Quote Originally Posted by Duelle View Post
You mean the expansion that's basically "lol we can't think of interesting new characters and don't want to take the time to conceive and develop a meaningful cast of heroes, so here go back in time to an alternate past and rub elbows with the heroes of old in what should cause several temporal paradoxes but whatever lorelol"? That's like standing in line to get your intelligence insulted. >.>;
This.
Well not everyone sees it that way. I love stories where there's time travel involved and you get to see an area and people that you wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise. It can be done well.

OP: I want to share an experience I've had this past week. I was stuck on my 10 years old laptop, which means I couldn't play FFXIV or any of the bigger mmorpg titles. So I decided to give a browser indie game I'd heard about a try - and I was amazed. The community was extremely small - but everyone who played was genuinely interested in the game and was having fun. People were helpful, they chatted and did things together - they joked about the things they didn't like and even managed to turn them fun. I felt like I had just travelled back in time to 2004.
You are free to draw your conclusions - here's a bunch of my considerations [Wall of text incoming. Excuse my english.]

A mmorpg -especially a theme park- will always, sooner or later, grow stale - since its content is finite and developing new content takes more time than consuming it. What used to make the difference every time you logged in was the people who played with you and the content you created together. Still, being able to solo is a great thing - since even the most social of players would want some alone time every now and then. Social interaction doesn't have to be a must 100% of the time nor revolve exclusively around combat.

One of the problems is that way too many people were led to believe that you can play a mmorpg like a singular player game nowadays -just with other players around. These players think that it will constantly be updated with official content to keep up with them. Their expectations are unreal and the gamers who do not understand this are never going to be happy with the genre. Once they exhaust a game's current content and the novelty wears off, there is nothing more for them to do. Whilst this is not as apparent in sandboxes - the problem is glaring when you switch to a theme park model.

Self-centeredness has also reached a new high - and just an example - it has become common to see players ask for a game designer or artist etc to be fired because they didn't like the design of a new set. Anonymity not only means people go unpunished - it leads to disconnection, to the point that unconsciously we stop treating other players and game developers as people sometimes. So never mind taking into consideration that there are people with different tastes playing this game with you.

Mmorpg's are a very slow evolving market - it takes years to develop a quality one. With such big investments, companies do not want to take too many risks. Gamers are unforgiving and the competition is fierce. Time has become a commodity - and the player base is getting older, busier and more demanding.

People want games to value their time more -which is great - but somehow, the situation has escalated. We have gone from getting rid of artificial, mindless time-sinks to getting rid of the entire world - turning mmorpg's into hub games. It is good and well for there to be a few of those games around - as there's obviously a market for them - but why push every game to be like that? A mmorpg doesn't need to be WoW to be successful. As long as it's mindful of whom their target player base is - a niche game can do perfectly well. It will turn off some players, sure - but its very distinct style will also draw in unexpected people who are curious and can't find that experience anywhere else. See EVE - a solid *10 years old* game with a solid identity - with a steady, even increasing player base. See FFXI, albeit now in decline.

This turn of events has made players sour. There are people who are genuinely unhappy about the direction that the genre has taken - the streamlining, the lack of originality - and want it to go back to its roots. The original mmorpg players have been given the shaft in favour of a bigger market. Their concerns are legitimate - I feel - but some people are simply unable to help themselves it seems, and feel the need to vent their frustration everywhere in a very unseemly manner.

I've heard so many players claim that they want to "get things done". I find this mentality is very puzzling - as most of them sound extremely unhappy. The objective of playing a game is having fun. If you're enjoying yourself, whether you're being efficient or casual about it - it is time well-spent. If you're not having fun, it is time you're wasting. If you choose to keep playing a game you do not enjoy - the only one to blame is you and venting your anger on the community or the developers is not going to make things better. If you do not like the very core of a game - that game is probably not targeting you as their customer- but people do not seem to realize that or want to accept it even when they do.