I'm an old skool mmorpg player since UO to EQ and then to DAOC, SWG, Planetside and EVE Online. However SOE ruined SWG, Planetside and EQ a long time ago because they're too focused on milking it's players and ruining their games in the process. The only guy who had any clue what to do over there was Raph Koster and he left and ever since then SWG went downhill for example with the whole Jedi and holocron system which totally ruined SWG and Raph Koster didn't agree with it.

I love my hard, challenging mmorpgs where there is a death penalty and everything in the game is to make the online virtual world, rather than catering to the selfish needs of individual players because in real life we can't have everything we want and an online world should be like that too. For example in SWG there used to be 10 min waits at the starports and that brought a social mechanic where people chatted and dueled and made firends while waiting. It brought a sense of community, something as little as that and made the galaxy feel alot bigger aswel as made it a no go option if you're in PVP. Then once they took that system out and made fast travel all of a sudden the galaxy felt really lonely and the community drifted apart and it ruined the whole game for me. There was wounds and item decay on death and use which was there to keep crafters in business and again the social death mechanic where you needed to meet up with other player professions to play the game. These are all online game mechanics to give you a sense of the community and to give some professions more of a meaning. Like now theres no decay and crafters wont get repeat business which really kills them off.

When I play an mmorpg I want to be forced to play with other players but in a way that is fun. A Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online or a Planetside all did this one way or another and the main thing here really for me is your character wasn't defined by levels or classes. The worlds were open, sandbox seamless worlds where you could jump in a play straight away with your friends or friendly people. Guilds would accept anyone who was nice and help them out straight away because they were encouraged to. However in a level and class based mmorpg like WoW guilds will only accept you into raids with the right gear and only accept certain levels and classes and thats no way to treat players in an online game. Mmorpgs like SWG. Planetside and EVE all gave everyone a purpose and even if you were a noob you had a roll you could play straight away. I remember getting my friends into these games and they loved them because they could just jump in straight away and could play with everyone. Rather than in WoW where you have to grind till you're end level to be able to play with your friends or anyone because the game is top heavy and all the lower level zones are dead, which is a design flaw.

Mmorpgs need to realise that levels and classes are a restrictive linear feature that just doesn't work for the long term. People want freedom and customization of their character so they can feel unique rather than a clone like in a WoW. Mmorpgs need to easy to learn but hard to master which means they are accessible but they give you so much chocie and freedom. A SWG Pre CU could have easily done this if SOE focused on fixing bugs, adding content and focusing on making the game playable. Instead all they did each patch was ruin it some more, it had all the mechanics in place but SOE just had no clue and broke them all and then tried to scam the customer with the CU and NGE.

In the future all we have to look forward to is solo mmorpgs where they are all instanced and zoned. These types of mmorpgs arn't really mmorpgs because you never play seamlessly with the masses but all split up on your own little instances and zones. They don't bring any sense of community and they are ruining the genre. Also developers are paying less attension to character customization and freedom and just trying to make basic easy  casual console like dumbed down games. For example I don't want to play a Bounty Hunter in SWTOR and be locked into the dark side or whatever, no a Bounty Hunter should have toe freedom to be whatever he or she wants to be. I want to be neutral and just sell or work for the higest bidder, yet Bioware don't seem to be giving you this freedom. I don't want to loot all my weapons and light sabers because 1. Jedi make their own sabers and 2. I love crafting and the player economy, it's a big part of the game for me. I'd much rather buying off crafters and doing content for fun and having a fully driven player economy like how the real world would be like. I don't want to keep my items forever because in real life items decay and being able to keep the special items forever suddenly doesn't make them special because you use them all the time and everyone has them and the market becomes bloated.


To me it seems like mmorpgs are becoming more about how can we milk the player for all they're worth with systems like RMT and TCG and Station Exchange etc etc. They should just be focusing on making a great game instead of ruining the games with stupid game breaking mechanics where the person in real life who has the most money wins cause they can buy everything. In SWG right now for example theres this TCG where all the new items are being put into that and you have to keep buying cards until you get them. You can't earn them in the game and SOE arn't even adding these kool new items into the game as content so it's like........ great ruining SWG some more.


I'm just sick of how easy mmorpgs have gotten and how they see to be devolving and becoming less like massively online games and more like multiplayer games. World of Warcraft has been making the game easier and easier each expansion and has been ruining the game and not thinking about what effect each expansion has on the now dead old world and other gameplay mechanics. All my friends have quit WoW now because of how easy it is and most of them started with it and now have nothing to play because everything that is coming out is a WoW clone and they want something more.



I dunno the whole genre is a mess and I the "hardcore" feel left out for dead because theres noone making an mmorpg for me anymore. It's had a big effect on my morale in gaming and I dunno I'm just not having fun with games anymore because to me they just ain't aimed at me anymore like they used to be in previous years. Some of my friends don't really play games anymore unless it's the new HL game and I'm thinking about doing the same because I'm fedup of the direction the whole industry is going tbh.



I now know what the older people were talking about when I was a kid were complaining about the new generation and things arn't the same anymore. For example I hate the new Star Wars movies and think they're complete shit and yet the newer generation seems to love them, even though I think they're just stupid and full of bad acting. It's harder and harder to find people on forums and stuff who hate the new movies because all the new kids are coming through who grew up with the new movies and love them for some reason. It pisses me off that I can't do anything to change it........... I just think are kids today getting dumber because of all these new wrap up your kids in cotton wool laws. You can't even have fake guns or cap guns anymore, we were always running about with fake guns as kids.

Tl:dr, sorry. :<

Well problem isWoW in genreal. No one wants to take a chance on making something truley different anymore. Or more so its tougher in a genre like MMOs I mean I'm looking forward to the new star wars game bioware seams like they know how to make and rpg so I have faith in that. I agree witha  few things and disagree with others.

The MMOs like EVE and Everquest are pretty much over. No one wants to grind their life away unless your playing some korean MMO or for some odd reason you ENJOY grinding. I do agree with you in the community aspect but a large part of that seams to be the massive wave of flatout fucking retards who on masse flood said particular new MMO after the first 3 months because they heard about it from someone else and they bring their bullshit Elitesm to the forefront and fuck everything up with bullshit rules they they all collectively agree on.

I don't care if the game has zones or instances or whatever .I really loved guildwars dispite the fact it wasnt a true mmo but more a online rpg, but things like not having an auction house and people spamming in trade chat at least made the game seam alive like there were people there. I personally Hate auction houses myself. I think the best alternative was in Phantasy star Universe, where you could open up your own shop and people bought from you and visted your store. I really love that idea and wish it was impelemented more. I also wouldn't mind a Marketplace area in games where you could set up shop and have people come by and you can vendor your wares. makes it for a more alive aspect of the game.

I'm looking forward to Star Wars:The old republic or maybe...maybe gw2 ( if the game even really exists) Aside from that I could care less about MMOs and I mostly enjoy playing Action RPG's online with buddies ( titans quest, Sacred 2 etc) because I think Sacred 2 has a good idea of how to push that genre forward into making a top down action rpg into a massive online game.

Also, champions and Huxley don't look too bad, but I'm looking for someone to reinvent the wheel with this genre as its getting more stale than the WW2 setting in games. Only Difference is that at least the WW2 setting is getting some overhaul. I would like to see an MMO with more of a living breathing world. Where buildings get built. settlements are made, acution house is gone but in its place street vendors controlled by players who dont want to fight but make money, and rewards to go along with that as well. I want to see more unqiue classes. Seasons change depending on the time of the year. Weather forcasts. Changing landmass. You get the idea.

I hear you though, I'm soo burnt out on MMOs everytime I see or hear about a new one I don't even give a rats ass.

I don't enjoy grinding but I want harder content like I loved SWG quests because they were hidden in the world and there wasn't icons over the heads saying quest giver here and there wasn't quest givers in one location and then you moved onto the next in a linear fashion. You just had to find them throughout the world and quests were dotted all over the place. There wasn't one zone with this level quests then you moved onto the next aswel, the quests of different difficulties were mixed together so there wasn't zones that were dead because people were doing things at different times. The only problem really was there wasn't enough quests in the game and that was the main problem with the game was they wanted more content. Problem was SOE put in levels to put more content in and I really prefered what they were doing before hand without the levels.

To me in WoW most quests feel like filler just to get you to end level and they are all pretty boring but in SWG quests didn't give XP so you did them for schematics, fun, faction or badges. I loved the badge system in SWG too which it gave you a badge when you done something meaningful in the world and displayed what badges you have to other people. It was kinda like an early achievement system and for 2003 I thought that was quite ahead of it's time.

SWG had an amazing player economy and crafting system because crafters would need resources and you gained resources by having a profession who would survey the land for you and find the best resources. Then you'd put up loads of harvestors along the land seamlessly and pay maintenance fees to keep them working. Other player professions also gathered resources like scouts and smugglers sliced weapons and smuggled them around the planets. You'd have anything from people making furniture to houses, space ships, droids, bio weapons and chefs for food and drink. There was so much going on and the beauty of it all is seamlessly built into the world you could put up player housing and cities. This way you'd put vendors down and advertise them on the map and you could have guild city malls and stuff like that. The fun for me was going to peoples vendors in their homes and guild malls and seeing how they've decorated the place and cause there was no collision you could overlap items to create things that wern't in the game like giant statues and stuff.

When you died you'd gain wounds and as you did combat you'd gain battle fatigue and item decay. So you'd need to keep on going to player vendors and buying new items and that kept the economy going for crafters. You'd have to go to medical centres and cantinas to meet player doctors and player entertainers who would heal your wounds and battle fatigue.

The game was just a complete non linear sandbox with space and ground elements to it and it was totally community driven. The great thing was it was a complex game to pickup so all the greifers stayed away and the communtity was so nice and helpful.


I miss the old SWG days

I just think the MMO formula is stale. When people tell me that there is a good mmorpg, and that I should try it. It just ends up boring me. Needless to say, I'll be staying away from them until Guild Wars 2 comes out, and see what that brings to the table.

What I don't understand is Planetside nailed online mmo FPS gaming and yet no company wants to copy it. The only reason it wasn't more popular is because SOE ruined it with CC and BFRs and everyone quit so SOE stopped support from it and it's just been left to die. Planetside came before WoW so wasn't that popular because people who played mmo's didn't like FPS and people who played FPS didn't wanna pay a sub. However after WoW I bet is someone made a Planetside clone with the latest graphics, it would be so popular.

I just remember 1000 people 3 way battles with vehicles and on foot gunplay all tangled into one. The battles were so intense and crazy but i never got popular because SOE just didn't support it.

Still a fun game though so play the trial, just only play prime time because the population is so low, noone plays in the day lol.

Huxley and MAG will be the new Planetside copys. AS for the MMO in general, i dunno what all you guys are talking about but there is some really good MMOs that are comming out, Star Trek Online / Star Wars Knights of the old republic / Jumpgate Evolution / Black Prohecy just to name a few and if you dont think at least ONE of those games i just mentioned doesn't change the whole MMO formular as a whole then you need to really open your eyes. The next generation of MMOs are truely going to be a new innovation into MMOs.
The whole issue with grinding doesn't bother me all "that" much, games such as eve-online offer a hell of a lot more stuff to do if you get sick of grinding with walking in stations comming along at some point. WOW i can apreciate what it did bring to the whole MMO genre as a whole but its pretty dated game now, and most of the reason it still excells today is simply because it can run on pretty much any machine thats been made in the last 7 years... the newer mmos will not have this luxury, just take a look and age of conan! 

As a whole, the MMO genre i think is just about to explode bigger and better then it ever has been before, the problem will be which mmo will you play and fork the money over each month? once more info has been released on the mmos i've mentioned i think you guys will see and hope you change your mind and see things you really do like.