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[nenjin]

No, I get your point, and I do have some fun. But it's not as fun as it could be, and there's a lot of psychological manipulation of the player going on in a lot of games these days. (From Farmville to MW2 to WoW. Zygna even has a full-time behavioral psychologist consultant on pay roll.)

I'm finding manipulating the player getting a lot less subtle than it used to be. FPSs are actually more like MMOs now than they were 5 years ago, because the same tools keep working. "Give player points. Make points unlock stuff. Get them hooked on simply unlocking stuff. Give prestige awards when they can no longer unlock stuff."

If you're not enjoying every hour that you spend playing a game, you shouldn't be playing it in the first place.

Heh. Can you honestly say that about every game you've played a lot of? I know I can't. It's nice as a slogan, it's not realistic. Even the greatest games I've ever played had their dull moments, but I played on to get through the dull/tedious parts to get back to what I was enjoying. Every video game experience is a compromise on some level; devs selling you the idea that you'll love ever second of their game are blowing as much smoke up your ass as Hollywood directors who tell you you won't be bored 1h 30mins into a 2h 45min movie. 

[Solifuge]

I've never been fond of MMOs. I don't think there's one out there that I'd want to devote time or money to... which is why I'm genuinely surprised by Guild Wars 2.

I think I'd actually be able to enjoy playing it... not only because they're not doing the horrible cop-out that is monthly subscription fees (when I purchase a game, I'd like to not have to keep paying to enjoy it). They're finally taking advantage of some of the things that first brought me to Tabletop games like D&D; the way the quests and storyline of the game is created, with dynamic events that change the game world depending on how players handle them, is one of the most exciting things I've seen happening in the genre for some time.

[Muz]

MMORPGs are a lot like the typical CRPGs: There's a lot, lot, lot of garbage out there and a few diamonds.

The grind-based ones are just there to make money. Made by businessmen for stupid people. They remind me of those "casual games", someone just took a look at the stats and decided that they represented a good profit/effort/risk ratio.

I do like games like Guild Wars and City of Heroes/Villains. There's a lot of good ones out there, if you're willing to fork over a little money. WoW isn't bad at all either. It's got a poor reputation by people who barely even play it, but I've watched people play it, and the community and teamwork is really nice.

I absolutely hate the pay-per-month pricing. I'm only going to play those games about 20 hours a month and I don't want to feel pressured that I'm wasting money by not playing. I also hate the item mall concept. It encourages too much grinding, and buying it with real money feels a little like cheating.

That makes Guild Wars the only good one for me. Maybe I'll wait for GW2.. was about to buy GW1 the other day, but the shopkeeper told me that they stopped buying new stocks since GW2 was announced.

[Virtz]

Well, to be fair, MMOs tend to use the subscription model to fund better servers. I'm curious how Guild Wars 2 will handle this. To my knowledge, Guild Wars 1 just had towns and cities as player hubs while the rest of the world was instanced to your party (so the actual servers weren't overly loaded). And from what I've heard, GW2 won't. So I'm curious how they'll afford the server upkeep while not utilizing the subscription model. Ad-bucks?

[Cheese]

I'll implode if they put subscription fees in.
I hate non-competitive subscription fees too. £10 per month sums it up.

[Puck]

Frankly (and I know drumming up a specific MMO is a fast way to derail this, so I'll keep it short) this is one of the reasons I loved Guild Wars.

I kind of hated it. Working to unlock skills for pvp was incredibly boring. Course, you can pvp with the basic skills, but it's not always fun. At least not for me.

That was actually part of the fun in GW. At least with your first character, you got the experience to learn how it goes. I remember how I was level 15, how I grinded there, how I hated it. How I was only in the fifth mission or so with such a high level.

Then I started talking to players of different character classes, we tried to work out teamwork and synergetic effects (that would go WAY beyond the usual tank/heal/dps setup) and suddenly the game became fun.

After I went through the first fully created character with all unlocked skills, I started to rush people (never a droknars run, because that would cost you all the fun) of the guild to the ascension trials. My guildmates made a sport of ascending with the lowest possible level. In short, we decorated the game with all kinds of self imposed challenges, and it was loads of fun, for a year or so.

Oh, and after you ascended, getting all the skills was quick and easy iirc.

[Astral]

As someone who's played WoW for around two years, I have to say that I'm getting sick and tired of it. The only reason I continue playing is the community; friends and foes that I've made over the months make the game worth playing still. That doesn't mean that the server I play on isn't completely filled with a bunch of morons (on the contrary: people are still having trouble clearing content thats been out well over eight months), but the guild I'm in has made the game worthwhile just because of that sense of community.

Yeah, I've quit twice over the years. Running through the game the exact same way 5 times (with 5 seperate 80s) and getitng them geared, playing a slightly different viewpoint of the exact same game isn't completely appealing (which is why I only tend to get on if somethings hapening). But its not the game I lose when I do, but those people I've found to be friends (even though I keep in touch with them outside of the game).

Tempted to sell my account if Cataclysm sucks, make a return on my investment knowing what I do about the game now.

Guild Wars 2 looks like it has some lofty goals in mind. However, its going to be a balance of 'what we want to do' in terms of trying to redefine a genre that everyone will compare to WoW, as opposed to what it fair/balanced/going to hold the players hand and make them feel go about playing and get them the same free shinies as everyone else. Because thats what most casuals have come to expect.

I certainly wouldn't mind the events that made WoW interesting during my brief stint on private servers: GM interaction, rather than being behind the scenes, and things like the zombie event that happened once upon a time, or all the fun things that may have interrupted the flow of daily gameplay for the sake of FUN. But no; it must be grind and gold and raid and epics.

I would love to see a game that actually increases the content and has the kind of things GW2 details; instead of being a repetitive grindfest made the make money by keeping people playing, it would be like an interactive story that can't be replayed the same way twice. Sure, you may miss out on something when you're offline, but the fact that you could be experiencing something unique when you ARE on is worth spending your time on their game.

[Cheese]

I played WoW for a month or two, not straight though, managed to get a Forsaken Warlock to something like level 48. I found the concept a bit crappy, it seemed you could do nothing but grind and grind again till you got to level cap, you couldn't do raids and couldn't realistically get your professions up to max as far as I could tell. The first guild I joined was awesome, just starting out. We were all pretty much the samish level and everyone actually talked on the guild chat which really helped get through the grind. Some guy managed to get in a position of power and mess up the name and everything. He then kicked everyone, so I joined a second. The second one sucked; most were near or at level 80 or powerleveling alts and about 5 people were on at any one time before the daily 8PM raid. Hardly anyone ever talked and despite acting all strict about inactivity, I stopped playing for 2 weeks, came back and nobody even mentioned it.
Meh.

I wish MMO developers would start being more competitive. Why do all MMOs have the same subscription prices?
For some reason, Runescape is probably my best MMO(ish) experience. Sure it's grindy and full of 10 year olds, but the grind is fun and you're not limited to one type of grind. There. I said it.

[inteuniso]

I think MMOs are not trying to be competitive for the same reason all FPSes are so similar, and why games cost all about the same: Companies think they can make more money by simply making a clone of a successful game, instead of coming up with a new idea.

Look at games that differentiate: APB (totally failed within a few months of launching), Star Wars Galaxies (converted to a WoW clone to survive), Auto Assault(A great vehicular combat MMO that failed).

I truly wish that games would be different. But we are having so many events happening at the same time, all leading to the same thing: As games become more mainstream, and review sites become more biased as they're paid advertising funds, and big developers mimic successful business companies, it all culminates to make the next WoW or Call of Duty, which more and more people buy. Complex games are shunned as they take too much time and too much thought to play.

Now, as with most rants, my above post simply complains. The solution to all of this: make a complex MMO. Why? It's the perfect genre for complexity. The persistence that comes with MMOs, along with the ability to play either PvE or PvP, alllows for short sessions that can culminate into complex and awesome arcs. A sci-fi epic of colonizing a new planet; a fantasy RPG of continuing down into the dungeon, split up into multiple small sessions.

Hopefully games will become more complex in the next few years. Hopefully developers and their publishers will realize that complexity and breaking from the status quo is not a bad thing, and will lead to a second age of gaming epicness. That's what I hope for. That's why I shall learn to program or go into game design and help change the status quo.

[Cheese]

Dwarf fort is successful and complex. I think it attracted it's perfect playerbase, and if the want is there for more complex MMOs, then all that needs be done is for the people that want complexity to be hearing about the complexity. Alot of games flop, and it seems not many MMOs are made in comparison to other genres. Perhaps the reason for the lack of a complex MMO.

[hemmingjay]

Darkfall Online is one of the few mmo's that I keep returning to. It's a bit more like my classic MMO experiences with acceptable crafting and open and harsh pvp which causes you to actually experience emotions while playing. Sounds funny, but most games have removed any true experience of emotion in favor of directing your responses in a predictable manner. Just my 2 pence.

[Virex]

Dwarf fort is successful and complex. I think it attracted it's perfect playerbase, and if the want is there for more complex MMOs, then all that needs be done is for the people that want complexity to be hearing about the complexity. Alot of games flop, and it seems not many MMOs are made in comparison to other genres. Perhaps the reason for the lack of a complex MMO.

Complex as in takes 10 minutes to explain how to desing a fighter? (link to game's home page)

[inteuniso]

Dwarf fort is successful and complex. I think it attracted it's perfect playerbase, and if the want is there for more complex MMOs, then all that needs be done is for the people that want complexity to be hearing about the complexity. Alot of games flop, and it seems not many MMOs are made in comparison to other genres. Perhaps the reason for the lack of a complex MMO.

Complex as in takes 10 minutes to explain how to desing a fighter? (link to game's home page)

Again, Beyond Protocol is complex, but you need to spend hours to get into that game. An MMO which splits up complex tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks will allow complex tasks to be completed through simpler, smaller missions.

[Soulwynd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlqBQpk6Q20

I like this view of Beyond protocol....

hah.

[Sowelu]

Hopefully games will become more complex in the next few years. Hopefully developers and their publishers will realize that complexity and breaking from the status quo is not a bad thing, and will lead to a second age of gaming epicness. That's what I hope for. That's why I shall learn to program or go into game design and help change the status quo.

As Servant Corps's sig says (paraphrased):  "It had better be a good game.  If it isn't, I won't buy it.  If it is, I won't buy it."  Would you really get *enough* people who like complex games, to make up for all the other players you'd lose?  I mean, I know I've got all kinds of ideas for how to design an MMO that I could really love.  But when it all comes down to it, I still wouldn't play it.  As the target audience, I don't want to spend my time and money on MMOs, whatever they might be.  Take that "Love" game that is probably still off in distant far-off development land.  Totally wicked sweet, exactly what I want, but...it's still an MMO.  I can't put that much time into something.