Rift: The Planes of Telara

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The game developers didn't want to cater to an audience that didn't speak up.. yeah, you end up being a minority when millions upon millions of people want to sign onto XBox Live and call each other faggots and play horrible quality rap music over their mics.

No one wants to create a good game when there's no one there to urge them on. Finding enough of a market for a niche game that's good enough to push the marketing/accounting department out the window and tell them to fuck the right off is next to impossible because everyone became complacent with crap.

Yeah, maybe hardcore gamers are a minority, but take a look at your words - inferiority complex springs to mind. "We don't matter" isn't what a young bright-eyed dev team wants to hear. Look at P99: You have people doing it for free because they love the idea of recreating something that was monumentally amazing. Even 10 years later we all log on to play this game whether we hate it or not, because it IS hardcore in comparison. A good portion would probably pay for it because Sony shit on everyone with their progression servers, and there isn't anything like this available on the market. A good thing came along and we've finally jumped on the bandwagon.

We have every reason to be disenfranchised - software publishing companies said to sit down when we complained, and we sat down. We lost the right to a share in the market of future video games when everyone stayed hunkered down in their parent's basement to beat Super Mario Bros 2 for the 10th time since they woke up.

Crocodile tears. You act like we got no options. One of those options is p1999, like you stated.

Another one is this:
http://www.dawntide.net/

Pretty hardcore. The question is, how will it do when it launches, and will you stand behind it? When games fail, the first thing they do is throw out the hardcore features. It all depends on what we do.

The only thing I don't like about dawntide is that it's pvp-enabled. Pvp MMORPGs don't normally do well.

And we got countless single player RPGs and little known but f2p mmorpgs (like uo emulators). There're also many MUDs, some free and some p2p. They rock in the gameplay department, but the text gfx holds them back.

[Cyrius]

Maybe the caliber of gamer is just higher these days, and can burn through content faster than they ever could before?

Quite the contrary, they want everything handed to them and don't want to be made to think at all. When we fought all this encounters back in the days when they were released we did not have "guides" and "maps" and all that shit. We made those things our selfs in guild efforts. Tactical discussions for days on forums, endless hours of trying to kill 1 boss mob etc.. It was much different then the games now a days where you have to do nothing but open up your minimap, follow blinking dots, try a boss 4 ~5 times until you beat it or at least have a working strat that will get you the kill in the next ~2 kills.

I find it sad that there is ZERO challange in all those games that get released now a days. And exploring those small worlds is also not realy something that will keep you entertained for more then a day or two.

I just wish they would put more thought into game developement again. It is all about "OMG look that pretty GFX!!!!" and not about gameplay at all anymore.

[Uberom]

A lot of it has to do with audience. These new MMO's are aimed to entertain 10 year olds with ADD, and they do a pretty good job. Those 10 year olds grow up to be 18 year olds with ADD, who expect to play an MMO that is similar to what they have always known.

I tell my friends this all the time. The MMO genre has been tainted, and it probably will never go back to what we remember it as, difficult. Vanilla WoW was legit, but those expansions really softened the game, and the community. Now that people know what a smooth, easy, carefree MMO feels like, they don't like it when they try a difficult one.

I think there is still a market for difficult MMO's, though. SOE is working on "Everquest Next", a rework of the EQ intellectual entity. I have no details on it, but we can only hope...

[Yak]

The few hours that I played Rift, I was thinking about EQ the entire time. It's really sad that MMO companies just want to make MMO's easy and try to be the next WOW. The only company appealing to the hard core is Aventurine. Dark Fall Online is not for everyone like EQ by any means. However, this company understands you don't need 12 million people to make money and and do well if you have a niche market.

[Aadill]

EQ and AO were the only MMOs I ever cared to play. Upon taking up a trial of WoW I found it so incredibly dull that I quit.

What bothered me in WoW more than anything were the pop culture references in a fantasy setting. If I want to immerse myself in a multiplayer game of FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: e-mail messages that my aunt sends me, I'll go play WoW for the low-brow humor. Both classic EQ and classic AO have an atmosphere that really makes you feel like you're part of the world. Eventually both Sony and Funcom fell away from that and the games no longer have the same appeal. I do blame the market for MMOs going from actual interesting lore to money-makers. Even single player games still try to tell a story - what are MMOs trying to do at this point?

[RKromwell]

Originally Posted by Aadill [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What bothered me in WoW more than anything were the pop culture references in a fantasy setting.

Have you ever looked into the Easter Eggs that you can find in EQ?

[Aadill]

Originally Posted by RKromwell [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Have you ever looked into the Easter Eggs that you can find in EQ?

The level of subtlety in comparison is glaring.

[Cyrius]

SOE is working on "Everquest Next", a rework of the EQ intellectual entity. I have no details on it, but we can only hope...

Yeah this is my "last hope" also. But i doubt it will be released within 2011 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. So it will be quite a wait.

[Cyrius]

Upon taking up a trial of WoW I found it so incredibly dull that I quit.

LOL exactly what i did, started WoW when it was released with a couple friends (they had the special edition with the 10 day trial in it). I played 4 hours, was a lvl 13 or so undead mage, specced for ice and fire? And solo'd a lvl 14 elite mob. When i asked my friends (wich been playing a few weeks longer, it took them a while to convince me [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]) if this mob was considered difficulty, and they replied "its a group mob", i clicked X, uninstalled the game, and threw the 10 day trial CD in the trash.

[Yak]

Not only that but who's to say that Sony won't fuck up Everquest Next. I have no faith in any game companies at this point. Remember years ago when Sony had the same idea and created EQ2! What about Vanguard and all it's bugs that killed it. For now I am just going to enjoy EQ. If something better comes along then great, if not I have EQ Classic for now.