State of Play
Well, it's been a while, my apologies for that.
I've discovered something depressing: the cycle of "play, rediscover the familiarity of an MMORPG, become bored very quickly with the repetitiveness of it all, quit". This is made worse when a game sets out with one approach to their gameplay and then abruptly changes it mid-stream to something else (SWG, pre- and post- NGE, for instance; LOTRO, which started "casual" and is becoming RAID-centric; etc.).
I loved LOTRO. I hated Moria. I hate the upcoming expansion. And I've finally done the one thing that offers true finality: I deleted the program from my hard drive. There will be no further re-visits. The same thing happened with WoW -- one game up to the max level, a whole different game thereafter, and I'm one who plays "for the journey", not to endlessly RAID over and over and over again ad infinitum. Also deleted.
So what am I playing? At the moment, nothing. Runes of Magic was tried and while it has some interesting bits, it quickly becomes boring. Sampled Vanguard's trial, thought there was a lot to speak for it -- but everything i read says it's a raid-centric/group-centric game after the Trial, so... nope.
So absent playing, what remains on the hard drive and therefore open to a return in the future? EQ2. Despite its failings, EQ2 still remains the pinnacle of offering players what matters to me: enormously deep lore; tons of different systems to flesh out the world and the characters in it, like their very creative housing and crafting (to name but two); a colorful range of starting cities with enough variety that I can start new characters without being lost in the perpetual "sameness" of something like LOTRO (which appears to be condemned to it's at-launch 4 starter areas for the rest of eternity; I thought that they'd do Mirkwood and, since it's the home of Legolas' folk, make that a starter area, but nope, it's a high-level area only). EQ2 literally has only one problem that keeps me from staying subscribed: the ridiculous limit on # of characters. For a game that has dozens of classes and races, the potential combinations number in the thousands -- but you only get a few slots, mercifully expanded since launch but still limited to something like 8 slots. So you literally have to delete long-built now-high-level characters with all their housings and money and involvement in the world, if you want to try something else. This is called a DISINCENTIVE -- instead of encouraging me to try their world from different perspectives, their hard-limit encourages me to get angry and unsubscribe. Which is what happened. I have, in the past five years, built a full array of max-level characters that fully fill my slots -- which means, if i return, I will have to delete some of them -- and that's flatly unacceptable. So, thank you, Sony, for creating a system that actually encourages people to get angry and leave rather than encouraging them to stay and play. Even the game i praise the most does things, like this, that are catastrophically STUPID.
It's been a long haul with MMOs: UO, AC, (that which came after AC and shall not be named, because naming it would actually give it too much praise, when it deserves NONE), EQ1, DAOC, EQ2, WoW, LOTRO, Horizons, Shadowbane, Runes of Magic, Vanguard's trial, DDO's trial, and on and on. At this point, a decade-plus later, I can say this: I would STILL be playing AC if it had an actual banking system; if it had a broker/auction system; if it had a quest-log; and while graphics are NOT the first thing I pay attention to, AC is VERY long in the tooth. If they remade it by updating the graphics, but left the gameplay akin to it's heyday, while fixing the three things I've listed here -- I'd be back in a heartbeat. I don't even need any different quests -- it could be a literal remake with new technology and I'd be thrilled.
EQ1 holds far too many fond memories -- and curiously, the grind never bothered me, because the lore made each zone feel unique and alive. If asked to picture a memorable scene or area from all the MMORPGs I've played, odds are that all of the top five will be from EQ1 and AC.
EQ2 is too brilliant to suffer the stupidity of its character-slot limitations -- yet it does, which keeps the game from taking top honors with me. LOTRO was brilliant, but the utter failure of the hobbies system and the change in focus of what they want the game to be has made it "just another MMORPG" instead of the brilliant, quasi-unique thing it was. DAOC's realm-vs-realm is fantastic -- as long the population stays high enough to fill it out, and then the game falls flat if the pop drops too low (as it is now). WoW -- well, the upcoming Cataclysm, assuming they actually redo ALL of the old world, including starter areas, might actually be worth a revisit, but it continues to rankle that they have not added Housing (even a barely-acceptable version, like LOTRO's, is better) and that the game is entirely of the "it plays one way 1-80, and then becomes endless RAIDing". Horizons had the most brilliant crafting I've ever seen -- and the worst of everything else. UO is brilliant... but, like AC, it shows its antiquity. Like AC, it needs a true sequel (not a "the world was destroyed, so we can change everything" POS, that idea only worked decently in EQ2, and then only after several expansions).
DDO is the biggest disappointment. Not sure who thought that D&D was just "dungeon-running" and decided to not build a fully-realised world, focusing instead on one city and its belows, but that person needs to be shot. That's not the D&D I've been playing since 1978. Our D&D games are gigantic, fleshed-out worlds -- not just "dungeon runs". Great interactive combat system lashed to a truly pathetic game. Sad.
What am I looking forward to? Not much. A bunch of sequels I'd love to see, but those are hypotheticals. Of those coming, I guess Guild Wars 2 is the most interesting... but we'll just have to see. Right now, I'm playing CIV4 with all of its expansions and using custom-mods "Rise of Mankind" and "Legends of Revolution" (can't play the base game, just too much left out of it). I miss online RPGs... but there's nothing out there worthwhile to play. Stupid EQ2, I'd be back in a heartbeat if they doubled the # of slots (or made it -x- slots per server). Oh well. Guess they don't want my money. Strange business model, that.
I've discovered something depressing: the cycle of "play, rediscover the familiarity of an MMORPG, become bored very quickly with the repetitiveness of it all, quit". This is made worse when a game sets out with one approach to their gameplay and then abruptly changes it mid-stream to something else (SWG, pre- and post- NGE, for instance; LOTRO, which started "casual" and is becoming RAID-centric; etc.).
I loved LOTRO. I hated Moria. I hate the upcoming expansion. And I've finally done the one thing that offers true finality: I deleted the program from my hard drive. There will be no further re-visits. The same thing happened with WoW -- one game up to the max level, a whole different game thereafter, and I'm one who plays "for the journey", not to endlessly RAID over and over and over again ad infinitum. Also deleted.
So what am I playing? At the moment, nothing. Runes of Magic was tried and while it has some interesting bits, it quickly becomes boring. Sampled Vanguard's trial, thought there was a lot to speak for it -- but everything i read says it's a raid-centric/group-centric game after the Trial, so... nope.
So absent playing, what remains on the hard drive and therefore open to a return in the future? EQ2. Despite its failings, EQ2 still remains the pinnacle of offering players what matters to me: enormously deep lore; tons of different systems to flesh out the world and the characters in it, like their very creative housing and crafting (to name but two); a colorful range of starting cities with enough variety that I can start new characters without being lost in the perpetual "sameness" of something like LOTRO (which appears to be condemned to it's at-launch 4 starter areas for the rest of eternity; I thought that they'd do Mirkwood and, since it's the home of Legolas' folk, make that a starter area, but nope, it's a high-level area only). EQ2 literally has only one problem that keeps me from staying subscribed: the ridiculous limit on # of characters. For a game that has dozens of classes and races, the potential combinations number in the thousands -- but you only get a few slots, mercifully expanded since launch but still limited to something like 8 slots. So you literally have to delete long-built now-high-level characters with all their housings and money and involvement in the world, if you want to try something else. This is called a DISINCENTIVE -- instead of encouraging me to try their world from different perspectives, their hard-limit encourages me to get angry and unsubscribe. Which is what happened. I have, in the past five years, built a full array of max-level characters that fully fill my slots -- which means, if i return, I will have to delete some of them -- and that's flatly unacceptable. So, thank you, Sony, for creating a system that actually encourages people to get angry and leave rather than encouraging them to stay and play. Even the game i praise the most does things, like this, that are catastrophically STUPID.
It's been a long haul with MMOs: UO, AC, (that which came after AC and shall not be named, because naming it would actually give it too much praise, when it deserves NONE), EQ1, DAOC, EQ2, WoW, LOTRO, Horizons, Shadowbane, Runes of Magic, Vanguard's trial, DDO's trial, and on and on. At this point, a decade-plus later, I can say this: I would STILL be playing AC if it had an actual banking system; if it had a broker/auction system; if it had a quest-log; and while graphics are NOT the first thing I pay attention to, AC is VERY long in the tooth. If they remade it by updating the graphics, but left the gameplay akin to it's heyday, while fixing the three things I've listed here -- I'd be back in a heartbeat. I don't even need any different quests -- it could be a literal remake with new technology and I'd be thrilled.
EQ1 holds far too many fond memories -- and curiously, the grind never bothered me, because the lore made each zone feel unique and alive. If asked to picture a memorable scene or area from all the MMORPGs I've played, odds are that all of the top five will be from EQ1 and AC.
EQ2 is too brilliant to suffer the stupidity of its character-slot limitations -- yet it does, which keeps the game from taking top honors with me. LOTRO was brilliant, but the utter failure of the hobbies system and the change in focus of what they want the game to be has made it "just another MMORPG" instead of the brilliant, quasi-unique thing it was. DAOC's realm-vs-realm is fantastic -- as long the population stays high enough to fill it out, and then the game falls flat if the pop drops too low (as it is now). WoW -- well, the upcoming Cataclysm, assuming they actually redo ALL of the old world, including starter areas, might actually be worth a revisit, but it continues to rankle that they have not added Housing (even a barely-acceptable version, like LOTRO's, is better) and that the game is entirely of the "it plays one way 1-80, and then becomes endless RAIDing". Horizons had the most brilliant crafting I've ever seen -- and the worst of everything else. UO is brilliant... but, like AC, it shows its antiquity. Like AC, it needs a true sequel (not a "the world was destroyed, so we can change everything" POS, that idea only worked decently in EQ2, and then only after several expansions).
DDO is the biggest disappointment. Not sure who thought that D&D was just "dungeon-running" and decided to not build a fully-realised world, focusing instead on one city and its belows, but that person needs to be shot. That's not the D&D I've been playing since 1978. Our D&D games are gigantic, fleshed-out worlds -- not just "dungeon runs". Great interactive combat system lashed to a truly pathetic game. Sad.
What am I looking forward to? Not much. A bunch of sequels I'd love to see, but those are hypotheticals. Of those coming, I guess Guild Wars 2 is the most interesting... but we'll just have to see. Right now, I'm playing CIV4 with all of its expansions and using custom-mods "Rise of Mankind" and "Legends of Revolution" (can't play the base game, just too much left out of it). I miss online RPGs... but there's nothing out there worthwhile to play. Stupid EQ2, I'd be back in a heartbeat if they doubled the # of slots (or made it -x- slots per server). Oh well. Guess they don't want my money. Strange business model, that.
posted by Thurken | 9:19 AM
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