New World

Mist said:

Valheim has more in common with what an MMO experience was supposed to be about than most modern MMOs.

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"Supposed to be about"? Respectfully, what does that even mean? To be part of a larger world, with lots of other people doing things going on that don't involve you. I was present at the start of the MMO era, UO, EQ, (I remember there was something before UO on some service but for the life of me I can't remember sitting here. I was a Lord British Fan from Apple II days so I was down for whatever UO was going to be) probably like a a lot of people here. A pumped up Minecraft server was never what I had in mind for an "MMO" experience. It's cool to be sure, and I would have loved it but it wasn't what a **Massively** Multiplayer Online RPG was supposed to be. NWN server was more in line with the Valheim experience.

Mist said:

You're taking it way too literally.

What I mean is the kind of cooperative and exploratory adventures you can have, the impact you can have on the world. Valheim feels like a kernel of what MMOs were supposed to be about, what kind of adventures were supposed to be possible in living worlds.

I see the future of someone coming along and 'scaling up' something like Valheim to a much larger experience with more depth. I do not see a future for new games in the WoW/FF14 model, like Lithose said, that genre is basically dead.

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My apologies if I misunderstood, sincerely. I would say the "Themepark" MMO isn't quite dead [insert Monty Python gag here] but has stagnated to the point no one is building for it anymore because of all the reasons we were rehashing above. Why build for a genre that one company/game owns? It's too long a discussion to post mortem here yet again but EQ was rocking the world with 500k peak players. Today those numbers would be considered a failure for almost any game that couldn't maintain any significant playerbase of at least that over an extended period of time because WoW has broken investors' expectations, and players drift away from over time, potentially to return to WoW.

Maybe we shouldn't be building the next great MMO but trying to seed in smaller companies/games with more niche audiences; what could have been if WoW hadn't broken every competitor for decades and put in this mindset that one had to topple WoW? I say that noting that there are a few other MMOs that are around but the genre is so warped like space around a black hole, I wonder what would have been with a smaller WoW that would have not killed so many of it's competitors? I would have loved to have seen a Warhammer 40K MMO, a Halo MMO, etc.

Also, there would be more it seems, if MMOs were easier to do, I guess, because there were so many poorly made ones. I played and enjoyed so of many of MMOs that came out in the last couple of decades, too. I know I am forgetting a bunch: WAR, was good, first public events, IIRC, Rift was good for a while, Secret World was AMAZING. KOTOR was pretty good (and still is, I hear), I am sure there are others around; LOTRO is another that I played and enjoyed, Eve, there are too many to list; I know the failed ones are. Maybe the expectation of a forever MMO is the culprit here, and WoW's design Blizzards incredible following allowed it sustain itself long past the point others would have faltered even with the financial and technical support they obviously lacked. Damn its been a long 20+ years we have been doing this. GW2 launched in 2012 and ESO launched in 2015. The drought is real. Its been Destiny and Overwatch and MOBAs and FortNite and APEX Legends since then. There are a few reasons for that, as we previous mentioned.

None of that answers the question about why the world ended when Amazon announced they were going to have a cash shop with boosts in it like several other Major MMOs, GW2, ESO, etc. How did the public expect this ongoing, GAAS MMO to be funded without a sub other than a cash shop?

Cinge said:

They mentioned exp/crafting boosts and people literally freaked out. Sky is falling, earth is doomed, its all over, game is ruined, its complete p2w now etc.

In the end it ended up being(most likely walked back) that boosts will come eventually most likely but not at release. And amazon is regretting even mentioning it in any context to the mass of lemmings(gamers). I am sure from they will learn now, don't give info like that to gamers until the month/week its going to happen, as gamers will take any info and turn it into apocalypse scenario.

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Cash shops will ALWAYS be claimed as "P2W!" by morons who need an easy out for why they suck at a game. It's no different than FPS players who blame "lag" or "frames" for why their spreads suck ass and they can't hit shit.

Cybsled said:

Yes, they will. But if a game day 1 offers a “2x xp potion!” For money, then that is p2w. It isn’t a catch up mechanic, it’s a straight up “use this if you want to be first to higher level content uncontested” itemization

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Do other people have access to said itemization in this scenario? Because if so, that's "pay to go faster", not "pay to win". P2W is, "+50 helm available in cash shop!!!", while the best helm available from the hardest raid is +40.

I'm not saying your scenario is acceptable or ok, I just disagree that it's pay to "win". Pay to win implies that it gives you an inherent advantage that you cannot otherwise equal without paying money.

Valderen said:

While not new, it's obvious that games now are created with "problems" put in them to give the ability to developers to sell you the "solutions" down the line.

They say they do this for players, if they really cared about players they wouldn't have nerfed the xp in the first place.

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100x this. This is what cash shops have become, in a nutshell. Create a problem that can be "skipped" via paying money. Most games either intentionally slow things down (in the case of EXP rates that they sell you boosts for) or add in-game methods of acquiring certain items, but make it so mind-numbingly tedious that it's easier to just pay for the item directly.

BDO does this a LOT with shit. Do 30 days of tedious as fuck dailies to obtain a horse flute that summons your mount from anywhere, or pay $10 to get it directly. 14 year old me is probably grinding that out. 36 year old me is buying the fucking flute directly every goddamn time. There's no reason that problem should exist, but they are more than happy to sell you the solution.

Kirun said:

BDO does this a LOT with shit. Do 30 days of tedious as fuck dailies to obtain a horse flute that summons your mount from anywhere, or pay $10 to get it directly. 14 year old me is probably grinding that out. 36 year old me is buying the fucking flute directly every goddamn time. There's no reason that problem should exist, but they are more than happen to sell you the solution.

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There’s a direct connection between liberals politics and their game design.

Create the problem so you can sell people the solution.

Cybsled said:

The grind involved also matters. Shit that takes weeks or months to get ingame, but you can buy the same thing for RL cash and offers a significant advantage is bullshit.

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But that's the thing, most things don't confer some massive advantage, just convenience or shortcuts. Hence the term, "pay for convenience". I could get by just fine without an unlimited range horse summons, in fact it was an item that didn't even exist until about a month ago.

Games that offer an actual significant advantage via cash tend not to do well - SW: Battlefront 2 is a great example of this.

Kirun said:

100x this. This is what cash shops have become, in a nutshell. Create a problem that can be "skipped" via paying money. Most games either intentionally slow things down (in the case of EXP rates that they sell you boosts for) or add in-game methods of acquiring certain items, but make it so mind-numbingly tedious that it's easier to just pay for the item directly.

BDO does this a LOT with shit. Do 30 days of tedious as fuck dailies to obtain a horse flute that summons your mount from anywhere, or pay $10 to get it directly. 14 year old me is probably grinding that out. 36 year old me is buying the fucking flute directly every goddamn time. There's no reason that problem should exist, but they are more than happy to sell you the solution.

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That seems to be the mobile/Eastern vs. Western game philosophy. Asian games are made to be time-sink money grabs and people just expect them to squeeze your balls for every dime. It's where EA and mobile games learned it.

rhinohelix said:

That seems to be the mobile/Eastern vs. Western game philosophy. Asian games are made to be time-sink money grabs and people just expect them to squeeze your balls for every dime. It's where EA and mobile games learned it.

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I get and understand that a ton of cash shops are predatory. I also disagree with the general idea of GAAS (for the most part, there are some aspects I think that are fine - mostly those revolving around content). But, I think gamers are absolutely naive to think that MMOs should still cost the same as they did in 1999. A $50 box fee and $10-15/month in 2021 is a ridiculous expectation with rising costs of hardware, relatively low demand in the genre, etc.

Cybsled said:

Price point is still "too much" even at that for many people. The past 20 years have seen such a shift to a free-to-play model that all the zoomer and millenials even scoff if the game has a box price.

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And that's why they created cash shops. Because it was a way to recoup losses from entitled gamers who think games should somehow never increase in price - or at the very least recoup the loss from entitled gamers by getting whales to spend more. Again, I'm not saying it's something I agree with, but gamers also need to own up to their part in this genre (and whole industry, honestly) having shitty practices and predatory pricing. Especially on a forum that for the most part, loves capitalism.

Yeah people were mad upset at Destiny 2 cash shop, which BTW was only skins and shit. But the game has no sub, $10 season passes and normal $30-$40 expansion packs. And it a live service game. I dont agree with the shit either, but they have to pay their bills somehow. And it it means the wales going hogg wild, let it be so.

Now exp pots could be considered P2W, I mean its time, its all about time invested in games like these and anything that removes some of that time could be considered to be P2W. One could argue that exp pots could be the same thing as some super elite weapon. The weapon kills shit faster, therefor more exp per hour, exp pots make you gain more exp. Same shit really. In a PvE sense at least.

But past the first few weeks/month when almost everyone is at end game none of this shit matters either, so...