Losing Interest In Games - A Natural Progression? 320
MotherInferior writes "I'm 27, soon to be 28. I used to fiend over the newest games and eagerly play whatever I could get my hands on. Team Fortress Classic, Civilization, WarCraft, these were all games that I could literally lose myself for days in. I still drool over the newest games at Best Buy, but now that I actually have the money to buy them, I find myself saying, 'Nah, I'll just play what I've got,' or 'Y'know, I'd rather design my own game then play someone else's.' Even still, I don't really play the games I have. What's up with that? I'm sure my mom would sagely say (with some satisfaction in her voice), 'Wellll, you're just growing up...' Am I not as capable of having fun as I once was, or what? Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy gaming, but I can tell there's some kind of trend happening. Will there be gaming Viagra in my future, I wonder?"
Re:Sad (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Disillusionment with current crop of games (Score:2, Informative)
This is usually because the player base making the noise had certain expectations going into the game(s) that were not met. People expect every MMO game coming from Sony to be another EQ, even though there's no history there to show that's the case (especially with SWG and PlanetSide). People expect every Star Wars game to allow you to be a jedi, even though there is history there to show otherwise (though they're rare, there are SW games that don't feature the player as a jedi and/or using force powers and light sabres). If someone makes it clear what the players should expect, and deliver on that, then it's the players' own fault for expecting something different. In the case of SWG specifically, it's a mixed bag, depending on what the individual expected from the game. There are a lot of ways in which SWG did not deliver on the promises of it's developers, at least initially.
There is innovation in the massmog genre - and as with most others, it's coming from the 'indy' scene (no need for dropping the fees or sharing load across companies).
Just a note, but the comment on dropping fees and sharing loads has to do with making an MMO a widely-used feature in many types of games. You don't have to hold to the standard MMO gameplay to have an MMO game. You could extend existing multiplayer ideas to massive numbers of people, as long as the engine could handle it, and the load could be distributed among not only various companies, but also the players themselves. For the most part, it's a technical problem that's solved in part within every MMO game's code, but has to be tuned for resources, distribution across a wider area, latency, and dropouts (meaning when one player drops out, the state on their machine should not be lost to the game, therefore requiring redundancy). On the other hand, that's no small feat, even with so much work done already in the centralized servers of most MMO games.
Games like Puzzle Pirates, Second Life, etc. truly stand out from the herd but comparatively, players aren't knocking down their doors. Personally, I believe that Blizzard's inevitable success with World of Warcraft is going to be seen as vindication for the status quo*, and the commercial situation will become entrenched.
As we've seen in the past, though, just because something becomes entrenched does not mean that it can't be removed or replaced. Nor does it mean that I really care if it is replaced. I'd simply rather see other types of games utilize MMO as a part of the game, rather than simply being the whole point of the game.
*One could argue that Blizzard is leveraging the status quo of progression systems, while truly striving to entertain first and foremost. Even if true, the forcus on entertainment will not be recognized as the important requirement for success.
I agree, and this is a problem in all game genres. It is only when developers and designers truly understand their genre that they can make strides in improving their genre, and most are looking at too big a picture to understand that most games are made by the details.
Few FPS publishers seem to actually recognize what made half-life, halo, and goldeneye stand above games quake, unreal, or soldier of fortune. So there's little reason to believe they'll be able to recognize the importance placed on quality story, immersion and polish in the massmog arena.
But, again, I have to state that story, immersion, and polish have little to do with what you need to successfully utilize MMO. Additionally, the heavy bias towards story is more a part of the genre of most MMO games rather than a need of MMO in particular (and I'd also add that most successful MMO games have had little story that the average player is intimately familiar with in the first place, a general complaint about the current
Re:I know what you mean... (Score:5, Informative)
After a brief period of time spent with shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament and real-time strategy games like Warcraft, I more or less resolved myself to the fact that I had outgrown gaming. The genres I had loved just weren't that fun anymore. Then, a few years later, I began to discover two genres that really revitalized my interest -- genres that hadn't really interested me in the past. These were stealth-based first-person sneakers like Thief and No One Lives Forever and good old-fashioned RPGs. Now, while I still don't find myself all that interested in adventure games, I still enjoy gaming in new genres.
If you feel like games just aren't that fun anymore, try something a bit out-of-the-ordinary. You might be pleasantly surprised.