The MMORPG genre has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade, encompassing everything from original to well-known franchises. Yet it seems that every time I read about an MMO, it’s a fan stating that “X game is boring and has no content”. But if one looks at how much content said MMO truly offers one can’t help but think, really?
The problems really are the fanboys and the type of content produced to satisfy them.
MMOs can be fixed if MMOs try to be more than WoW clones. We need a new model for how MMOs operate. The pattern for the last 7 years (since WoW has been out) has been this
- a new MMO comes out aiming to overtake WoW
- the first 25-50 hours are stocked with content
- players reach the endgame
- players get bored then go back to WoW
Endgame content is why WoW is still so popular. Blizzard makes sure that high-level players always have a ton of stuff to do.
We didn't break FFXI.......SE did><
From an MMO player who has played like almost ALL F2P MMOs and never played WoW, but played Rift... I can say that its both the fans and the developers who are to blame. I think that people complain about grindy games in games you have to pay to play mostly only. Fact is no one wants to spend all their time that they are paying to play fighting mobs they want to do dungeons get in the action with pvp. Everyone just wants to get high level fast and get to end game content asap. If more developers went the GW2 model just buy the game and small micro transactions cash shop, people would complain less about grinding because they can spend more of their time enjoying the content w/o feeling rushed. Then developers could focus more on "Horizontal Growth" which in reality is the only way to increase the longevity of the game. Also the games I had the most fun in are the MMOs that are 1-99 models not 1-50. Where it took MONTHS to reach lvl 80+ and not weeks to cap out.
Also from my experience with Rift watering down the game is the WORST thing you can do for an MMO. When Trion dumbed down the dungeons like 50% of the hardcore gamers quit within that month, which I think was a result of people crying about them being too hard(fan fault). Also I think over-tweaking the PvP made Rift kind of dull as well.
WoW is part of the problem to some degree but the real problem is player attitude that was shaped by WoW.
Rush, rush, rush, and the only people you should ever have to actually talk to are people you know already. This completely wrecks any sense of community and when you factored in the cross realm battle grounds and dungeon crawls it put a final nail in that coffin.
That attitude carries on to other games and people say there's 'no content', by which they mean they've gone as far as they can go by themselves and have no personal attachment to any friends in the game, so they go back to the game where they think they do.
I would say the best example I ever saw of this was in Rift. I ran in to somebody who actually kept a timer going for dungeons and howled endlessly that it was taking 20 or so minutes longer than 'average'.
Some people play MMOs to fill up experience bars. They like the grind. The really interesting ones are going to be those which move beyond the dull and stable structure of grind, quest, instance, grind.
Even moving toward different styles of leveling, like what The Secret World has going for it.
Or having players run the world as opposed to NPCs. World of Darkness, based upon Vampire: The Masquerade, intends to have clans and cities run by people (princes) who are PCs. Yes, by the nature of the world, regular folks will be able to set a blood hunt on another player, which essentially means the entire city is encouraged to track down and kill someone.
While this might seem like its begging for greifers, the system will likely be balanced by people who would quickly overthrow a corrupt entity. Yeah, it could backfire, but at least it's an interesting thought.