Why Is it....

drunkenmaster said:
but the very thing here is in the mmo's and strategy games there isn't "more" game there, its just repeated over and over and over. now i like mmo's but you do repetitive missions, it can be made fun. but in general the "stories" don't matter at all, you can read why someone wants 10 rabbit hides, but it doesn't matter, has no bearing on the game and most of the reasons behind wanting the hides are crap. story telling is actually fairly non existant in mmo's, there are basic, writen in 5 seconds reasons for collecting or killing whatever you need. but theres no pulling you in, scaring, intriguing you at all, no length, no sub plots, no character growth.
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MMOs do have one advantage..they are what you make of it. A gameworld in which you can do more than just kill and loot. If the player is stupid enough to do nothing more than run around doing repetitive missions, and not bothering to read anything thats their dumb fault.

I spent 4 years in UO, and I barely fought anything during that time, I wrote numerous books in the game, which many others enjoyed reading, read many hundreds of others (both player written and game lore written), joined an utterly awesome RP community with player run village on Catskills, held several ingame festivals with varied competing events in them. I had a long running storyline involving over 43 other players as characters in the storyline, which lasted for just under 2 years. The secret to MMOs is that you create the subplots and character growth.

Of course, sadly..for the general modern gamer, actually using their imagination for such a thing makes their brains explode and they cant be bothered, many just want uber loot, explosions and pretty particle effects, oh and the ability to take their clothes off in game and bounce about like mad with the jump key.

Its not a difficult thing to see, comparing the community and playstyles of the UO userbase, with the modern "big" mmo, such as WoW..it becomes pretty evident how the average player has devolved.

On the issue of strategy games, I still rate things like Heroes of Might and Magic, Age of Wonders: Shadowmagic, UFO, Combat Mission, Jagged Alliance, Civilisation and more recently the Total War series as some of the best games I have played in the recent era, particularly for co-op LAN gaming. Deep involving complex gameplay which can last for several months (as in the case of our last Shadowmagic LAN), the graphics on most of those are far from stunning, but at least the game is rated by something more than how shiny the bumpmaps are, or how sharp the texture looks.
 
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Tombstone said:
I spent 4 years in UO, and I barely fought anything during that time, I wrote numerous books in the game, which many others enjoyed reading, read many hundreds of others (both player written and game lore written), joined an utterly awesome RP community with player run village on Catskills, held several ingame festivals with varied competing events in them. I had a long running storyline involving over 43 other players as characters in the storyline, which lasted for just under 2 years. The secret to MMOs is that you create the subplots and character growth.
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I spent 5yrs in that game. It was an incredible, memorable experience that will be with me forever.

Todays mmorpgs are about questing and adventuring. UO had none of that because it didn't even have quests until the last year or so. The RP community was so incredibly strong that it was hard to really leave. I wasn't even an RP'er (warrior tart) but Europa had such a solid RP'ing community that I hugely enjoyed roaming the countryside and wandering into a lost nooblet.

UO had the most useless, dated graphics engine ever but gameplay prevailed (until now) over visuals. You could do more things with that 2D Isometric engine than you ever could in ANY 3D mmorpg. It was massively flexible. Sadly it has really needed a graphics overhaul over the years and it's finally getting a half decent one.
 
Thing is I'm not talking about the MMORPG games. I've played most of them and decided although their all good they do tend to either get boring or take over your life so I kicked the habit. What I'm after is the single player epic games and their ain't many coming out* and the sequals of older epic games have become much dumber, Immensly shorter and a hell of a lot more linear.:mad:
* I'm not sayin there aren't any E.g Oblivion
Anyhow I'll bring the rant to a close at this point :p:rolleyes:
 
But I completed DE2 in a Day and Bioshock in 2. WHY can't they make the newer games just as long as the older ones????:confused: :mad:
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Bloody hell you must have been on it straight through without pausing! Too much of a good thing and all that!! ;)
 
Deus Ex only came on one CD. Now imagine what they could do with a full DVD but utilising a higher-resolution Deus Ex engined game. I'd take that over some stupidly short graphics expo any day.:)
 
For people saying our graphics are too advanced today surly its all relative given the technology and code available to todays developers compared to back then.

The problem as I see it is that very few gamers play through to the end. I bet of all the people that own long good games like Final Fantasy, Deus Ex, Far cry etc less than half of will have seen over half way. A sad fact but probably true!
 
I completed Bioshock in 2 days too, after completing it on Normal, finishing it on Hard was a walk in the park too. Sad really as it is a beautiful game, but way to short as mentioned.
 
meh, still the thing is, as you've mentioned, YOU and others were providing most of the content you were playing with in the game. which is fine and dandy and i can't complain about. but thats the same with most games, you can role play and add stories, and join a role playing guild in probably in MMO and add your own content. plenty of things happen with big groups of players, weddings and stuff which, i don't want to be disrespectful to you, but isn't for everyone and personally i have no interest in doing either.

In general the idea that games are getting easier and worse is completely incorrect. you can't compare the game you liked the most of 5 years ago to the one you like the least now thats of a completely different genre.

no matter what they want you to believe "rpg elements" is a marketing word, as is quad core, and in the past dual core, and many other words that get used a lot in the press. stalker and bioshock are basically nothing like rpg's. being able to choose plasmids = rpg ness? in any general fps game you can pick up weapons and choose which you want to use, plasmids were no different. stalkers the same, med packs, quad damage pickups, artifacts, still a linear story.

oblivion, two worlds and a bunch of other games really are rgp's, and massively longer, with a lot more story than bioshock and other fps's. but that was the same as back then, for every deus ex there was a sonic game, for every UE mmorpg there was quake 1 online.

there are plenty of long rpg's out, coming out and will come out in the future, some will suck big time and some will be great. but bioshock and the like aren't replacing rpg's, aren't rpg's at all, and aren't stopping proper rpg's being released at all.

but go with graphics + huge worlds + long storys that are good and you don't see 10 new great huge rpg's every year, they are a rarer game to come by in general, and always were.

there used to be some fantastic point and click games, but when you basically don't have to do anything graphically, no real physics and no real engine it means you have massively more resources to focus on writing and storytelling which is great.

as to what i said before on not wanting to go back to previous unchallenging games, i've moved on and learnt. now space invaders isn't remotely difficult, i have entirely no interest in going back and playing it again when there are also easy games around now but with decent graphics and more varied gameplay. there are plenty of rpg's around that i could play with decent graphics, mods, storys, gameplay that i wouldn't go back and play point and click games now either.

likewise there are very very few point and click games made like they used to be, as game makers/writers/coders also get bored and move on. people started making simplier games but due to wanting a challenge in their work moved on and wanted to make a more complex game.

the overall issue is profits, cost of game and time taken to make. which means few studios are around that make the "great" games, and theres a whole bunch of crap inbetween those few studio releases. Then even those guys can get it wrong, for me personally oblivion was just dull and i never tried it with mods.


theres also the fact that i'd hate it if every game being released was a massively long rpg, or all point and click games. i LIKE that i can play some short intense action packed games with fantastic scripted sequences. call of duty and to a lesser extent the 2nd one was incredibly linear, almost no choice, very short but insanely fun. Atmosphere of the beginning of some of the battles in COD 1 simply can't be created in an RPG or without heavy scripting and controlling of what you can do.

one thing i'll say is i don't think there have been many good rpg's for a long time, but there are a bunch coming soon afaik. oblivion was for me crap, two worlds seemed crap too.
 
Well really MMOs are a different kettle of fish, because rather than creating a game, they are gameworlds in which you create your own content. a lot like how AD&D was a system , which you then used to create your content.

I dont want to overly go into MMOs as its really a discussion more about games overall than a specific genre.

I should also state that I am not saying that good graphics = worse game, hell I have an 8800Gtx graphics card so I see my fair share of good graphics. What I am saying is that devs focus too much on fancy graphics and the game, its length, replayability and storyline often suffer as a result. Whereas in the "old" days because graphics werent so technically advanced it meant that the devs had to concentrate more on length, replayability and storyline.

Its a pity they dont make a few more decent point and click games..like the Gabriel Knight series, those were fantastic with brilliant storylines. In fact, its a shame that story telling overall has seemingly died out (and no, we tried to dig up/open something and monsters spilled out and now you have to run around and kill them all , doesnt count as good storytelling :) ) , mind you..its not hugely surprising that story telling is in such a sad state of affairs when stuff like Harry Potter is considered good literature.

But why a short intense action packed game with fantastic scripted sequences, short but insanely fun....would you not prefer a long intense action packed game with fantastic scripted sequences, long but insanely fun?? I dont know..it might just be me, but to me that seems like better value for money?
 
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