from world quests? Why do normal raids when you can get better gear from literally any other piece of content?
The knock-on effect of this is that players are forced into content that they are prepared for, inevitably failing and quitting.
Maybe we won't get an expansion and our gear will become obsolete, they might make new recipes available to improve your current gear, or give aesthetics changes.
Personally I really dislike when one expansion makes old content obsolete, gives no reason to do it.
Also they have PvP, I mean, and it sounds like great PvP!
Raid will drop gear though xD
Ashes of Creation sounds like it'll try to be a good game rather than just a good MMO, which is why I backed it. What I've played of APOC is a good start. I hesitate to think about how tab target vs action balancing will go, but they have a good start to the action gameplay -- minus the hitscan nightfall bow.
With the amount of content an MMORPG is expected to have, some part of AoC will turn out mediocre. But at least it won't be for a lack of trying. Steven knows our feedback and he's played many games himself. Best of all, Intrepid is privately owned so there's no publisher or stockholders stifling experimentation. The question is whether they take the time and have the management to turn out a good game, rather than just a good MMO.
@Ilisfet I agree. They should focus on being a fun game for all people, not just 'MMORPGers' who mainly consists of truly pathetic and desperate people
Sigh, where do I begin with this. First of all, you are making the assumption that what you find "fun", everyone else will find fun. That has never been, and will never be, the case. There is no such thing as a game being fun for all people. It is impossible to cater to everyone in a single game, and companies that try inevitably fail.
@Ilisfet What do you define as "good core gameplay"? Again just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad. I find card games like Hearthstone incredibly boring to play, but that doesn't mean card games are bad. And yes, most mmorpgs are focused around cooperation between players, and social aspects of the game. Does that make the game bad? BY that logic football is one of the worst sports in the world, because playing football on your own is one of the most boring things to do. It's only really fun to me when played with other people.
@wanderingmist *sigh*, where do I begin with your comment...First of all, I made no assumptions about what people consider 'fun' - I merely stated the fact that MMORPG community is made of people who are desperate for a 'good' game yet what they consider 'fun' and 'good' is disturbingly boring and dull for the majority of the gaming community today. As you should know, MMORPGers are now a part of a niche community which is no real surprise - the reason is neither 'p2w' nor lack of 'old school' elements; it is simply boring gameplay, nothing else. Here we come to your point of fun being relative: it is partly true as it depends on many external factors and people's experiences. However, things have changed - it is not 2007 anymore; most gamers have a general idea of what is fun and what isn't. The reason why most gamers play League of Legends, PUBG, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Dota etc is because they are FUN. Not because they're 'entitled children' (It's like saying MMORPG players are mostly old weirdos that look like the image below)
I've known some players who enjoy nothing more than putting on a film or some music and fishing for hours in an mmorpg (something I would find incredibly boring). I've known players who hate combat and prefer to either just explore or do crafting all the time. Are they wrong for having fun doing things you personally find boring?
Oh and on a side note, I've played all the games you have listed and didn't enjoy playing them.
@wanderingmist uhm, did you even read what I typed? - if you did, are you incapable of understanding what you read? I just said 'your point of fun being relative: it is partly true as it depends on many external factors and people's experiences.' 😓'There is nothing factual about your post, only assumptions and conjecture based on your own personal feelings.' help me god! - If there's one thing I assumed, it was your knowledge regarding the matter which I should be careful with before I leave a comment again...Lemme give you some facts about what I've just said: ' MMORPG community is made of people who are desperate for a 'good' game yet what they consider 'fun' and 'good' is disturbingly boring and dull for the majority of the gaming community today' - duh! majority of gamers today play competitive games that stimulates adrenaline which can be proven by numbers - PUBG (More than 50 million online players), Fortnite (39 million online players), Apex Legends (50 Million players online in ONE MONTH), League of legends (over 100 million active players each month in 2016 - who knows the number in 2019). Now, let's look at some of the most popular MMORPGs: World of Warcraft ( 5.5 million global subscribers in 2015 - much lower in 2019 and will most probably continue to decline which you can see below), Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (more than 14 million registered players - including free trial accounts), Guild Wars 2 (over 11 million players - total, not active). 'MMORPGers are now a part of a niche community which is no real surprise - the reason is neither 'p2w' nor lack of 'old school' elements; it is simply boring gameplay, nothing else.' It is a FACT that MMORPGers are now part of a niche community, there's no denying that - while boring gameplay as the reason for it was partly my observation. 'most gamers have a general idea of what is fun and what isn't.' yes, MOST do have an idea (proven by numbers again) - This doesn't mean all of them define 'fun' the same way which never was my point - have no idea how you came up with that as I was obviously generalizing. 'Are they wrong for having fun doing things you personally find boring?' Nope they aren't wrong. As mentioned, people define fun in different ways. Therefore, I said Ashes should have most of the elements what the majority of gamers around the world consider 'fun' AND all other stuff that MMORPGers of all kinds love about the genre.
'As a side note', the mentioned games are fun for MOST gamers. I'm not gonna try and find out why you didn't enjoy them as I couldn't care less..Tho I find it ironic that you have the profile picture of one of the icons in League of Legends
I have my own theory which is that players these days prefer session-based gameplay rather than persistent game worlds. This is just a theory and I have no proof to back it up, same as you.
You appear to have fallen into the trap of thinking that Correlation equals causation, which is very rarely the case. You have a bunch of numbers but you have no idea what caused those numbers.
What "core gameplay" should be varies by title and I'd have to elaborate that point on a case by case basis, but "good" comes from evoking the intended experience in players, being internally and externally consistent, and enjoyable either in the moment or on the whole.
Being consistent is a rather large part of keeping gameplay fun. This comes down to systems behaving as a player is led to expect. It's something most games do right, but I know ESO does wrong.
The way abilities behave in combat makes them unintuitive. For example AoE attacks: sometimes they miss for no apparent reason. Watching how they miss leads me to believe they synced up the damage with the attack animation but not the check for what is hit. It feels like when you use an AoE skill, the area is scanned the moment the button is pressed and isn't changed even if you move between button press and damage firing off. However if the enemy(s) move outside that area or dodge at any point between the area scan and damage firing off, the attack misses.
Roll dodge also behaves unintuitively. How rolling works is the invulnerable status (with many exceptions, primarily AoE) is applied for the full duration of the animation, then the player's location is updated. The player's hitbox doesn't move once the roll's started, but the graphical model does. It's only once the i-frames are done that the hitbox's position is updated. So to roll catch, you have to aim where they were not where they are. On top of that (something which has seen improvement in the last year), the i-frames cover more than just the rolling portion of the animation. In any other game with rolls, the getting up part after the roll wouldn't have i-frames and leaves the character vulnerable. ESO has i-frames there. So what seems like it'd roll catch still misses. What saw improvement is dodging broke tracking on all incoming projectiles, so if you use a cast time ability like Snipe or Crystal Fragments, the player can dodge at any time from when the casting starts till the projectile connects -- at least 2 full seconds. It results in projectiles missing targets who have long finished their roll because they dodged during the cast time. This part has been addressed, since tracking on projectiles is restored after 1 second.
But I hope you get my point about how frustrating inconsistent gameplay is.
Enjoyable gameplay on the whole comes in for games that aren't meant to be fun in the moment to moment. Say Darkest Dungeon or even standard strategy games. The moment to moment gameplay is stress inducing or non-evocative, but when recalling the experience as a whole: it's enjoyable. Conversely, moment to moment enjoyable gameplay like high speed movement, satisfying (not necessarily flashy) attacks, and funny writing are more immediately apparent as to why they're so fun. And key's to distinguish enjoyable from fun: something doesn't have to fun to be enjoyable, but fun is generally enjoyable. Defining games as needing to be fun rules out more evocative experiences like Papers Please.
As for why people play mmorpgs, I can only speak for myself here but the reason I play them over other genres is because raiding allows me to work closely with a group of people to overcome a difficult challenge. We work together over the course of weeks or months to beat a boss, and the feeling I get when we finally kill the boss is so special to me. This is something unique to the mmorpg genre.
@Ilisfet I agree that consistency is hugely important in any game. One of the reasons why I left LoL was because the hitbox detection on the skills were so inconsistent. Sometimes the targeting reticle would be right on top of an enemy player, and the skill would somehow miss. And other times the reticle would be nowhere near a player's character and it would still hit them. It was incredibly frustrating to play with.
When talking about "fun" games, this reminds me of something Total Biscuit (Rest in Peace) said a long time ago. He said that not all games have to be "fun", make you laugh or smile, but they have to be engaging. "Papers, Please" is a perfect example of this, a game that is designed not necessarily for you to enjoy, but to make you think.
I have made some post that deal with some of the inner workings of the game and may sound not too positive. But Truth is i do not even like to post that much only reason I post is because Ashes of Creation looks like a great game. And like to think my input might be helpful.
Ashes of Creation will be the game to play when it comes out. Glad they went with six pvp classes instead of trying to balance 64 classes. That is a huge plus for the pvp community helps level the field as far as balanced is concerned. That was A really smart move on their part. Plus they have made many smart decisions.
My only concern now is will the node system with all its systems and subsystems work. Will it work as intended ounce you introduce the human element. The human element as in people always like to exploit systems. If they pull it off and make the the node system work the way it is described (node vs node, sieges in game factions, the world economy plus all the other layers) then this will be a great game.
But let say that there is a mayor that gets elected that has some other nodes interest in mind.....is there a way to oust them...or maybe they just grounded and cannot play...what then.
6 PvP classes? What do you mean?
MMOs in itself aren't shunned for being persistent, they are shunned for being simply bad. WoW was an amazing hit and drew 12million subs. 12 million people paying every month gesus. If Apex had to be paid even 5€ every month do you think it could have lived up to those numbers?
WoW made questionable decisions that deviated from their initial allure that effectively built up that followerbase and you can follow that with sub numbers.
There hasn't been a single mmo since then that was really good. They only ever had some good/eyecatching elements and a shitton of bad ones.
Look at SW:ToR in it's beginning and the first..2? years or so. The leveling experience was amazing, everything else was sub-standard at best with rare nuggets of good.
It was hailed as the wow killer, then the wow clone, then a weak copy of wow because that's what it was at best, a bad game copying wow. At least it had the Star Wars universe going for it, that kept people hopeful for a while.
Every game since then follows that schematic, they stand out for one reason or two some just banked on their name even, the rest is garbage/overshadowed by business practice.
There is not a single MMO since WoW till now that I consider baseline good in every category of it's content.
Those games are simply that, bad games. Granted I can't refute other reasons but before I make a judgment on that, I would like to have a good mmo to judge and compare.
Naming Apex and PUBG as outliners is well and good, but overall Battleroyal isn't that sucessfull. There are a good 50 BR games that died in a matter of days to weeks or humour a small community at best. Why? Because they are bad games, simple as that, but what the BR genre has, that the MMO genre lacks, is an overall good game.
Edit: To clarify my issue with the arguments. If Apex/LoL was on a subscription a heck less people would play it. It's not that good and especially lol has bloated numbers with multiple accounts per person. PUBG PEAKED at 3.5 million players in a day and now struggles at around 400k. Why? It's not THAT good, not a lot of people that bought it kept playing.
It was just a new genre people hoped to explore.
Servers are shit, anti hacking is garbage, content to reignite interest is nonexistent, but we got loot boxes, hurray to that!!
50 million copies sold sounds nice on paper, but play statistics are underwhelming in comparison to that.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
I think that one of the major reasons for SWTORs downfall was that it was released in the time when WoW and blizzard were in their prime. They had absorbed too much of the casual player base. Not many people wanted to finance two or even three monthly subscriptions per month, and the truth was sadly, that most casuals already invested too muvh time into WoW to start new in anothdf mmorpg.
This lead to the death of many actually good mmorpgs, like aion and swtor, they had to switch from a monthly subscription to f2p, leading in turn to cash shops and premium membership...
Granted the dungeon design <<AT TIMES>> was interesting(not good, mind you, interesting) and HUTBALL was the best in lore battleground I have ever seen, but everything else was absolut trash in my opinion and fell years short of WoW.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
@grisu I see where you are coming from but at the same time it's unreasonable to expect an mmorpg to have all amazing content across the board. More often than not mmorpgs have to focus mostly on a single element in order to stand out. Games like SWTOR and GW2 focused on the leveling, FFXIV focused on the story, and WoW focused on the end-game PvE. I would never expect WoW to be able to put in the amount of time and effort into the leveling as SWTOR did, whilst still keeping up their high quality raiding content.
Games need to play to their strengths rather than trying to make everything amazing. In the case of Ashes, it looks like their focus is in their community world-building and node systems, which is something I don't believe any other major mmorpg is really focusing on right now. If they stick to that niche they should be fine. I just hope they don't make the same mistake GW2 did of trying to incorporate WoW-style raids into a game that was never designed to support it.
Do it right, and they have a good game tbh!
It's unreasonable to expect a good game? (Never asked for amazing, but good)
Wow was across the board good and it set a standard for the themepark genre.
If you want to make an mmo you need to consider before you start that its a broader game with more moving parts. Thats the strength of an mmorpg in the first place. It can offer so much more diverse content than a laser focused game. Simply put, its a bigger game nothing else.
I dont want to go into the charing, fundamental, flaws off all those mmos that came later. Baseline is, most of them didnt even work in its own design philosophy and fell way short of the standard wow set across the board. Wow itself failed to uphold that over time adapting the philosophy "less quality way less expenses", thats how you make money. Wink wink.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
So here's a curious question. You say other mmorpgs fell short of the standard set by WoW, but were they really that bad compared to it? I think of games like Rift, Aion, City of Heroes, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, etc. and really they aren't that bad compared to WoW. In my opinion, the only reason why WoW succeeded was because of the franchise it came from, and that it came first.
Rift had attrocious combat imo and as far as I remember there was some business bullshittery going on, i mean NcSoft, nice.
Warhammer was a pvp centric game while pve was neglected. Also EA quality?
Aion in the old days might have been on par in its own rights true. I personally couldnt play it. The semi realistic style while also having a char creator for monstrosities turned me off. It just gnared on me ll the time. Im also fairly certai that aion was extremely competitive it was impossible to catch up without money. Business decisions undermining a probably good game and it turned certainly p2w over time.
City of heroes is the only one that flew totally past me. No idea there.
So yeah i stand to my statement in general.
Edit: Wildstar might be the best example in that regard. It came way after wows prime. The market was technically ripe for hte taking. It was a decent enough game imo but everyone following it knows what happened. Bad managment. Bad communication with the community (aka nonexistence) and a "it will be fine we don't need to fix things" attitude. There are good games out there that failed due to other reasons, hence the "short answer yes."
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Add missions very different from a traditional MMO; you do have missions where you kill X number of a kind of enemy but they are part of a larger ongoing story. You also have missions where you have to stealth and avoid traps, or investigate puzzles. That might involve translating from a real ancient language, or decoding Morse Code, or cruising real web sites created for the game. But make it very much not WoW.
Being non-traditional meant they never hit it big. They didn’t sell a lot of games, nor did they get a lot of subscribers. But because they offered something different, something that wasn’t that a clone, those who played stuck around. It’s in its seventh year and still going.
So yeah, you can be different and succeed (EVE Online was mentioned previously and is another good example). I will say now, AoC will never be the next big MMO. But if they do what they say they will and don’t screw it up, it might be around for a long time. I hope so, my lifetime sub better be worth something.