MMO's the bane of modern gaming - Page 2
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Mr. Black
United States470 Posts
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Chocolate
United States2350 Posts
On November 06 2013 06:16 Blackfeather wrote: Sounds like d&d. Sadly that's impossible for a game not hosted by a human. A lot of bioware-games tried to give players a bit of freedom in their decisions, but you can never achieve total freedom in a game. Besides the reason why it's criticized in the op is that mmos usually have worse stories than the average rpg, not that they cant solve the problem rpg-devs cant. They usually have close to no story at all for 3/4 of their quests. Or did you mean that players write quests for mmos? How do you get the players to do that? Have you ever played EVE? I assume that he meant games like that, where almost everything is up to the players. For example, players organize teams (corporations) and wage battles over areas, most of the economy is player driven, there is not much hand-holding with a main quest line, etc. To be honest I would love to play EVE if 1. I had more time and 2. I was better at it, which depends on 1. If there were a new game like EVE that was coming out I would be so happy, since that would reduce 2. I don't care about the space setting per se but the player-driven mechanics are great. I've tried to start playing EVE a few times but I always have a real-life commitment for a few days and lose interest. | ||
TyrantPotato
Australia1541 Posts
i wish i was a kid again | ||
Jerubaal
United States7684 Posts
-You talk a lot about how you think MMOs don't tell stories well, but then you compare them to Mobas that have no story. -The problems you cite with MMOs are endemic in every game: CoD has a Prestige system, there's a glut of shitgames on Facebook designed to get you hooked. If anything, it seems like the money-wringers have abandoned MMOs. | ||
igay
Australia1178 Posts
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floi
203 Posts
On November 06 2013 08:12 TyrantPotato wrote: reading this makes me miss Ragnarok online. i wish i was a kid again I sometimes feel the nostaliga too, but then I always wonder how I could possibly bear spending SO much time grinding while actually looking forward to standing at a mostly boring castle defense with my wizard for two hours twice a weak... Regarding the op, I agree that out of all the MMO(RPG)S I've known/played over the years EVE comes closest to actually solving the problem of interesting content and meaningful consequences of player actions. It's the first thing that came to my mind when I started reading the op. However, I think this is only true for PVP and all the fun action (and possibly your monthly subscription) needs to be funded by collecting ingame currency, which (at least last time I played) often means boring PvE activities: ratting (killing npcs for loot and bounties) and salvaging (looting stuff other people shoot). So not perfect, but there is some potential. | ||
Staboteur
Canada1873 Posts
Dear OP, go listen to some Stuart McLean and go play Brothers. They'll give you the dose of storytelling you need, so you can stop looking for it in mediums that aren't at all supposed to be good at it. P.S. I fucking LOVE Stuart McLean. Turn off everything and just listen to one of his stories... perhaps it's Canadian nostalgia, but it always feels like an experience like no other :D | ||
Impervious
Canada4166 Posts
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Jerubaal
United States7684 Posts
On November 06 2013 09:08 Impervious wrote: Nice job lumping all MMO's into the same category..... Try playing Eve online. It has a lot of faults, no doubt, but it's an incredible game. Bad storytelling. Dumpstergame. 0/5. | ||
Chocolate
United States2350 Posts
If you want good story telling, why not just play a single player game? Yeah an MMO can have a good single player story in addition to a multiplayer one I suppose, but there's nothing wrong with EVE's storytelling; it's all player driven. | ||
Darkdwarf
Sweden960 Posts
I've been sad ever since BioWare announced that kotor 3 would be an mmo. | ||
SnipedSoul
Canada2158 Posts
It seems that loot is more important than fun. | ||
Mothra
United States1448 Posts
On November 06 2013 04:05 spinesheath wrote: The ideal story for an MMO is one created by the players themselves. This is what I think too. A carefully constructed story is not going to hold up in an MMO because you're sharing it with a bunch of people with different goals. If you have one group who wants to role play, I guarantee there will be another who will have great fun wrecking their enjoyment. That's all part of the fun... stories emerge from random people banding together to pursue some object. WoW and its clones are just one type of MMO. A game like Ultima Online was a total sandbox back in the day. People had the freedom to do and be anything and it was chaos and good fun. MUDs are another kind of MMO that facilitate stronger narratives because they are text based. I disagree that MMOs are a source from which the blights of shallowness and mediocrity flow. That's just the state of modern big budget game development period. I think that the rise of budgets and sales is what kills risk taking and creativity. The obscene amount of money that WoW raked in was its greatest sin, not its lack of story. | ||
HeeroFX
United States2704 Posts
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Archeon
3250 Posts
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Meadowlark
United States349 Posts
I was born a gamer at heart, I know that, but at the rate the gaming world is going, I'm not sure what I will die as, because it certainly won't be a gamer. Like really, what is this shit? You act like assuming that things will continue in this direction at this rate ad infinitum is a reasonable assumption, and not a wild leap of faith. It's like you're looking at a complex function, and then you take the derivative at just one point, and go on to insist, "this is totally representative of this entire function." I know that the "at this rate" argument is rhetorically appealing, but pretty much any argument relying on that phrase is bound to be hopelessly silly unless you actually bother to prove why the current rate will continue. You also seem to be conveniently ignoring all data that is contrary to your thesis, such as the enormous success of franchises such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and the Elder Scrolls. I'd really like to enumerate all the other argumentative flaws, but I have other things to do. TL;DR: When you're trying to make a point, you should probably spend at least SOME time and effort on supporting your thesis, rather than spending the whole time on background explanation. | ||
obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
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Sejanus
Lithuania550 Posts
Just out of curiosity, a few questions: 1. Do you know that MMO is not the same as MMORPG? 2. How many different MMOs have you played, and which titles in particular? Have you played games like Darkfall or Eve Online, where players themselves create huge stories? 3. Why do you insist on evaluating games from one very narrow and largely irrelevant perspective, namely storytelling? | ||
floi
203 Posts
On November 06 2013 09:08 Impervious wrote: Nice job lumping all MMO's into the same category..... Try playing Eve online. It has a lot of faults, no doubt, but it's an incredible game. I'd actually be interested in a more elaborated response regarding the points raised by the op from someone who has more experience with EVE than I do. For example, I wonder it the player-driven "story" in EVE is anything more than eternal conflict and changing control over space regions. Or is it more about the ingame politics of alliances, loyalty and betrayal? | ||
ejozl
Denmark3306 Posts
The ideal story for an MMO is one created by the players themselves. This. The only part of me that tries to pull me back to playing WoW, is the next chapter of the journey of my characters. I was one of those guys that started out on RP-PVP realm Sure, seing other exact characters and hearing about how they completed the same quest, etc.. is a turn off, but I just think I was invested enough into my characters that I could see past it. I agree with OP a whole lot, it's not exactly playing an Elder Scrolls game, but if you can disconnect some of the things you HAVE TO DO in the game that don't agree with your character, then it's the perfect sandbox for writing some great character stories. | ||
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