How are people addicted to MMORPGs?

[LarryTyphoid]

Great multiplayer games should be able to played solo. Take, for example, Space Station 13, perhaps the greatest multiplayer game ever made, in which playing with your friends is actively forbidden because you're not allowed to metagame. You still spend most of your time interacting with other people, but as a lone agent; you will not be joining any "guilds", unless that group is formed naturally from roleplaying within any given round of the game, and that group will not be carried over into future rounds because doing so would be metagaming. I used to play Space Station 13 for hours every day, but I can't imagine ever doing so for an MMORPG. This is in spite of (or maybe because of) SS13 lacking any kind of progression between rounds, neither social nor mechanical.

 

[anvi]

Also if the low levels are boring and menial then it's just not a good game. Most single player RPGs have you killing rats or whatever at the start too, how fun they make it is what matters.

Well, MMOs are rarely good games. They tend to favor dilute solutions of sub-mediocrity that shy just short of being actually terrible. It'll become the form of badness you prefer because it is familiar. But the thing is, pretty much all low-level activity is menial. Ask yourself: When was the last time you played an MMO where the activities you were allowed to do as a low-level player actually mattered a damn in the scope of the wider game? Would you voluntarily perform these activities if you knew this and weren't otherwise forced to? Probably not.

My point about EQ is that you didn't need to rush through levels, it was fun from the start. And people can play with their friends from the start, if one is already high level then that's tough shit. If you started playing some sport with a bunch of people who had been playing years then that would be a problem too.

Modelling your design on RL Sport is exactly what you don't want, though.

And no none of it is a pointless section of the game. There was no filler, the entire game is all the same quality.

Really, now. What did you accomplish in those areas? Acquire anything worth acquring? Find anything worth finding? Accomplish anything worth accomplishing? Doubt it. None of that translates in any way to something that is relevant to anyone or anything later in the game. You can't even manage to be cannon fodder, since at least being cannon fodder would mean your existence served some greater purpose.

I think that's generally better in MMOs than single player RPGs. It is to do with the "horizontal" gameplay people talked about earlier. In EQ someone who just rushed through the levels would have missed out on so much, they would be far weaker than someone who spent time doing things at each level. There was a quest for some boots to make you run faster which was fundamental to everything that you do, so people who rushed through the levels and didn't do that would be gimpy slow for a start. There was an invisibility cloak that made travel far safer but also had some emergent gameplay, people figured out how to use it to help with getting single targets. There was a Manastone which converted your health to mana, a huuuuge advantage. And the last two items didn't exist in the world for long, so you couldn't even rush to the end and then go back and do things later. There were character skills that mattered too, lots of combat skills you would miss out on, but also things like having no swimming skill could get you killed even if you are level 50.

The closest thing we ever got to a sequel was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and that game was even better at the horizontal thing. There were new spells you could learn from enemies in areas in the world by just fighting there and getting experience. So people who rushed would miss out on spells and abilities. It also had the best crafting system I've seen, and a Diplomacy side game. One of the best things I ever played was a modified EQ someone made where they added a main quest to the game which sent you all over the world. It was really well done. You are probably right about other MMOs though. I played a lot of terrible ones. I only really liked 3.

 

[Norfleet]

I think that's generally better in MMOs than single player RPGs. It is to do with the "horizontal" gameplay people talked about earlier. In EQ someone who just rushed through the levels would have missed out on so much, they would be far weaker than someone who spent time doing things at each level. There was a quest for some boots to make you run faster which was fundamental to everything that you do, so people who rushed through the levels and didn't do that would be gimpy slow for a start. There was an invisibility cloak that made travel far safer but also had some emergent gameplay, people figured out how to use it to help with getting single targets. There was a Manastone which converted your health to mana, a huuuuge advantage.

Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that partially helps to make things worthwhile rather than filler, although this is more of a content thing and less of a level thing. Unless you purposefully gated them to be ONLY accessible at a specific level and NO HIGHER, which just turns it into a Mandatory Checklist that somebody could permanently screw themselves out of, which itself is not terribly conducive to organic play.

And the last two items didn't exist in the world for long, so you couldn't even rush to the end and then go back and do things later.

What happened with them? Were they some kind of event-limited item, or were you on a timer to rush to them before they went poof? Finite quantity in the world or something?

It also had the best crafting system I've seen

Honestly, I've never seen a crafting system that was intrinsically good. A crafting system is only as good as what it can actually produce. It doesn't matter how mechanically complicated you make the crafting system if the only products that come out of it are worthless trash. Conversely, it doesn't matter if the crafting system is nothing more than dragging ingredients into a window and pushing a button if it is desirable to actually interact with the system. Especially since most MMOs' idea of a crafting system, that I've seen, tends to be some system in which you churn out gallons of worthless crap nobody wants and ends up being dumped on the Auction House for less than the value of its inputs to grind a crafting level so you can then lose more money repeating the process with another tier of worthless trash. The only crafting system I've heard of which seems to have escaped this trap might have been Eve's, because there's an actual use for even low-end bulk products. But even then, it's not the crafting SYSTEM that's good, but how well the crafting system is integrated into the rest of the game. If 90% of the craftables are crap nobody wants, the system is crap. You can gauge the quality of an MMO's crafting system just by looking at the market: If the vast majority of items actually are sold at a loss, the crafting system is shit.

 

[anvi]

The boots remained forever but the Manastone was removed from the game completely sometime in the first year. The Circlet of Shadows had a cast time added, so it could still make you invisible but you couldn't use to get single enemies anymore. Anyone who had the original items got to keep them, so they became super rare. Some stuff got a level limit put on like you said, two of the main dragons would teleport you away if you were over level 52. So they kinda made an effort to add some vertical stuff to the game back then. But they stopped caring after a while.

As for crafting I always thought it was a waste of development time. But I think a lot of people wanted to play these games but without killing things. With Vanguard one of their goals was to let people play in 3 completely different ways. One was adventuring as normal, one was crafting (which they put a lot of effort into), and one was Diplomacy which was a card game like of like Gwent or whatever. So they must have really wanted to accommodate everyone. They also had good ideas to have all 3 types of players working together. Like some of the rarest crafting materials would need to be mined from a dangerous dungeon, so Adventurers would have to work with Crafters and vice versa. And Diplomats would be able to provide huge regional buffs for people with their efforts.

They had development hell so it didn't all get finished. But even what they had at release was cool. The crafting system was like a mini game so you had to add ingredients to raise and lower temperatures of the process or whatever. If not you got a failures. If you did well you made better items. It stopped people from being able to macro it, and made it more fun to play. They also made it so lots of the best gear in the game was only made by crafters so it was less of an afterthought. I'd still vote no for crafting though in games if I could Although Elder Scrolls Online made me see how it could be fun if it was done right. That game actually made it feel satisfying to craft because only took a few seconds, and it used junk in your inventory as materials and auto broke that down into metal to make a new item. They over used it imo, but it's a decent idea.

 

[Theodora]

Great multiplayer games should be able to played solo.

Are there many actual examples of this in the actual MMORPG genre? Only two I can think of are:

• OldSchool RuneScape, which has ironman accounts where you need to do everything solo -- i.e. no trading, no loot from bosses if someone else contributes, no loot from PvP, and you can only do raids with other irons -- though still completely online; and
• Final Fantasy XI, which due to its importance as a numbered, main-line game in the series, has continued to get a lot of love (or casualisation, as some may see it) despite its successor, FFXIV, having released nearly a decade ago now -- most significant of those QoL additions being the "trust" system, which allows you to fill out a party with NPCs, such that you are enabled to handle content strictly designed for groups, as near everything in old, pre-WoW MMOs were. Many private servers exist that do just fine without this, but in their case the playerbase is levelling with you, rather than all being around max-level.

FFXI might actually become the first major MMO to become playable offline, in a truly solo sense, due to its importance and Square Enix's voiced awareness of the importance in keeping a main-series game playable even after 20 years. Kinda what they signed up for when they decided to call it Final Fantasy XI rather than simply Final Fantasy Online.

Unless I've missed something and there's already a significant old MMO out there that's both practically and literally playable in a solo, offline sense?

edit: to clarify, you're still expected to group for max-level content in FFXI, and it's not likely to die and need offline availability any time soon -- if anything active development seems to have resumed.

 

[Sykar]

DDO allows you to solo most things thanks to the hireling system. Quite a few builds can solo even on their own.

 

[anvi]

EQ was designed for groups but you could solo some stuff. Some classes had a hard time with solo though and some were strong enough to do quite a lot. Also it said how difficult the classes were originally, I've never seen that since on an MMO.

As for solo offline play there is/was a really cool MMO called Minions of Mirth that had a single player offline option, or people could run their own servers. And there was an official server or two, for a while. It was only a little indie game though. I still liked it better than most MMOs.

 

[Vic]

MMOs are social media on steroids. Almost everything you do is something to impress others. This plus skinners box is what makes the human brain addicted, much like so many "normies" are addicted to their facebook feed to see how many likes they got etc. Actually the codex is similar in that regard, now take that times 100 and you know what an mmo feels like

 

[Theodora]

Through the power of friendship!

(Really though.)

 

[anvi]

MMOs are social media on steroids. Almost everything you do is something to impress others. This plus skinners box is what makes the human brain addicted, much like so many "normies" are addicted to their facebook feed to see how many likes they got etc. Actually the codex is similar in that regard, now take that times 100 and you know what an mmo feels like

I think showing off your badass accomplishments to others is a huge motivator for players. But how shallow it is varies. In most MMOs you get inundated with loot because the game is designed for you to succeed constantly. So showing off to others seems shallow when everyone has the same fancy stuff. In early EQ you could actually fail and the impressive things were really hard to get, so showing off accomplishments was a bigger deal.

But there is more to it as well as that. Most of my time in EQ was spent as a noob in a guild full of old pros, so most of what I looted was stuff that the other guys didn't want. I got the hand-me-downs, and just followed them around learning stuff. So I didn't have anything to show off to anyone, for years. I also played it offline in a singleplayer mode so nobody to show anything off to. At that point you feel the lack of motivation from no other players, and the game has to offer something else.

 

[anvi]

My friend played MUDs back in the day and he told me about a sword that was so famous, the person who had it became famous. And if they died, whoever got it next would be legendary etc. And there was only 1 in the whole game, so the one person who had it, had something really special. There were presumably other great items but having unique loots seemed like a big deal. In MMOs the items are copy pasted for each player, so a famous sword is not very interesting if every player gets it as the result of doing the quest, or killing the mob or whatever.

EQ started good because nobody had anything yet, and it was really hard. So even getting to the higher levels was something only hardcore geeks would even see, or kids like me with lots of time. There was a famous sword in that game called the Short Sword of the Ykesha that pretty much everyone knew the name of. And unlike most items it wasn't from a mob that you could kill with a group, it needed two groups, and they needed to have good gear and know what they are doing. So it was like an end game kind of item. I remember when my guild leader got one and it was like a big deal to all of us.

But these games suffer inflation the same as real life, people called it Mudflation. And it sucks because what starts as a fascinating world full of mysteries and hard to get legendary items, and hard to beat challenges... fast forward a year and it's kind of ruined. The players in general had learned so much, read too many guides, looted so much good gear, that they could now kill that Ykesha guy with one group instead of two. And then a bit later it could be killed by a single player. So that famous Ykesha that was once interesting and exciting for the players, and super rare, was now being thrown away by people, given to newbies as gifts etc. And then an expansion pack comes along with a whole new set of gear that made all that old gear obsolete. Some people loved it... But for me it just made the whole thing seem pointless and cheapened and like a dumb treadmill, rat feeder, etc.

I think expanding the game should have been done in a way that preserved the integrity of the original game and world, but they got a taste of $$$ by now integrity went down the shitter. Now it was all about selling the labrat players new virtual things they wanted with real money transactions. Milking them as hard as legally possible... Such a sad end. But I like that the whole story is there for a new dev to learn from and try again and hopefully do a better job of it.

 

[Caim]

The only way you can prevent gear inflation like that is to limit the number of such items that exist on any given server, but that's going to be a hard sell nowadays and will play into RWT. And you'll run into the issue that you'll have to expand on stuff in the game to have players stick around, so legendary gear will either become obsolete or you'll have to put in so much horizontal progression that there's nothing to grow to for your players and you end up with an ever-widening checklist instead.

 

[anvi]

Yeah and basically no previous games as examples to learn from. Except MUDs I suppose.

That's my hope for the future of MMOs though, because more of the same would suck. But I think they could be completely reimagined and it would be worth it. Like if you imagine the ultimate action packed gun shooting adventure, most FPS's are not far off what most people would imagine. But if you imagine the ultimate exciting fantasy adventure, like The Hobbit or LOTR books, I think 99% of people would imagine something completely different to all MMOs.

Nobody would think of instanced dungeons with an LFG tool, quest hubs, cooldowns, inventory management, etc. So much is done out of tradition or because they think it is expected or whatever. But if an MMO can be a MUD in graphical form with lots of people online, then it could be so many other things. I'm sure it still needs someone to add real mechanics, maybe inventory management is needed to add some immersion and realism or something. Maybe it needs spells to be exciting, and maybe they need cooldowns or mana pools to balance it. I'm sure a lot of gamey stuff would have to find its way back in. But so much could be scrapped and redone in a different way, if only games were designed with a more general concept in mind, and not just making a new version of a previous successful game.

 

[anvi]

Some stuff should change too, like the grind idea. That comes from early games being worried about server costs. So they had the box sale, plus a monthly subscription, and the grind kept people paying subscriptions for multiple months when really it should have been doable in 3 weeks.

But those costs came down so later games like GW2 didn't even need a sub, just buy the box and you can play. And they didn't need grind to keep you there, they already made their profit. I like this because it makes the game more welcoming to people checking it out in the future. Even years later people will try it out and enjoy playing it for a few weeks. So what if they quit after that, they had their fun, the company sold another game, that's great. They actually had some decent PVP too so it had something legit and interesting to keep people there for a while. I'd like to see more games go that direction, make a welcoming game for people to try out over the coming years. Be profitable because people spent $20 to play it for a month and then left happy and left a good review. So new players check it out and in time a million+ people have paid their $20 to play it. That seems a lot better to me than trying to milk the cow players in your game, keep them there as long as possible with as many dirty tricks as you can, etc.

 

[somerandomdude]

The only fun I've had playing MMORPGs is when IRL friends or family played them, and we teamed together and made our own guilds, and helped each other. It's no fun with only a bunch of randoms.

 

[zangomango]

The only fun I've had playing MMORPGs is when IRL friends or family played them, and we teamed together and made our own guilds, and helped each other. It's no fun with only a bunch of randoms.

Well, in current MMOs, playing with randoms is usually boring. In older MMOs that had more player interaction, it could be fun to make friends with some random dudes.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Datamining had a huge impact on ruining the idea of MMOs in general. I don't understand why this is almost never brought up.

That and streaming/instant broadcasting of content. Without mystery and discovery, these games are meaningless and can never work.

 

[Theodora]

Did some high end raiding for the first time in my life last night. Can certainly see the appeal of it and why people get addicted to it. It's pretty inspiring to see a group of people work out complex mechanics and slowly but surely pull it off. (And a wonderful ego boost at the same time.) Not so often you get to see human intellect working well first hand and up close, especially not in a group setting. ^^

Doesn't really cover a lot of MMOs still, but it's a reason people get "addicted" that I didn't really understand at all until relating first hand.

(If anyone is familiar or interested, started doing min. ilvl, no echo runs of The Binding Coil of Bahamut on FFXIV. Put together a great group of people and it went better than I could've expected.)

 

[anvi]

Grouping with random people was the best part of EQ for me and probably most people, it was really good in that game! But it was totally different to how it works in other MMOs :/

 

[Gregz]

Datamining had a huge impact on ruining the idea of MMOs in general. I don't understand why this is almost never brought up.

That and streaming/instant broadcasting of content. Without mystery and discovery, these games are meaningless and can never work.

We had a discussion about this exact thing in the Turtle Zone a few weeks ago. I agree that it's what killed MMOs.

 

[Radiane]

It´s the same question i´m wondering about why people play pokemon ""rpgs"" when there are clearly much more superior alternatives. In the end, i deem this problem not worth losing sleep over

 

[Norfleet]

Datamining had a huge impact on ruining the idea of MMOs in general. I don't understand why this is almost never brought up.

That and streaming/instant broadcasting of content. Without mystery and discovery, these games are meaningless and can never work.

If your game is only satisfying when people don't know how to play it, it's not a very good game at its core.

 

[Joggerino]

It´s the same question i´m wondering about why people play pokemon ""rpgs"" when there are clearly much more superior alternatives. In the end, i deem this problem not worth losing sleep over

What are the superior alternatives?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Datamining had a huge impact on ruining the idea of MMOs in general. I don't understand why this is almost never brought up.

That and streaming/instant broadcasting of content. Without mystery and discovery, these games are meaningless and can never work.

If your game is only satisfying when people don't know how to play it, it's not a very good game at its core.

That depends on whether you consider "knowing how to play" following a YouTube guide and reacting to Simon Says cues like an automaton - ahead of time. Dev-sanctioned interface training wheels and muh DPS meters are as much to blame for destroying WoW as anything else.

Plus, the negatives of datamining aren't restricted to the mechanical aspect of the game. I'd argue that's the least important facet.

I was in enough failed MC runs back in Classic to know what it is to have to carry a large number of half afk idiots who barely knew what 2/3rds of their buttons did, but I'd take that any day of the week over what exists now.

Ask any old Everquest player what their fondest memories are, and I'm sure they'll be related to some aspect of discovery and/or difficulty, having to figure out a corpse run, having to cooperate with strangers to get out of a tough situation, etc. Not alt-tabbing to the latest guide on YouTube by some sperg detailing how many hops, skips and jumps you have to perform on the latest boss to get the phat loot that's already been completely parsed.

The truth is, from a mechanics perspective these games have always been extremely poor. The more obvious the mechanics, the worse the entire experience is going to be. Now you can't even pretend to be entertained by a mysteirous and dangerous world, because everything's been 100% figured out and available at the stroke of a button. No point.

 

[Theodora]

Yeah, the satisfaction of learning and besting a fight is cut unceremoniously short if it's all about memorising a YouTube guide and some cheese strategy therein.

I think with datamining there's multiple reasons that ... mode of "play" became so popular, but an unfortuantely high degree of players care to clear things for ego reasons over actually getting enjoyment from the game itself. Not the sole reason, but a pretty difficult to ignore one ime.

I feel very lucky to have found a group of people on FFXIV who are 100% there for doing old content blind, at minimum ilvl and no echo (for those not familiar with FFXIV terms, that's MINE for short, with "no echo" meaning you don't get a slight buff if your party keeps on wiping. The community seems to remain surprisingly friendly and positive despite the inherently "tryhard" nature of such content. Don't know why it's so different but it's a welcome difference from past WoW-inspired MMOs I've tried.