The Revolution the MMO needs: Fun.

[BloatedGuppy]

Well financially they succeed, but in the eyes of their players they fail.

In the "eyes of their players" they "fail" every single time they do something said player dislikes. Mages nerfed? FAILED! PvP not implemented soon enough? FAILED! Caters too much to casuals? FAILED! Caters too much to hardcores? FAILED!

I don't know to break this to you, but WoW had a new "This game has failed" post on the front page of the forums almost every 5 minutes for the first year of its life, and still gets them from time to time.

Apparently all the MMOs are failures. Huge flops, every last one. If we listen to the players. All that money they're making is entirely incidental, I imagine.

 

[Thoric485]

The problem is they're not persistent worlds, they're completely static.

In any high-profile title of the last 5 years, the player can't change a single element of the virtual world for more than a minute or affect the players around him. Whether you're playing with a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand other people on one server, you'd have the exact same experience, barring the difference in instance queue times.

There is no consequence for death, no open world PvP, no risk in trading, no housing or clan warfare, no non-combat roles. And if the ability to meaningfully interact with the environment and other players is gone, what am I to play an MMO for? The horrible combat system, the outdated visuals, or the crappy storytelling?

MMOs have lost their simulative nature and depth, and are now disappointingly simple and unambitious games. It's a shame, because 10 years ago this was the most promising genre around.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The problem is they're not persistent worlds, they're completely static.

In any high-profile title of the last 5 years, the player can't change a single element of the virtual world for more than a minute or affect the players around him. Whether you're playing with a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand other people on one server, you'd have the exact same experience, barring the difference in instance queue times.

There is no consequence for death, no open world PvP, no risk in trading, no housing or clan warfare, no non-combat roles. And if the ability to meaningfully interact with the environment and other players is gone, what am I to play an MMO for? The horrible combat system, the outdated visuals, or the crappy storytelling?

MMOs have lost their simulative nature and depth, and are now disappointingly simple and unambitious games. It's a shame, because 10 years ago this was the most promising genre around.

I saw towns and bridges in GW2 stay destroyed or captured for some time.

though I cant really comment on how long it will last once the game is out.

 

[GrandmaFunk]

well, they stay in that state till players come and either fix the bridge or re-take the fort

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I saw towns and bridges in GW2 stay destroyed or captured for some time.

though I cant really comment on how long it will last once the game is out.

I can't imagine very long. Rift had the hypothetical scenario wherein mobs from an invasion could get out of control and overrun a zone, but in reality it was always caught and snuffed out in fairly short order by players. Particularly if it's something that inconveniences them or has a significant impact on a high traffic area, it'll get nipped in the bud right quick.

That said, those can still be nice community building moments, where everyone floods an area to turn back invaders. You actually celebrate the appearance of other players, rather than feeling annoyed with them.

 

[babinro]

I don't agree with the OP on this one.

I find combat in MMO's to be very challenging and rewarding. I never got bored of combat in SWTOR despite having put hundreds of hours into that game. The same could be said for my experiences with Guild Wars back in the day.

The lack of fun in MMO's comes from the grind. Something that may never go away when it comes to the subscription based formula. I can only hope the future of MMO's does the following and more:

- Enable constant fast-travel outside of combat to towns, quests, missions and locations of interest. Remove any arbitrary cooldowns.
- Substantially increase character run speeds in open area's
- Allow for quests to be given on the fly and to be rewarded without any backtracking
- Remove all backtracking. If a battle doesn't help push the story forward, let us bypass it.
- Eliminate XP grinding, levels should be gained through quests and tasks.
- Eliminate all senseless inventory management. Crafting supplies should automatically be placed in a separate inventory screen accessible anywhere at all times. Think of the menu screen from a game like Legend of Zelda where all your items are visible.

 

[TaintedSaint]

mmos' are not designed to be fun. Mmo are designed to be addicting,using a reward system akin to rewarding your dog a treat for doing the correct trick

 

[Lunar Templar]

Now, Tera seems to be taking a step away from that, with its action based combat system, where player reflexes, tactics, and positioning all play a key part in battle.

Vindictus says hi, and reminds you its both out, and did that before Tera (and with out the pedo bait)

not only that, but if you REALLY think hot keys are 100% boring 100% of the time, you REALLY need another hobbie. if you can't find the simple joy of rolling a tank and building it to a point of neigh unkillability, then start walking through mobs that would shred any other AT and drop lesser tanks, i don't know how to help you. o.0 i really don't

I'll admit, hotkey based MMO's are getting old, but they can be, and are still fun. i mean i just got down spending a few hours running around collecting the 'Underground' and 'kill' badges in Preatoria in CoH with one of my lvl50's cause it sounded like fun, and, it was

WoW is the undisputed king of the pallete swap monster and yes, there's not much difference between a lvl 5 hungry wolf, a lvl 20 rabid wolf or a lvl 80 monstrous wolf save for color and size. But that's WoW, and I've already said I consider WoW's grindiness almost indefensible. City of Heroes, for example, boasts a much wider range of enemy groups, with a lot more to differentiate them than the color of their model.

yay for CoH love

ker snip

just to expand on what Six was talking about above
it starts pretty much at lvl 1 too. starting at the Tutorial you fight
alien rock monsters
demon worshiping gang bangers (complete with horns and flame based powers)
death worshiping gang bangers (complete with skull masks and HP and stat draining powers)
non magically animated zombies and the doctors that made them
psychic trash robots (no really, you fight robots made of scrap powered by psychic energy)
the big bad evil organization's low level grunts (every group, especially ones that you encounter through out the game have 'tiers' of enemy's that you run into, so with the Archnos, its just the basic Wolf Spiders, and the Huntsmen at first, then you get the drones, Widows and Fortunadas, then you get the Tarantulas, and so on)

and that's the 1-10


CoH so spoiled me

 

[NeutralDrow]

Fun is an MMO revolution?

I'm assuming we're going by the Maoist interpretation of "permanent revolution," because I started finding MMOs fun in 2004, and the ones I've played in the years since then haven't stopped.

 

[BLAHwhatever]

Mh.. tell me what you tink about an upcoming mmo : ArcheAge
Might be goin in your direction.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/572/ArcheAge.html

 

[Kyoufuu]

Ability bars, "Oh are you a Tank or a Damage dealer" classes, numbers fighting numbers making numbers fly everywhere, getting quests from static NPC's, Quests that can never be completed because the 50 other people behind you in the que need to do the same quest in the same way, often in the same place, Getting better loot so you can get better loot, Either spending ages going through "+1 broadcocks" and "+10 staffs of penetration" spreadsheets or just going down the same fucking route everyone else does because it is "the optimal route"

http://www.runescape.com

It does have quite a bit of grinding, but it has none of the things you complained about there.