What kills multiplayer games

Zindan

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Many of you are more experienced than I but it seems to me eq1 started with wonder, danger, and risk of loss. Eventually it became a chore. EQ2 started the same way. Can remember sitting and talking to folks in game. was fun. it eventually moved to a joyless grind with increasingly rarer rewards. Is WOW taking the same path? Grinding 6 toons for codex rep, and doesnt seem much fun atm
Pvp balance.
 
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Tide27

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TBH what kills them is when they lose their sense of wonder. Once people have seen it all, the games just aren't interesting anymore. Then add in the heavy repetition that a lot of MMOs fall into and they just aren't something that people want to spend time on.

I've never played FFXIV and that's on my list, but how is ESO? I love the ES series and that world. Also need to check out LOTRO but I've been saying that for like 7 years.
I still play ESO and enjoy it. There is enough content to go through that it would take a year+ to get through it. If the goal is to just get to lvl cap and get 1 set of BiS armor for your spec, could probably do it in a few months or less. There is a ton to enjoy and explore if that is your cup of tea. Gear never gets reset and all content is still relevent due to their new sticker book system.

Lotro was a fun game long ago and had a ton of content. I enjoyed it for what it was. No clue how it holds up today...but i enjoyed it a decade or so ago.
 
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Aaron

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Other people fuck up MMOs. Seriously. In so many ways. They troll the content. They bitch and whine in /trade. The loudest shitbags are the ones you see the most of on the forums complaining about shit, and therefore the ones the Devs follow. Shit goes on and on.
 
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Slaanesh69

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Like Moonarchia and Aaron said, it's other people. Killstealers, hackers, ninjalooters, drama queens, whiners, moaners, reporters, morons. In the end, it is a microcosm of real life.

And, like someone else said, the natural bitterness and cynicism of age has it's effects too. I watch my kid grind through stuff I give up on fast, and realize it is purely age that makes that difference.
 
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Hateyou

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Other people fuck up MMOs. Seriously. In so many ways. They troll the content. They bitch and whine in /trade. The loudest shitbags are the ones you see the most of on the forums complaining about shit, and therefore the ones the Devs follow. Shit goes on and on.
Yeah. EQ, FFXI, VG. I went into those with the intent of meeting new people, making new friends, new guild mates and it was great. Eventually the systems WoW, Rift, WH, etc put in place made that experience more negative than positive and I just don’t even try MMOs anymore. The only way I’d play MMO again is if friends were playing or already into it and talked me into playing with them.
 
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BoozeCube

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Fuck that. It is the kids who are wrong. Bleeding every ounce of fun out of gaming for another dime. Feh.

Microtransactions isn't a new thing, we were getting bled a quarter at a time while playing X-men, NFL Blitz, and the Simpsons.
 
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pysek

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Microtransactions isn't a new thing, we were getting bled a quarter at a time while playing X-men, NFL Blitz, and the Simpsons.
My first game was Adventure on the 2600.
1638041515783.png

FUN.
 
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Slaanesh69

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Yeah. EQ, FFXI, VG. I went into those with the intent of meeting new people, making new friends, new guild mates and it was great. Eventually the systems WoW, Rift, WH, etc put in place made that experience more negative than positive and I just don’t even try MMOs anymore. The only way I’d play MMO again is if friends were playing or already into it and talked me into playing with them.
Right. Aside from people it is the designers as well, to a point.

The best experience I had in WoW was LFRaid stuff. When they had a simplified and easier dropindropout open raid system with welfare set legendaries I was playing non-stop.

The minute they nerfed it I quit WoW forever. True story.
 

Slaanesh69

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Microtransactions isn't a new thing, we were getting bled a quarter at a time while playing X-men, NFL Blitz, and the Simpsons.
lol that is a pretty hot take. True, but retarded.

Arcade was a business until home consoles and then computers destroyed it.
 

Masakari

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Games are engineered to be addicting, and for most, that addiction becomes toxic and turns people off to the high they previously thought was fun. That's why in the end, all you'll find are bitter gamers. We're all recovering junkies.
 
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Slaanesh69

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Games are engineered to be addicting, and for most, that addiction becomes toxic and turns people off to the high they previously thought was fun. That's why in the end, all you'll find are bitter gamers. We're all recovering junkies.
Fax.

And I totally didn't think of this. Well said.

 
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Rezz

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What kills multiplayer games? (I hope you meant MMOs, given the forum area this was posted in)

  1. Devs thinking they know their playerbase and they do not. See: New World
  2. Goals that rely on incredibly grindy mechanics with no tangible progression whilst grinding
  3. Bot-friendly resource farming that has an adverse effect on ingame markets
  4. Microtransactions that give boosts to player output that cannot be achieved ingame
  5. As said, other players. You make a gank-friendly game, and poopsockers gank the newbs? The newbs quit, and then the zero skill poopsockers quit when they have nobody to gank.
  6. PVP in general. PVP is great for games like CoD and CS; it sucks balls for MMOs in general. WoW tried to force PVP on people and they didn't engage. NW did the same. Full Stop.
Stop forcing PVP into games that are inherently designed around player cooperation. Make that shit a side avenue and not a primary driver of progression. Did nobody learn from the shit in Burning Crusade where some PVP gear was easier (and better) to obtain than raid gear? Don't do that. Keep the systems separate. I shouldn't be able to run around mercing PVP players in southwatch with my troll warrior because I had raid gear. It should literally be inferior to PVP centric gear in all cases, and it isn't. And PVP gear should be inferior in all cases for PVE content. How devs haven't figured this out is still one of my greatest gripes.
Also, if you're going to allow PVP? Have an entirely separate system for it; don't nerf abilities in PVE based upon PVP shit (or vice-versa). Come the fuck on, devs. Serubane was a thing back in like 2002; the concept of target specific abilities/damage is not new. Stop with the shit. (hi, NW.)
 
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Guurn

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A sightly different take. When you are teaching a child to play games you should set it up so they win roughly 30% of the time. If you don't they will generally (but not always) lose interest. It's safe to say the same goes for MMOs.

When loot drops it should occasionally be useful. When you join a group you should benefit them at least regularly. These benefits should all be able to be realized without paying extra. If you need more of my money ask for it in the subscription price. Etcetc
 

Kirun

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What's "fun" and what's "addictive" are separate things. Dark Souls proves that the two psychological mechanisms, when used in conjunction properly, create the best "games" of all-time. It's a large part of what early MMOs preyed on.
 
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Xevy

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It's millions of people with dozens of archetypes with hundreds of sub-niches all trying to shape games into what THEY want. You make a good game and say "fuck everyone who doesn't like it, welcome those who do." If you try to make a game for everyone you kill the game. My biggest complaint about MMOs is time-gates. Dailies, dungeon lockouts, etc. They're put there for weekend warriors who don't have the time to play and it sucks for those of us who do or play more efficiently. Do I go into every Reddit and say "THESE DEVS ARE RUINING MY GAME?" No, because I'm not a complete fucking retard and I realize that there's more Dayjob Dannies than Poopsock Pauls so it sucks, but I'm reasonable enough to understand. The problem is when the normies keep pushing to make games easier, and easier so they can "beat it" in less and less time so that the people who truly enjoy it and play it for hundreds of hours get fucking maxed out and play sit and wait.

PVP is it's own thing. PVP can be great, but it's bad when it's forced and it's bad when the game has to be balanced around PVE or PVP and the other suffers. Having PVP WITH meaningful rewards is always a clear boon to me for MMO's, but very, VERY rarely can devs find the right balance. Add stuff in like non-parallel class systems for factions and you've just fucked yourself for months until you either throw Shaman on the Alliance or dumb down everything that makes those classes unique.

Overall it's people. Too many people want too many different things and it ends up ruining everything. It'd be like if US elections had 6 parties and whoever gets 20% of the vote wins. The other 80% aren't happy and most of that group are probably VERY unhappy. Too many cooks spoil the broth and Devs listening to the whiney, ignorant, sensationalizing, attention seeking puss-fest that is Reddit is a MAJOR problem for games that already know what they're doing. For every good idea Reddit has, they have 10+ AWFUL ones that have more upvotes.
 

Soygen

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The worst part about multiplayer games is all the damn people.
 
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Soygen

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Especially those fucking monks like Soygen Soygen
I was trying to find a good pic/gif for a reply to this on Google and came upon this comment I added to Bo Staff of Trorsmang on Allakhazam. Over 20 fucking years ago. How?!

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