MMORPGs death of RPG

[Orius]

I'm lucky in the fact that I refuse to pay full price for a game only to have to pay more per month just to justify the purchase.

I feel the same way. I know there's the whole matter of bandwidth and server costs, but these games are expensive enough to begin with — at least $40 or so, and then they throw a monthly fee on top of it so I can actually play it? No thanks.

 

[Orius]

I don't think that MMORPGs are compatible with a normal work schedule and a social life, except you are a disciplined personality, who can keep the gaming time very limited. For me, this didn't work.

It's like I said above, they seem to cater to the addicts. It's harder for a casual gamer to really stay competitive. Personally, I'm not enthused by a game where I have to spend hours doing the same boring tasks over and over again to get a fraction of a level.

 

[Thanee]

That's why I like WoW, since it really is not that way (quite casual gamer friendly).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Orius]

My point is that when it comes down to MMORPGs and MUDs, there really isn't much of a point outside of trying to become one of the more powerful characters in the gameworld. And that requires one to dedicate *a lot* of time and/or money

[snip]

While these games pretend they are about roleplaying, in the end they come down to one thing to improve your character: killing huge mobs of monsters over and over again. You could go into player vs. player combat, but to do so and be effective, you'll have to be pretty powerful. Add that to the really silly "roleplaying" where people twirl one another in the street or lick each other or something else with those emotes.

I agree completely. I like my hack and slash, but killing scores of brainless computerized monsters, whether graphical or text-based gets boring after a while. In most of the games there really isn't much to do but kill stuff and level. There's the occasional quest, but once you do them, there's nothing to do but kill monsters. I think one thing that keeps me interested is exploring the game worlds, but as big as some of those world can get they're not really about exploration, but about powergaming. It all comes down to getting the most "leet" equipment in the game or maxing out spells or skills. In the end the really powerful character end up being little more than cookie-cutter copies of each other. Often gaining this power can only be achieved by spending real money on donations to the game; I know they have to keep the servers up, but the rewards sort of tip the balance. If you don't pay, you're second-rate and what point is there in playing if you're constanly less powerful than everyone else? The presence of PKing makes it even worse; paying players can easily walk all over those who don't, and that becomes so frustrating that the game isn't at all fun. And I find emotes silly as all hell too.

I had it happen to me on Achaea where my 23rd level Magi was out fishing to earn a living and was assaulted by a person who logged in thousands of hours and maxed out all of his skills (by paying cash IRL for credits in game, of course). I had no defense to him or her taking everything I had, killing my character, and making me lose XPs and levels. I gave up on my character because it would take hours just to get back the supplies I lost unless I payed for credits and sold them on the market for gold to buy the stuff back.

That's another aspect of the MMORPGs I can't stand: the horribly screwed up economies. The addicts have so much gold and wealth on their characters that the prices of everything fly through the roof to drain them of cash. And getting money can take a very long time indeed. In fact, the best ways of getting money in those games is usually to kill the most powerful monsters or other players and sell whatever equipment they drop. So the better PKers just get better, while the casual players can't even begin to compete with them. Some of the better games to place some limits on PKing so that very powerful characters can't just simply wipe out weaklings and that's good, but there are also those player who know the game inside out, and know how to min-max characters into perfect killing machines.

 

[BOZ]

Blizzard's just starting this MMORPG thing, and so far, they've done an amazing job.

wasn't that the company that made the game Diablo?

 

[ThoughtBubble]

wasn't that the company that made the game Diablo?

Erm... Sorta. Blizzard North made Diablo. They were a second division of Blizzard. I belive that the head guys from there split out to start the company that's doing Guild Wars. But it's likely a lot of talent from there got into the WoW thing, and you know, they did have all their other battle-net expierence to draw on.

 

[BOZ]

I myself have been playing City of Heroes for about a year, I simply view it as another gaming outlet, another facet of the hobby (and no, City of Heroes is not better than D&D).

i absoultely agree. but CoH is fun though.

one of our regular players (and possibly others, but less so than him) is really into WoW (and halo, and this, and that, etc...). however, if anything is taking his time away from tabletop gaming, it is his work schedule and not his computer gaming.

 

[Rum Ranger]

I agree completely. I like my hack and slash, but killing scores of brainless computerized monsters, whether graphical or text-based gets boring after a while. In most of the games there really isn't much to do but kill stuff and level. There's the occasional quest, but once you do them, there's nothing to do but kill monsters. I think one thing that keeps me interested is exploring the game worlds, but as big as some of those world can get they're not really about exploration, but about powergaming. It all comes down to getting the most "leet" equipment in the game or maxing out spells or skills. In the end the really powerful character end up being little more than cookie-cutter copies of each other. Often gaining this power can only be achieved by spending real money on donations to the game; I know they have to keep the servers up, but the rewards sort of tip the balance. If you don't pay, you're second-rate and what point is there in playing if you're constanly less powerful than everyone else? The presence of PKing makes it even worse; paying players can easily walk all over those who don't, and that becomes so frustrating that the game isn't at all fun. And I find emotes silly as all hell too.

Some of these games are easy enough to get drawn into. I don't know many online RPGs which allow unlimited PK. Most have a hands off approach to the newer/low level characters but once you get past that (or get out of the safe zones which you have to in order to get the drops and XP after certain levels), all bets are off. I keep mentioning Achaea but that's also because it's one of the better MUDs out there. For the first 20 levels or so, leveling up is fairly easy and comes at a decent pace. After 20th level, the PK rules not only change, but the rate of improvement for your character climbs steeply. For a period of about ten levels you're stuck in a sorta "limbo" between killing rats for small XP and gold or facing mobs with decent drops and XPs and facing either death or a player with way too much time on their hands robbing your character. I even had worse experiences on Threshold where people would follow my character, stand by and watch me kill a mob, and then bury the corpse and grab the loot and leave.

 

[KenM]

That's why I like WoW, since it really is not that way (quite casual gamer friendly).

Bye
Thanee

WoW is the only MMORPG I like, because it is casual gamer friendly. It rewards you for taking breaks from playing it.