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Decline Why do MMOs suck so much?

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,873
I haven't played many as I am always tech way behind and most was dialup days unless at a relatives. In order my short list:
1. Some MUD
2. Wyvern (reminded me of ACS)
3. Dransik (obvious U4-5 reminder)
4. Euo(topia)
5. Perfect World International (PWI)
6. Angels Online
7. Aion (seems i was into angels and fruitloops).
8. Scarlet Blade
9. Drakensang online
10. (Shitty league of angels.. god that ain't a mmo its just shit)

And that's about it. I only played the free shit so only time and paying for internet was lost. I'm an altoholic (i make too many to try everything and cosmetic looks are no different.).

I enjoy exploring and soloing but party play i won't turn down. I can make my own rules as i play and not grind this or that. I enjoy finding broken area (ie in Poeta in Aion the first town has an area thats huge, has no encounters, and tou can't drown, climb peaks etc. was not terribly difficult to get to once you knew how). I enjoy looking at the scenery and check the musical scores. Pity not every door, nook and cranny can be explored esp if its just cosmetic background stage.

Fetch quests and kill quests can get boring and if the reward becomes the majority of the xp and not slaying shit then i find that annoying. Not fond of forced party instances to progress the story. PWI had that in the version i played. I don't care for speedy levelling ALL the time.

I enjoy crafting and certain complexities and free character customizations are cool. I don't know the best to worse for free customization of what your character can look like but there are probably quite a few out there.

I don't have to be wow'd by stupendous graphics. That's icing. The cake should be good and icecream on the side is nice but not necessary. Pay to play can suck abdmake one feel a little left out of "uber shitness" but I can live without shelling out $$ just for a red nose or hat or glowy green gun (BFD!).

Getting a like minded party of people you don't know can be apain and everyone knows when you're a newb.

Is there even respect gained in mmos if you suck balls at playing?

I would have loved trying the big boys UO, Asheron, Everquest(had one of my favorite ads art), WOW, etc. For well over a decade and a half i just had shit comp and connection. Ah well.
 

anvi

Prophet
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Messages
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There is a brand new EQ server coming later this year which would be a great time to start. It is P99 remade, called P99 Green. It is never going to be as good as the good ole days, but it can be pretty close and you can see what made the game so popular. Just don't play EQ as a melee.
 

Syl

Cipher
Joined
Nov 3, 2011
Messages
744
So my first MMO was EQ and the dungeons are amazing. They are huge, multiple groups can be in there at the same time, and things can go wrong. You see a room with 3 enemies so attack one, and 6 come because 2 were behind a hidden wall, and one was wandering past at the wrong time and now you have to fight 6 and might wipe unless the group is really good. WoW dungeons are never like that, they are very finely tuned instances, identical every time, never too difficult, same amount of mobs on every pull, everyone does their routine and everyone wins. There are a lot of things about WoW I don't like but the dungeons are what killed it for me the most. Some stuff I miss from WoW though.
I never played EQ so I can't compare, but these things happen in WoW too. I'm talking Vanilla here, even BC dungeons are decline. Blackrock Depths (BRD) is a huge dungeon, 5 hours for a complete clean. Scholomance has 10+ bosses and some nice strategies (too few I admit). Stratholme is the most chaotic I think, big pulls (5-10 mobs) and patrols everywhere.
Sure it becomes easy once you know the strats, but you can bring some noobs to spice things up, or go with only 4 people or even 3.
 

anvi

Prophet
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Yeah WoW has some other stuff I love too but overall I just much prefer EQ. But I've played it to death now, I want Pantheon now.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
My problem with WoW is the way the dungeons work.
Can you explain?
So my first MMO was EQ and the dungeons are amazing. They are huge, multiple groups can be in there at the same time, and things can go wrong. You see a room with 3 enemies so attack one, and 6 come because 2 were behind a hidden wall, and one was wandering past at the wrong time and now you have to fight 6 and might wipe unless the group is really good. WoW dungeons are never like that, they are very finely tuned instances, identical every time, never too difficult, same amount of mobs on every pull, everyone does their routine and everyone wins. There are a lot of things about WoW I don't like but the dungeons are what killed it for me the most. Some stuff I miss from WoW though.
Vanilla dungeons had some interesting stuff, and maybe a little bit in BC. Currently the Mythic+ model also shakes up the formula a lot, since modifiers vary weekly and a dungeon that could normally be piss-easy could be absolutely insane, or vice versa, depending on the affix combination, mob abilities, mob density and the dungeon maps themselves. I've done some high-ish, and have a few friends pushing 16+ (and making it in time, holy shit), and well, the timer aside (and you can ignore it), that shit is probably the most challenging stuff the game has had in years.

There is no sprawling huge dungeons though, sadly, though next patch will supposedly add one.
 

cretin

Magister
Douchebag!
Joined
Apr 20, 2019
Messages
1,347
The only MMO ive ever enjoyed playing is the division and the MUD/MOO/wahtever "HellMOO" before its creators went full tranny SJW mode and banned fun.

The others ive played all sort of blend in memory into some sort of bland featureless soup. Ive played quite a few in my time but i honestly couldnt tell you which ones because thats how forgettable they were.
 

anvi

Prophet
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Some of the best fun I've had in gaming has been in MMOs. The problem is that the old MMOs thought outside the box about what would be fun to do online with a lot of people. That's why we got games like Shadowbane where 200 people could get together and siege a town, fire catapults at the walls, bust them down and then we all rush inside together and kill all the players defending it. And now we own the town. EQ was amazing in that they really perfected the addictive aspect of gaming, you play for hours and make a bit of progress, it seems slow, but it is slow for everyone. So you play more hours to make a bit more progress and eventually you really feel how far you have come. The itemisation is better than any other game, the gear is amazing but hard to get and takes a long time to get. People play a whole week just trying to get a single item, that's how much it meant to people. Also the combat is so outstanding and many of the classes are so great to play. Vanguard is the best game I ever played in terms of classes and character building. You could really change your character depending how you spent your attribute points. You could be much tankier if you wanted to be, or a glass cannon, or anything in between. The way the spells and things worked was better than any other game. That game had problems in other areas though.

Still waiting for a new game that does a good job of this stuff. Pantheon looks like the only thing on the horizon for me. Also as shit as WoW is, they did a lot of fun things. Playing Capture the Flag with RPG characters instead of an FPS is something I always dreamt of and they made it reality. The PVP arena was fun too and the open world PVP was decent. The Druid is the best class in any game ever.

MMOs have done some amazing things and they still are not even close to 5% of their potential.
 

Seethe

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
967
I am pretty stoked for classic WoW atm. I could not do end game content back then, because my PC was ass.
 

Syl

Cipher
Joined
Nov 3, 2011
Messages
744
Vanilla dungeons had some interesting stuff, and maybe a little bit in BC. Currently the Mythic+ model also shakes up the formula a lot, since modifiers vary weekly and a dungeon that could normally be piss-easy could be absolutely insane, or vice versa, depending on the affix combination, mob abilities, mob density and the dungeon maps themselves. I've done some high-ish, and have a few friends pushing 16+ (and making it in time, holy shit), and well, the timer aside (and you can ignore it), that shit is probably the most challenging stuff the game has had in years.

There is no sprawling huge dungeons though, sadly, though next patch will supposedly add one.
I haven't played WoW past LK and I didn't know they have random dungeons now. That's incline.

Some questions though. What's "affix combination" and "16+"? What do you get for "making it in time"?
 

Pika-Cthulhu

Arcane
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
7,421
Vanilla dungeons had some interesting stuff, and maybe a little bit in BC. Currently the Mythic+ model also shakes up the formula a lot, since modifiers vary weekly and a dungeon that could normally be piss-easy could be absolutely insane, or vice versa, depending on the affix combination, mob abilities, mob density and the dungeon maps themselves. I've done some high-ish, and have a few friends pushing 16+ (and making it in time, holy shit), and well, the timer aside (and you can ignore it), that shit is probably the most challenging stuff the game has had in years.

There is no sprawling huge dungeons though, sadly, though next patch will supposedly add one.
I haven't played WoW past LK and I didn't know they have random dungeons now. That's incline.

Some questions though. What's "affix combination" and "16+"? What do you get for "making it in time"?

Dungeons arent random, theyre the current expansion dungeons with a new difficulty modifier, normal for levelling (you need to be level X to enter/queue up) heroic/mythic for max level (you need to have item level X to enter/queue) with a daily lockout, and Mythic Plus which adds the modifiers to the dungeon when you insert the levelled key at the start of the dungeon. Key level determines the difficulty factor and affixes, I think its 3,6 and 10 for the affixes, a level 7 dungeon gets the first and second affix, a level 11 and 22 gets all 3 with a boost to mobs health and dmg the higher level the key. You are required to complete a certain percentage of mob kills to clear the dungeon with different mobs giving a different percentage of completion, usually a more efficient path is worked out and everyone just cookie cutters onto it but class variance can change the strategy and timing depending on cooldowns, like grabbing a fucktonne of mobs and using bloodlust on a massive trash pull to explodify a giant chunk if the affix is favorable, or more conservative pulls because mobs get stronger when another dies near them it depends on the affixes. I dont know what changes are in BFA but in cursed Legion you got a loot crate at the end of the run that had the potential for loot, more loot if you ran the dungeon within the time limits, loot was a item level boosted version for your selected loot table from the dungeon table depending on the level of the key and if its Warforged/Titanforged (RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG because fuck you thats why!!!) so if you really wanted something that is a stupidly powerful trinket that only drops from one dungeon that turns your class from meh to HOLYSHIT you had to run that dungeon many times, best to grab some bros and try to organise what you all want from where and slog through them to kit yourself out, banter on comms is fun too also key for calling cd's. On top of all that horseshit (again, unclear on changes from BFA, I spit the dummy again at end of legion, havent poked my nose back yet, almost a whole year of bitchout, feelsgoodman) each week you get a loot crate where the loot is determined by the level of the key you completed the previous week that can be from any dungeon on the loot table, with chance at the new meme legendary thinger that you probably stash in the backpack because it has shit stats but need it in case an item drops thats shit for you but good for a bro, Yeah, forgot to mention that bit, you cant trade shit out unless you have equal or better item level, so if a super haste ring drops for you and its your worst stat but your bro is a fiend for it but its higher item level than what you have ever had, sucks for you and your bro, next time you can trade shit out, as long as its of equal or lesser item level.

Basically RNG the game, the movie, the experience. Can be fun with bros, especially if you are prone to shenanigans. Great for alchemists and engineers to sell pots and flasks sky golems that the herbalist bots but en masse.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Vanilla dungeons had some interesting stuff, and maybe a little bit in BC. Currently the Mythic+ model also shakes up the formula a lot, since modifiers vary weekly and a dungeon that could normally be piss-easy could be absolutely insane, or vice versa, depending on the affix combination, mob abilities, mob density and the dungeon maps themselves. I've done some high-ish, and have a few friends pushing 16+ (and making it in time, holy shit), and well, the timer aside (and you can ignore it), that shit is probably the most challenging stuff the game has had in years.

There is no sprawling huge dungeons though, sadly, though next patch will supposedly add one.
I haven't played WoW past LK and I didn't know they have random dungeons now. That's incline.

Some questions though. What's "affix combination" and "16+"? What do you get for "making it in time"?

As the poster above said (my god though, man, please split that into paragraphs, that is so hard to read), the dungeons aren't random as that isn't supported by the engine as far as I know. Maps are always the same, as is (usually) the placement of the mob packs.

The difference and difficulty comes from said affixes. Each week cycles 3 different ones, and the higher your dungeon difficulty is, the more of the affixes will be activated.

Effects range from "eh whatever" to "holy fuck" to "shit why is this combo even a thing", for example:

Bolstering
L4 When any non-boss enemy dies, its death cry empowers nearby allies, increasing their maximum health and damage by 20%.

Bursting
L4 When slain, non-boss enemies explode, causing all players to suffer 14% of their max health in damage over 4 sec. This effect stacks.

Full list: https://www.wowhead.com/affixes

Now, I won't say that this is a huge game changer that will make you rerun the dungeons over and over again, but it does add enough variability and difficulty for the few times a week you might wanna do it. Communication and cooperation are pretty much a must for these, random groups going even for lower M+ difficulties usually end up in whine and wipe, unlike the hilariously simple Heroic runs and the ehhhh well we just crushed everything regular mythics.

You also get higher iLevel loot the higher up the ladder of difficulty you climb, and once per reset you get a bonus chest based on your best run. It'll give you a new Mythic+ key that's 1 level lower than your highest level of the previous week, a bunch of Artifact Power for your necklace thingy, a random cloak (okay okay a random epic, but I usually get a fucking cloak) that's based on the highest level of the dungeon you completed, and a decent chance that it upgrades on pick-up, and a bunch of Titan Residuum, which you can use to buy armor pieces.

There is a lot of RNG involved as the weekly affixes are rolled randomly, but, well, yeah. It's actually challenging.

For making it in time, you increment the level of difficulty on your key, btw, so you can try a higher level of difficulty. Nothing else.
 
Self-Ejected

c2007

Self-Ejected
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Didn't read thread.

To answer thread titular question - why do MMOs suck so much?

Virtual LARPing.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I doubt that, otherwise you'd be playing them instead of yammering about it. There aren't any great ones, merely ones less shit.
 

Wyatt_Derp

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
3,062
Location
Okie Land
Entropy or some shit. If you add enough hu-man to an equation, eventually it begins to suck no matter the variables or control groups. My Illuminati pals told me this while diddling my hippo-campus with their salad spoons.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
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Kelethin
I doubt that, otherwise you'd be playing them instead of yammering about it. There aren't any great ones, merely ones less shit.
Stop shit posting my god.

Here are some MMOs that deserve respect and are probably better than anything you have ever played.

1) UO: They made a complex world for people to play in online, where anyone can do almost anything.
2) EQ: They did so many great things in one game. I still play it today after 20 years.
3) Shadowbane/DAOC: Siege castles as an army, hunt people down in the wilderness.
4) Rift/Vg/Tera: They have probably the class / combat design in any game ever.
5) EVE Online, google it and be amazed. People have gone to prison and died and all sorts of crazy shit over this game.
6) WoW: It kind of destroyed the genre but it wasn't WoW's fault. It also is incredibly dumbed down, but there are some amazing things about this game too. CTF with fantasy characters, what's not to love? Same goes for Arena PVP, also the Druid class in this game is better and more fun than anything you have ever played.
7) Some others.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
1) UO: They made a complex world for people to play in online, where anyone can do almost anything.
2) EQ: They did so many great things in one game. I still play it today after 20 years.
3) Shadowbane/DAOC: Siege castles as an army, hunt people down in the wilderness.
Dead game that cost money to play at the time. What's the point?

4) Rift/Vg/Tera: They have probably the class / combat design in any game ever.
Too Weeaboo for me.

5) EVE Online, google it and be amazed. People have gone to prison and died and all sorts of crazy shit over this game.
Cost money to play. Also, far too long gone at this point to be worth joining. Also, entirely populated by serial killers, so unless you've made significant investment in home security, I wouldn't go anywhere near this.

6) WoW: It kind of destroyed the genre but it wasn't WoW's fault. It also is incredibly dumbed down, but there are some amazing things about this game too. CTF with fantasy characters, what's not to love? Same goes for Arena PVP, also the Druid class in this game is better and more fun than anything you have ever played.
7) Some others.
Yeah, no, I don't do the "paying money for games" thing. Where is the profit in this? I don't put money into things that don't produce profit for me. That would be uncapitalist.
 

anvi

Prophet
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1) UO: They made a complex world for people to play in online, where anyone can do almost anything.
2) EQ: They did so many great things in one game. I still play it today after 20 years.
3) Shadowbane/DAOC: Siege castles as an army, hunt people down in the wilderness.
Dead game that cost money to play at the time. What's the point?
Point is that UO was Ultima but with other real people. And there was a lot more to it than people know. Like how they simulated the wildlife, etc. EQ is not dead, it is still alive after 20 years! And so what if it cost money, so do most games.

Too Weeaboo for me.
Only one is Weaboo. The others are amazing, Rift is still alive, but got dumbed down.

5) EVE Online, google it and be amazed. People have gone to prison and died and all sorts of crazy shit over this game.
Cost money to play. Also, far too long gone at this point to be worth joining. Also, entirely populated by serial killers, so unless you've made significant investment in home security, I wouldn't go anywhere near this.
Meh. But you have to respect what they did with the game.
6) WoW: It kind of destroyed the genre but it wasn't WoW's fault. It also is incredibly dumbed down, but there are some amazing things about this game too. CTF with fantasy characters, what's not to love? Same goes for Arena PVP, also the Druid class in this game is better and more fun than anything you have ever played.
7) Some others.
Yeah, no, I don't do the "paying money for games" thing. Where is the profit in this? I don't put money into things that don't produce profit for me. That would be uncapitalist.
So you don't buy nice things, gotcha.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I don't buy nice things. By definition, if I have to buy them, they aren't nice. Otherwise they would be profitable investments.
 

AtomicNinja

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 5, 2020
Messages
1
Arguably the MMORPG is the most declined genre of all (maybe jointly with the RTS). I have been hooked by two MMOs in the past: Star Wars Galaxies for the open world sandbox experience and Guild Wars 1 for the teamplay potential and good use of instancing.

Instead of progressing, MMO developers seemed to have just tried to make a bunch of reskinned WoWs, not improving on two of the main selling points of MMOs for me: (online) open world exploration/adventuring and teamplay potential.

My main frustration though with all of these MMOs is that the gameplay absolutely sucks and has not progressed at all in the last 15-20 years. When I'm used to Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma why would I ever settle to play WoW/ESO/GW2 for hundreds of hours?

For me a big open world, sandbox MMO with the combat of Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma would be absolutely amazing. Is it that this type of game would have no audience or something? I get that MMOs are huge investment and that risk adverse companies prefer to play it safe. But on the other hand, people seem to be abandoning this genre now for other genres for lack of any proper options.
They actually made a Dragon's Dogma MMO which might have been your thing, too bad it got shut down. though there are people trying to revive it
 

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