MMO with most people playing?

Scoobydo said:
I'm glad there are different MMOs for people with different tastes. Personally, I'm about the polar opposite of what Dan D just mentioned.

I actually like to wait for shuttles for 10 minutes. Gives me time to plan out what I want to do. Talk to a few other people who are also waiting for shuttles and gives a sense of immersion.

But then again I like mmos where not every inch of the map has mobs in it. I find it incredibility boring to whack buttons endless to get through quest hubs only to move 20 feet down the road to do it again... Like everybody in the game world is completely helpless and needs someone to do their chores every 10 feet with a big ! above their heads.

Less is more in a lot of ways. But different strokes for different folks.
Click to expand...

So what would you recommend? I'm open to game choices. I really enjoyed WAR when it was new.

I want a non pay option only because I don't want to feel "obligated" to play. I don't know how else to word it. I know I felt that way towards the end of my WOW playing. About 4 years ago.
 
Dan_D said:
Yes, I am on Harbinger. I am not specifically certain what you are talking about. If you are asking about story content, there is tons more of it than their used to be. If you haven't played since launch you've missed the 10 new raids, and god knows how many flashpoints. There are also several new planets, although some of those are short. Not all of them are. Storylines such as the Dread Master story line that starts on Belsavis are continued.



Asian Pacific servers. Harbinger is a good place to go. Either that or Jedi Covenant. I believe those are the two largest PvE servers. Bastion was the largest PvP server but I believe it's seen some population decreases. Many Bastion players have come to Harbinger. There have been huge population shifts lately because BioWare ran a special on server transfers. So entire guilds have shuffled around since then.
Click to expand...

I was talking abotu the group focused "story" dungeons or whatever. The ones you'd hit like every 10 levels or so at release. Where you'd join a group and it was like a bioware style story-based dungeon, complete with choices and other quest things to make as you talked to the characters with each member of your group having a chance to make choices if picked.

edit what I am talking about are "Flashpoints."

I thought there were just waaaaaay too few of these at release and it was the most fun thing about the game (imo).
 
Last edited:
Stiler said:
I was talking abotu the group focused "story" dungeons or whatever. The ones you'd hit like every 10 levels or so at release. Where you'd join a group and it was like a bioware style story-based dungeon, complete with choices and other quest things to make as you talked to the characters with each member of your group having a chance to make choices if picked.

edit what I am talking about are "Flashpoints."

I thought there were just waaaaaay too few of these at release and it was the most fun thing about the game (imo).
Click to expand...

OK, now I know what you are talking about. Since launch they've added quite a few more of them. Plus they've introduced new hard modes of the original ones as well. Personally I prefer operations (raids) to flashpoints but flashpoints can be fun with the right group.

There are quite a few flashpoints in the base game. Although at launch we didn't have group finder. Also, several of these were specific to either one faction or a specific level range.

The Black Talon (Empire only)
The Esseles (Republic only)
Hammer Station
Athiss
Mandalorian Raiders
Cademimu
Boarding Party (Empire only)
Taral V (Republic only)
The Foundry (Empire only)
Maelstrom Prison (Republic only)
Colicoid War Games
The Red Reaper
Directive 7
The False Emperor
The Battle of Ilum

Since launch they've added:

Kaon Under Seige
The Lost Island
Czerka Corporate Labs
Czerka Meltdown
Kuat Drive Yards
Korriban Incursion
Assault on Tython
Depths of Manann
Legacy of the Rakata
Blood Hunt
The Battle of Rishi

At launch they only had one operation which was Eternity Vault. And it was a buggy piece of shit originally.

Since then they've added the following operations:

Karagga's Palace
Explosive Conflict
The Terror from Beyond
Scum and Villainy
The Dread Fortress
The Dread Palace
Toborro's Courtyard (Since instance boss fight)
The Ravagers
Temple of Sacrifice
Colossal Monolith (Since instance boss fight)

There are also several world boss fights which are open world which can be done with 16 or 24 man operations groups. None of those are instanced. Dreadtooth was a great example of this. There are two secret boss fights as well. The Dreadful Entity and the Hateful Entity. There are these things, Galactic Conquest, PvP, and Galactic Starfighter to do. All in all we aren't really lacking for content. Plus all the operations and flashpoints will get scaled to level 65 following the 4.0 update and with the introduction of Knights of the Fallen Empire.
 
Sky15 said:
Instances ruined MMO's. It has turned them into lobby based multiplayer games at end game.
Click to expand...

Well, if you like standing around for two days to complete an open world quest simply because people come swanning in at the last second and killsteal...
 
Chas said:
Well, if you like standing around for two days to complete an open world quest simply because people come swanning in at the last second and killsteal...
Click to expand...

Exactly. It isn't just about resource gathering but waiting for enemies to spawn or whatever just to complete a quest is bullshit. It's bullshit in the way waiting 10 minutes for a shuttle or taking a half hour to run to the next town is. To me these are not good mechanics that improve gameplay. It isn't a deeper or more satisfying experience because it's more realistic or whatever. If I could teleport somewhere vs. standing in line to get the rubber glove treatment by the TSA at the airport I would. That's not the type of immersion I want in a game.

If I want to interact with others, I can. But I'm not forced to in SWTOR for most content. And at the very least I'm not generally hampered by others. You still have daily areas which multiple people may farm for whatever reason but given that everything's instanced to a point which keeps populations down to reasonable levels I don't have to wait for too long. There are still things that have multi-hour respawn times, but all of it is group content anyway. I don't see how this impacts the gaming experience in a negative way or makes it less of an MMO. The group content is still there, I can still talk to people I see or talk to them in general chat or whatever. But honestly, I don't know about other MMOs but general chat is often filled with the most retarded dregs of humanity. I'd rather not deal with that if I can avoid it. I've enjoyed progression raiding because I've raided with the same people for about 3 years now. Most of which I know in real life. So I get all the social aspects I could want in the game while being able to ignore all the stupid crap I don't like.

I don't see how instances "ruin" gameplay. That segregation allows for improved performance and a better experience in my opinion. I recall waiting in lines for 30 minutes to get buffs from another player in Star Wars Galaxies. What fucking horseshit. In SWTOR, I have all the buffs and if I didn't, I could ask someone and with one button they can buff everyone in the area with the buffs they've earned. And doing so or not isn't detrimental to your ability to play the game for general content the way it was in Galaxies. I never thought that was a good system. It was a huge waste of time making the game seem like a chore instead of a game.
 
To me, there are good use of instances, and bad uses.

I have played mmo's since the days of UO/EQ, at least "tried" most of the ones that have been released for a month or two.

This is just my personal opinion and I understand it's not for everyone.

Ultima Online I played circa 98-2002'ish. The game was like nothing I ever played before. It was what is known by todays standards as a "sandbox" literally. You were dropped into the open world and left to do what you wanted. There were ZERO quests, I repeat, zero, none, nada, you didn't go up to an npc with a giant "!" over their head to get a quest that led you through the world as you "leveled" up.

Of all the mmorpgs I played, UO felt the most like an "rpg" because it allowed the players to actually play what they wanted. You weren't the "hero" of the lands, you could be a good guy, a bad guy, you could be anything in between. People were extremely social in the game because you literally got to know people and learned who you could trust and formed bonds with people that would help you and befriend them. You had Pkers (aka Reds), anti-pkers , neutrals, player crafters, tamers and everything in between.

All of these facets worked together, like a circle, the Pkers would attack random people cause that's what they did, the anti-pkers would help those players attacked and fight back against pker's, with the full loot this fed the need for player crafters to provide new items for both sides.

Housing played a large part of the game as well. houses existed in the world, they weren't instanced. You could be hanging out and someone would just pass by, see you, and strike up a conversation. You'd see a crafter standing on his porch making items and maybe ask them if they could make something for you, all kinds of things could happen becuase there was just one "world"and everyone existied in the same space.

Then came Trammel, it was basically a separate "instance" of the entire world. All of the non-pvpers left the orignial world, the Anti-pkers no longer had eople to "help" or protect, the crafters no longer had nearly as much need for their gear (as the trammel side didnt' really lose much of their items or have things looted since tihere was no pvp).

That is why I hate "instancing" when it comes to instnacing the "open world" or housing, it just takes away so much from the interaction of players, player shops, the random things that happen because players all exist together in a world.

On the other hand, I played Everquest as well. This is "the" mmo that basically set the standard of the mmo forumla. Quest focused, theme park world design , level based with ia "trinity" class focus.

It wasn't instanced, you would have spawns you'd have to camp for, a loooooong time, you'd get behind others waiting, hope someone didn't run up and hit it when it was your turn.

You'd have story quests that'd cast you as a hero or something "special" and then you'd see 10 other people on the same quest in the same dungeon, basically making ithe whole "Story" feel absurd and disconnected.

These are the things where instancing helps or smarter mob loot rules/timers.

A lot of newer mmo's have gotten better when it comes to mobs and the whole rare spawn things. If you come across one, you don't have to directly be the one that "first hits" it or does the most dps to get credit, you simply have to hit it once and it will count, so if say, 10 people are waiting for that "one" spawn, you can pretty much all get it with a single spawn vs having to "Wait" for 10 spawns.

At the same time many games use dungeon instancing these days for story-focused quests. Which makes the story and lore "fit" better since you don't have other players doing tihe "same" thing and having it break the quest focus or lore, at least not as in your face as normal.

To me that's where instancing works good, and I wish more mmo's went that route. Sadly they usually go the "instance every damn thing" route which makes the worlds feel disconnected like it's not one "world" and then you have the issues of grouping and the pain in the ass that usually brings (from GW2, to Neverwinter, to ESO, there were numerous issues with people grouping aicross multiple instances in every one of those games).
 
Dan_D said:
Exactly. It isn't just about resource gathering but waiting for enemies to spawn or whatever just to complete a quest is bullshit. It's bullshit in the way waiting 10 minutes for a shuttle or taking a half hour to run to the next town is. To me these are not good mechanics that improve gameplay. It isn't a deeper or more satisfying experience because it's more realistic or whatever. If I could teleport somewhere vs. standing in line to get the rubber glove treatment by the TSA at the airport I would. That's not the type of immersion I want in a game.

If I want to interact with others, I can. But I'm not forced to in SWTOR for most content. And at the very least I'm not generally hampered by others. You still have daily areas which multiple people may farm for whatever reason but given that everything's instanced to a point which keeps populations down to reasonable levels I don't have to wait for too long. There are still things that have multi-hour respawn times, but all of it is group content anyway. I don't see how this impacts the gaming experience in a negative way or makes it less of an MMO. The group content is still there, I can still talk to people I see or talk to them in general chat or whatever. But honestly, I don't know about other MMOs but general chat is often filled with the most retarded dregs of humanity. I'd rather not deal with that if I can avoid it. I've enjoyed progression raiding because I've raided with the same people for about 3 years now. Most of which I know in real life. So I get all the social aspects I could want in the game while being able to ignore all the stupid crap I don't like.

I don't see how instances "ruin" gameplay. That segregation allows for improved performance and a better experience in my opinion. I recall waiting in lines for 30 minutes to get buffs from another player in Star Wars Galaxies. What fucking horseshit. In SWTOR, I have all the buffs and if I didn't, I could ask someone and with one button they can buff everyone in the area with the buffs they've earned. And doing so or not isn't detrimental to your ability to play the game for general content the way it was in Galaxies. I never thought that was a good system. It was a huge waste of time making the game seem like a chore instead of a game.
Click to expand...


Instances allow for gameplay to continue and storylines to be done without interfering with open world play or vice-versa.

If you don't feel like teaming (and not everyone does all the time), you can still advance, still feel like you've done something.

This was what I liked about City of Heroes. I could team when I felt like it, solo when I felt like it. And I got lots done either way.
 
Personally I believe Asheron's Call had the right call on how to handle open world vs. instances.

It has no instances.

But on the other hand, you couldn't camp and kill stealing was point less.

How did they do it?

Easy. Fast re-spawns on mobs, even named special/quest mobs. Once you kill the mob, your character is flagged at the time you killed it. You were given loot. However, you could not loot the mob again until an elapsed time occurred. You could help kill it, or kill it again, but the corpse would just stay there until someone else looted it. A few days later, your character's flag would reset and you could loot it again. There is no incentive to try to kill steal. Since the mob spawns frequently. But it implemented a way of looting that prevented camping to flood the market with those items.

Not sure why other companies have not figured out how to do this. :-/ AC was one of the first MMOS... Apparently other devs have not played it.
 
It seems like after WoW developers forgot how to develop MMO' that were not WoW clones. How come before WoW MMO's were all unique, AC1, UO, SWG, DAoC, EvE, EQ1, etc.

What also amazes me is that prior to WoW most MMO's used seamless world with out zoning, now most MMO's uses zones.

I get the publishers are trying to follow the all mighty dollar, but it has really stagnated the genre for 10 years now. The only MMO's that seem to be unique are Indie or smaller crowdfunded MMO coming out.
 
Sky15 said:
It seems like after WoW developers forgot how to develop MMO' that were not WoW clones. How come before WoW MMO's were all unique, AC1, UO, SWG, DAoC, EvE, EQ1, etc.

What also amazes me is that prior to WoW most MMO's used seamless world with out zoning, now most MMO's uses zones.

I get the publishers are trying to follow the all mighty dollar, but it has really stagnated the genre for 10 years now. The only MMO's that seem to be unique are Indie or smaller crowdfunded MMO coming out.
Click to expand...


Because, prior to WoW, a "Triple A" title was considered a success with a couple hundred thousand players in the first year, and roughly 100K after.

WoW was this huge, hyperthyroid mutant on steroids, HGH and warped by aspects of science best left unexplored...It wasn't even particularly original. Its success was basically due to a huge confluence of events that's pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to duplicate on-demand. And the industry KNOWS this.

Yet they still keep chasing a "WoW-Killer". Never mind that duplicating WoW's success is impossible for ANYONE, INCLUDING WoW!

And how do they chase a WoW-killer? WHY BY EMULATING WOW WITH BARELY ANY DIFFERENTIATION!
 
I've started following this MMO called Albion Online. The graphics aren't great, but from the videos I've watched of it, it reminds me a lot of UO, since it has full loot PVP. I believe there are no instances in this game either. So I'm really interested in trying it when it goes into beta. If I get griefed, so be it. That's part of what used to make these games challenging, and really encouraged player interaction.
 
Scoobydo said:
Personally I believe Asheron's Call had the right call on how to handle open world vs. instances.

It has no instances.

But on the other hand, you couldn't camp and kill stealing was point less.

How did they do it?

Easy. Fast re-spawns on mobs, even named special/quest mobs. Once you kill the mob, your character is flagged at the time you killed it. You were given loot. However, you could not loot the mob again until an elapsed time occurred. You could help kill it, or kill it again, but the corpse would just stay there until someone else looted it. A few days later, your character's flag would reset and you could loot it again. There is no incentive to try to kill steal. Since the mob spawns frequently. But it implemented a way of looting that prevented camping to flood the market with those items.

Not sure why other companies have not figured out how to do this. :-/ AC was one of the first MMOS... Apparently other devs have not played it.
Click to expand...

Asheron's Call was my favorite MMO and every new year that rolls around I pray for a modern version of it by Turbine. I doubt it will ever happen though. AC and UO were my two favorite MMO's followed closely by City of Heroes. There are a laundry list of features that made AC and UO great and we havne't seen them in a game since.
 
blade52x said:
I've started following this MMO called Albion Online. The graphics aren't great, but from the videos I've watched of it, it reminds me a lot of UO, since it has full loot PVP. I believe there are no instances in this game either. So I'm really interested in trying it when it goes into beta. If I get griefed, so be it. That's part of what used to make these games challenging, and really encouraged player interaction.
Click to expand...

I have not played Albion Online, but I've been sorta following it for awhile and it's pretty close to old UO, just not as in depth and way more emphasis on crafting.

Amaroth said:
Asheron's Call was my favorite MMO and every new year that rolls around I pray for a modern version of it by Turbine. I doubt it will ever happen though. AC and UO were my two favorite MMO's followed closely by City of Heroes. There are a laundry list of features that made AC and UO great and we havne't seen them in a game since.
Click to expand...

I'm sure somewhere down the line someone will try and crowdfund a spiritual successor :D lol
 
Features of AC that were notable:

1) As mentioned, their loot tables were linked to the character on special mobs. Effectively removing camping of items and the need to kill steal.

2) Skill based game. The more you used an item, the higher your skill got with it. The higher your skill, the more you'd hit and hit for. But not every skill would increase, you had to pick and choose your set of skills you wanted with your toon, you couldn't get them all, but you can mix and match like 25-30 different skills. The more experience you got the more you leveled which unlocked more points for you to buy new skills for your character. So as you leveled you gained new abilities from the pool of skills.

3) All weapons, armor, and items had to be identified to get its stats. You had skills (see above) that allowed you to ID them. However, the higher level the item, the harder it was to ID. So many times you'd be using gear you had no idea what the stats were. You had to use it and watch its effectiveness to see how they compared to your items you knew the stats of or compare against multiple items you could not ID to see how it would work. I remember a friend found a "Ruby Tachi"... We could never find anybody to ID it. But he'd 1 shot mobs. Ultimately it led to him quitting the game (see below.)

4) We went to a dungeon full of a mobs named "Zefir." Which were basically butterflies/sprites that were very heavy magic users. You dropped into the dungeon. Meaning, once you went in, you couldn't get out until you found an exit. Which probably meant you had to go through the entire dungeon to figure out how to get out. Anyways, he got bum rushed by Zefirs and they nuked the crap out of him. In that game, the more expensive/better your gear, the chances are you dropped the item upon death. You'd lose randomly 1-5 items when you died and it was based on their value. After a certain amount of time would pass on your corpse, your corpse would poof, and all the items left on it would appear on the ground. Allowing anybody to loot it. Well, my friend lost his Ruby Tachi there, and his corpse eventually poofed, allowing anybody to loot the Ruby Tachi from the ground. He lost the item. He quit playing he was so mad as he spent all night trying to get it back. He even recruited a few high levels to help them out, and nobody could take on that Zefir dungeon. Now you might say "Thats fucked up. I'm glad they don't do that type of stuff anymore." But think about it. We ended up finding the Ruby Tachi by running through a higher level dungeon and we looted the item from another adventure who lost his corpse. So easy come, easy go. We didn't camp some random mob for a week to get the item. It was just sitting there on the ground in the dungeon. My friend lost it the very same way. Years later I played the game again, and went back to that dungeon being 50 levels higher than I was with my friend and wiped it out. In honor of his lost Ruby Tachi. (It was still hard)

5) Dungeons made sense. There was a start and an end, and you always knew when you hit the end of the dungeon. Many had puzzles to open up new areas. Once you found the end you'd know it, and there would be a teleporter out of the dungeon and a boss mob. Many of these puzzles to unlock areas had to be done in cooperation with other players. Such as switches on the wall in multiple parts of the dungeon that had to be flipped/triggered simultaneously. That would unlock a door for 3 minutes that would allow you to get to a new place in the dungeon. Only to find an arch lich on the other side 30 levels higher with a big treasure chest in which the arch lich held the key to open it.

6) Their magic system was not "you buy a scroll and you have this spell." Or "You level to 15 now you automagically get 5 new spells to cast." It was, you had to find herbs, pebbles, gems, etc. Then you had a make spell bar. You'd mix and match all the things. Those would give you code words like "Abba Cadabbra"... Of course some things were missing, such as totem component. Which was the way you waved your arms or twiddled your fingers. Every time someone cast a spell, they'd list the code words and you'd see their motions. You could effectively watch other mages who figured out the magic system and steal their spells they were using. The more skill you had as a player (figuring out which components did what) the higher level spell you could cast, or new spells which had new effects. The more people that learned a certain spell, the less effective it was, so you were better off keeping your prized spells as a secret. Maybe only giving them to your friends and guildies.

7) Their guild system was unique such as you had a guild hierarchy. It was a pyramid. A leader (patron) who was higher on the pyramid. Vassals were people who swore allegiance to you. Your vassals might have had their own vassals (and effectively turn them into a patron). Creating this huge hierarchy of a guild. As your vassals leveled and gained experience, the patron would receive bonus experience, even when off line. So it promoted the patrons to actually play with their vassals and keep them happy. Giving them hand me downs on gear, doing quests with them, teaching them new spells, etc. So their vassals would continue playing under you and giving you experience. They in turn did that to their vassals which earns your vassals experience which in turn gives you bonus experience all the way up the line to the top of the guild.

There is plenty more but i'm sick of typing.
 
Scoobydo said:
Snip.........
Click to expand...

I don't know how much I want to get into this as I'm on my phone so I may forgo my usual novel sized post.

Your response does answer my questions. I will say that based on that response, I don't think we will see most of those "features" in another game anytime soon if ever. In part the general game design of WoW and by extension clones of it like SWTOR simply aren't compatible with those design elements. I'll go through your list and talk about those features as they would or wouldn't apply to the modern WoW clone.

Keep in mind WoW, whether you love or hate it has something going for it. It's design and game play are copied because their recipe works. Halo was regarded as bringing dumbed down game play like regenerating health which is basically standard today. There are other aspects of the game which are copied for various reasons but I don't want to get into that. Right or wrong, regenerating health was part of a popular game and everyone copied that design. Today's gamers didn't have to go looking for health packs the way us old timers did. Personally I don't miss it, but that's another discussion.

1.) The first feature you mentioned us a good one. I'm not sure why this isn't copied by other games. My suspicion is that the development teams think it would be too much work or the choice not to do this was made for other reasons we just don't understand.

2.) I believe ESO does this. First I see two problems with this. ESOs design as I understand it is vastly different from WoW, and it's contemporary clones. First is that such a system can appear daunting and convoluted. In WoW style raids you could inadvertently pick the wrong skills to focus on. Boss fights in particular may punish certain classes or be less susceptible to certain attacks. DPS checks in these encounters require a specific output of all DPS classes and therefore rotations must be specific to ensure a given character can sustain the required output.

To some extent this is an example of dumbing things down because players may not choose to improve the right skills and developme a play style which either makes content impossible or too easy. Having specific rotations and static skills common to all players or a given class makes things easier logistically speaking.

Now different boss encounter designs could make such a system work, but for whatever reason Blizzard did it the way it is in WoW. I'll expand more on this later.

3.) This really isn't a feature as much as it is a design choice. One I don't think adds anything to the game play or game experience in any way. I just can't grasp the logic of even implementing this. I can pick up two different guns in the real world and figure out important differences without knowing a whole lot of technical data. I can figure out which does more damage by looking at which holds more bullets and which one has bigger bullets. That's oversimplification of course but you get the idea. And again a game with specific gear and DPS gating simply doesn't benefit from such a design.

4.) Again, when you have enemy encounters with specific level, DPS and gear gates this just doesn't work. Not to mention it would annoy the shit out of people.

5.) I can't speak for most games but in all the MMOs I tried dungeons make sense.

6.) This one is a nifty idea, but it wouldn't work in game where they have specific DPS and ability gates. Also it would annoy me. I can't see any modern game with any mass market appeal going this route.

7.) Fuck pyramid schemes.

That's all I've got for now. Some of that shit sounds cool, but wouldn't be practical for WoW clones.
 
Tgrove said:
Ff14 recently said they have over 5 million subs
Click to expand...

Lifetime subs, which means total through out the games life. They probably have under a million active, probably close to 500-750k active subs.
 
Dan_D said:
It's design and game play are copied because their recipe works.
Click to expand...

No. Its design and game play are copied because it worked ONCE. It's actually being copied now because they think that if they simply jump on the bandwagon, they're going to have a cash cow.

In REALITY (that place where most game designers and publishing houses are deathly afraid of going), players go "This plays like WoW! Why the fuck am I just not playing WoW?" And they go play WoW. Rather than a half-assed copy.
 
I haven't had time in recent years to pick up MMOs but I wanted to submit to you Elite Dangerous just cuz it looks dang awesome.
 
Scoobydo said:
Features of AC that were notable:
Click to expand...

You forgot one of the main things that it had over any mmo (even to this day) that frankly astounds me and befuddles me why other mmo's don't do it.

1. Monthly updates that actually impacted the game world.

They had updates every month that had some kind of affect on the world and you'd actually be able to see it in game.

These could be things that moved the games over arcing storyline along (IE The game hero, Ahseron, fighting tihe big baddie), a giant "hive" appearing over the in-game towns with new "shadow" creatures in the wild.

They also had updates that could change the seasons and weather and things. I remember logging in one day early, it was just snowing lightly in the game where I was at, still mostly green-covered ground with light snow falling. I logged back in later that evening and the same place it was now snowing much more heavily and the ground/buildings/tree's were covered in the snow.

These kinds of updates made the world of AC feel so much m ore "active" and ever-changing, it didn't feel stale like most other mmo worlds. Also it actually made it feel liek your monthly fee was actually worth it and going toward continued development.

Other mmo's instead went the "developer expansion, re-sell to the p;layers that already paid for the development cost of said expansion." This also were much longer waits apart and didn't nearly make the world feel alive because of the wait between expansions.

I remember thinking back then, "Man, this is amaizng, I wonder what mmo's will be able to do in like 10 years."

It's now like 16 years later and nothing even surpassed that kind of update/ever-changing world of AC.

Even games like Guild wars 2 missed the entire point with their "dynamic" events, because they are:

1. Not permanent
2. Constantly resetting.

It takes away the importance/fun of said "events" when they just reset and everyone experiences them over and over an dover. Making it happen once and moving along gives them more meaning and sure, it can suck if you miss something, but being there at tihat "time" is made all the more important and left a lasting impression because only the people playing at that time got to experience it.
 
Chas said:
No. Its design and game play are copied because it worked ONCE. It's actually being copied now because they think that if they simply jump on the bandwagon, they're going to have a cash cow.

In REALITY (that place where most game designers and publishing houses are deathly afraid of going), players go "This plays like WoW! Why the fuck am I just not playing WoW?" And they go play WoW. Rather than a half-assed copy.
Click to expand...

I don't play WoW because I am not a fan of the genre or the game's style. It isn't the game's mechanics I have a problem with. While not as profitable, some other MMOs have a dedicated subscriber base. That tells me that those games are not all off the mark. They just don't have the huge mass market appeal that WoW does.
 
Dan_D said:
I don't play WoW because I am not a fan of the genre or the game's style. It isn't the game's mechanics I have a problem with. While not as profitable, some other MMOs have a dedicated subscriber base. That tells me that those games are not all off the mark. They just don't have the huge mass market appeal that WoW does.
Click to expand...

Read back a bit where I discuss why WoW is the behemoth it is, and why nobody else is ever going to reproduce the trick.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top