Wonder if anyone here feels this way?

[fistantalius]

So I was searching some forums on other MMO list sites. I found this and read and well it does make some sense. So was wondering what you all thought.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03...t-ever-happen/

[Susanoh]

I agree. MMOs have been at a weird stage for a while where they still technically still have large interactive online worlds and economies but they're designed for people who want to skip all that pesky open world business and get to "the good stuff" as quickly as possible. "The good stuff" being repeating a small series of instances indefinitely until the next patch where you get to do it all over again with 5% better equipment and 5% tougher mobs.

WoW, the game that really kicked off the current theme park MMO trend, even sells max level characters now, if that's any indication of how completely meaningless the journey has become in the modern them park setting.

[Reiryuu]

Totally agree with him. Everquest had it's flaws, don't get me wrong, but games like it and FFXI where the leveling was slower and group based were much better IMO than those that are coming out today with everything being solo leveling via quests. Everyone is in such a big rush these days and it makes me a little sad.

[BlueMage]

A lot of the people who are too casual for endgame in modern MMOs were too casual for any aspect of earlier MMOs. Currently, people complain if they have to wait 5 minutes, or heaven forbid have to run for longer than 5 minutes to get somewhere in the 'world'. Early MMOs were considered very newbie/casual unfriendly. The endgame is this game is easier and more casual than just basic leveling was in FF11. People complain about 15 minute queues for dungeon. Ha, that was the wait time just to use the airship - I won't get into the potential party wait times.

I think this game does a good job of introducing people to "endgame" relative to other MMOs. I mean, we do regular Ifrit at like Lv20, and really, the 1-50 game is instances that really aren't so different from things like Coil. The only real change at "endgame" in this game is parties going from 4 person to 8 person for serious content. Its not as jarring as going from 5 person groups to 40 person groups.

[cotti]

This is a good article, but a tad too emotional against raiding. Which I understand and actually agree a bit.

ARR only has leveling to slowly introduce new techniques and make you used to the role you chose to follow. It's a tutorial for the theme park we have on our "endgame", where the real level is the ilvl.

We can argue for many pages about how much the whole other side of the spectrum, of enjoying "living" in the game world, was directly and/or indirectly prejudiced by the theme-park agenda. We're still getting steady updates on the other fronts, though.

[Gramul]

Im going to give that a solid YES.

[darkstarpoet1]

i have to say i completely agree with the ease of leveling and being able to jump into endgame almost as soon as you sign into your character originally being the start of the decline of the genre. my problem isn't endgame, per se, but the severe lack of variety to it. in most current generation games a mmo has become a glorified lobby experience and they have gotten old quickly. i miss the days of actually going out and adventuring with others in a huge open world where strong monsters you had to group and kill were out there. now everything important is instanced and everything else is just an afterthought.

[Karnyboy]

From the moment you set foot into the online world you should be "end game"

The journey should be exciting at all times, not the destination. I mean we can live with milestones, but there's so many times in online games where they just can't get it right, you hit odd plateaus where exp doesn't come in quickly anymore but you're locked out from anything exciting and you feel underwhelming, or you level so fast you make all content meaningless until you cap.

MMO's are a stale genre until some change comes in. I honestly believe that the market itself has finally hit a saturation point and thankfully what we will see now is gamers leaving in frustration over repeating the same things for the last 15 years and developers forced to really push the envelope and re-imagine the genre once again.

Personally, I had a ton of fun with Asheron's Call back in the day because it was a game that had immense levels and no real loot table so to speak, it was fun to actually monster hunt and see what you could get off high end monsters. It was less about the need to hit a cap and just a desire to explore and challenge yourself.

The irony or the internet is that it made games like MMO's possible, but also ruined them, how many of you can say you do all content without once looking up online for the strategies/answers? That's including the ones you play with.

[KupoNuts]

Here's a post worth reading which I found on WoW forums some time ago, and it pretty much sums up how I feel about MMO genre nowadays (unfortunately):

Yeah, this is definitely no longer the amazing game I used to play before. There's just no adventure or purpose to it, instead of structuring the game and quests as they once did, now it's all about gearing/leveling as fast as possible, consuming the content as fast as possible, and making everything as easy as possible for everyone, then using the old "Well you have HC mode if you find it too easy" excuse to shut people up.

[Ed_N_Ants]

The problem is they are making objectives of things to do rather then letting us live a life in the world... I prefer crafting and think that it is garbage I can't craft better gear then I can raid... If you can get your crafts to 50 maybe you should be able to make that special object to make that special outfit that cant be sold and is better then dungeon gear...