Why so many MMOdressing games and so few mmoRPG's?

[Cryomancer]

What is the main difference between a RPG and a non RPG? The RPG has mechanical and narrative character building. That is why Morrowind is a RPG and TES Redguard isn't. Why Elden ring is but Sekiro isn't. Having a bit of mechanical character building is the bare minimum for a game to be a RPG. This since the 80 from Richard Garriott, the character being a "avatar" in which the player connects to the fictional world.

And most modern MMORPG's don't fullfil this bare minimum. In fact, shooters like Far Cry 3 have more RPG than games like Albion online, Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2; In this games, your character is nothing. He is merely a soulless clone of everyone else. You unlock everything and with one click can go from one spec into another.

Not menitoning, this games are pure TRASH.

I liked a bit GW1. But GW2 was pure trash. For eg, I played expecting that the game will become better but after playing for a couple of hours, I never fell connected to my character and never fell threatened by mobs. In fact, I tried to put myself in danger multiple times and din't died, even AFKing and letting my minions do all the work din't resulted in my death, so to try to kill myself in battle, I searched mobs at much higher level than me but even lv 42 mobs while I was lv 35 was a cakewalk, I just had to move a bit more, so I decided to AFK and try to die in combat this way. Only by AFKing in middle of battle against mobs 7 levels higher than me, I could die.

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Why modern mmo's are so focused in the DRESSING part of the game?

 

[Vic]

you’re playing MMOs wrong

you have to pick a female character with cat ears and then stand in town in skimpy clothing

this will put back the RP in MMORPG

also in MMOs all the challenging content is endgame group content. These mobs are not there to provide a challenge but to squeeze out playtime until you can get to the actual game.

 

[Cryomancer]

you have to pick a female character with cat ears and then stand in town in skimpy clothing

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING.

I wanna play as a powerful warlock with a powerful succubus servant(wow), a powerful necromancer creating a undead horde(Age of Conan), cryomancer(water sav sorc in ddo), that is what I like to play.

also in MMOs all the challenging content is endgame group content. These mobs are not there to provide a challenge but to squeeze out playtime until you can get to the actual game.

Then, why even have such content if the game only starts after you reach lv cap? Ideally, even mobs bellow your level should poss a challenge upon you. This is truth in EQ - p99 and even in other mmos, like DDO and games should be fun, not hundreds of hours long chores till maybe you get some fun.

GW1 was fun. GW2 fells like a chore. Same with Diablo, 2 was good, 1 great. 3, a dressing game and felt like a chore

 

[Angthoron]

Why so many MMOdressing games and so few mmoRPG's?​

1. Always online
2. "Live service"
3. Cash shop
4. Engagement metrics
5. Devs & leads coming from mobile and using mobile gaming's definition of a successful title on non-mobile markets
6. "Community" -> Dick-measuring contests

It's all about money and success metrics

Watch "Let's go whaling" on Youtube, it'll give you insights on all you need to know about the industry and then some.

 

[Cryomancer]

Amazing answer, Angthoron. But transforming RPG's into dressing games is not exclusive in mmos. Sure, D3 has the RMAH reason bur ArcaniA is a example of it.

 

[J1M]

It is one of the few game mechanics that appeal to women.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Necromancer was for a long time - and probably still is - really powerful class in GW2, but you want to play necromancer, so that doesn't help you. The first expansion (Heart of Thorns) should still be a decent bump-up in difficulty, just don't go there with the mounts from the second expansion (Path of Fire). Of course that would require suffering to lvl 80 and getting the expansions...

 

[Dr1f7]

Amazing answer, Angthoron.

>buzzword
>buzzword
>buzzword
>buzzword
>buzzword
>buzzword

>>meme youtube video rec

#soyface AMAZING ANSWER!!!

why are you gamers so easy

 

[Cryomancer]

should still be a decent bump-up in difficulty

The lack of difficulty is only ONE thing which I hated in GW2.

I also hated that the game has ZERO RPG.

After playing DDO, I decided to give a GW2 a chance and got extremely disappointed. I was expecting something a bit worse than GW1. Not extremely worse, reaching ArcaniA and Diablo 3 tier of awfulness.

why are you gamers so easy

Nope. He explained in detail how the decline destroyed the genre.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You unlock everything and with one click can go from one spec into another.

This is necessary due to the nature of the MMO genre. It takes many hours to reach endgame, which is what classes are designed around. You have no idea whether or not you might like how a class or build plays until you reach levelcap and acquire the necessary tier sets/trinkets/legendaries/azerite powers/covenant soulbinds/hero points/elite specs to play it. Turns out something you thought you might have liked isn't so fun, and you wish you could play another build that you had no idea about when you first started the game. Furthermore, MMOs completely overhaul their classes and specs every two years. A class or build you might have liked in 2016 might be unplayable in 2018, which means you need to respec to something else you find actually fun.

Being able to switch specs during gameplay is a god saver for group content. If you are in a raid and a healer has to leave to go to sleep for the night, you have 9+ other people standing around waiting while you wait for a replacement. That is a lot of man hours being wasted. Or, someone can just swap on the spot and you get on with it.

I played expecting that the game will become better but after playing for a couple of hours, I never fell connected to my character and never fell threatened by mobs.

Overworld mobs in HoT content were threatening at launch. Unfortunately the game had not properly taught players how to be good at the game before HoT launched, so it was like Cata dungeons where people went in expecting an easy time and got smacked and weren't shown how to overcome that wall, and so people complained before they got better and the devs caved in and nerfed the content.

 

[Cryomancer]

This is necessary due to the nature of the MMO genre. It takes many hours to reach endgame(...)

Strongly disagreed. First, in vanilla wow, most people din't raided. And why an mmo needs to be all about the end game? And if the game starts at lv cap, why even have leveling in the first place? In games like Dungeons & Dragons Online. People do re level multiple characters, try new low level adventure packs and so on. The most recent expansion of DDO introduced quests for level 7/8 players. And their hardcore server is by far the most played server. And mode where most people can't even reach lv 5 and is rare to reach lv 10. Let alone, epic levels.

Ultima Online, Shadowbane, most old mmos which I tried felt like mmoRPG's.

DDO is a mmorpg and its character building is as good as srd 3.5e with attributes, feats, skill levels and so on.
Shadowbane is a mmorpg and its character building is amazing. Traits, attributes, skill levels, abilities levels and so on.

GW1 had the basic RPG elements in it.
GW2 is a mmoDressing game, not a mmoRPG.

Even in private servers for WoW. The most popular ones are those who add content for leveling, not only end game.

 

[Vic]

And why an mmo needs to be all about the end game?

I suggest you stop being a casual scrub and actually get to level cap and then you will see for yourself that it’s like 2 different games. The experience while leveling is completely different from endgame content.

Many people do enjoy leveling, and they don’t want a challenge, and if they do they come up with handicaps like not being able to use good gear or something.

One of my toons is in a guild where the guild master is an old timer from everquest (and before) days. He never raids, but has dozens of characters he just enjoys leveling and talking in guild chat.

If you don’t like the boring grind, which is MMO leveling, push to level cap and see what MMOs really are designed and balanced around.

Why cry about it

 

[Cryomancer]

I suggest you to play a game which you hate and is a chore to play for hundreds of hours and maybe like the end game which is the same gear farming, cooldown managing with no immersion and RP but in group

Fixed for you. And I did played the end game of Age of Conan, the most modern mmo which I liked. Raiding was a bit fun but the time to find a group was too high.

And sorry, but I rather re play Dungeons & Dragons Online and try to reach lv 20 in hardcore again with other character. Or level up a Assassin/Necromancer vampire mage in Shadowbane. Or re play any single player RPG, like Dark Souls 3 + Convergence mod. There are good mmoRPG's from the past which I din't tried yet and seems like a proper RPG instead of mmoDRESSING game. I play RPG to get immersed into a fictional world aka escapism. If I can't fell any connection with my character and playing fells like a Chore, why should I waste my time with the game?

 

[Black]

I liked a bit GW1. But GW2 was pure trash.

Everyone knows this.

 

[Saerain]

The collective agreed that roleplaying is faggy, dressup is swaggy.

 

[Cryomancer]

The decline of wow : https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/3g8nez/comprehensive_list_of_all_rpg_elements_removed/

I played wow vanilla, vanilla plus, wotlk and tbc. And a bit of retail and can say. Retail fells like a mmodressing game. WoW till WotLK felt like a world, with light rpg elements.

List of RPG elements removed from wow : https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/3g8nez/comprehensive_list_of_all_rpg_elements_removed/

Class & combat:

• Rogues had to craft their own poisons with special labs spread across the world.
• Rogues could deactivate traps.
• Rogues had to train lockpicking by opening lockboxes around the world. Special gloves even existed to help you.
• Stealth used to have levels and could be more or less effective. Items such as Nightscape Boots helped you being less detectable. Also, as they were sneaking, rogues moved slower when stealthed.
• Hunter started without any pet and had a quest to teach them how to tame one, enhancing the link between them. Now they automatically start with one. Same for Warlock and their first demon.
• Hunter could use Eyes of the Beast to see through the eyes of its pet.
• Hunter's pet had an happiness bar and a loyalty property to manage by feeding them with appropriate food. If done wrong, the pet would do lesser damage or even leave you.
• Hunters had 3 pets max. Each ones feel special. Now they carry a whole zoo in their bags.
• Hunters couldn't attack in melee range with ranged weapons.
• Bows and guns require ammunitions you had to craft/buy and put in special ammo bags. This could lead to awkward situations
• Warriors and rogues were able to use ranged weapons.
• Warlocks had to get and carry soulshards in special bags.
• Warlocks had a Detect Invisibility spell.
• Warlock's Ritual of Doom needed four other people to summon the Doomguard... and one of them was randomly sacrificed! With great power came great responsability.
• Death Knight's Raise Ally spell bring back people as... ghouls!
• Druids turned into tree form to heal.
• Priests had 2 uniques Racial abilities.
• Mages have a Detect Magic spell and even a Khadgar’s unlocking (in beta) to crack lockboxes.
• Mages, Warlocks and blacksmiths could craft various oils and grindstones to buff weapons.
• Paladins could be played only by Alliance while Shamans were only for Horde.
• Weapons require skills, including hand fighting. If you equipped a kind of weapon that you didn't know yet, you needed to use it a lot before doing max DPS. You also needed to see a weapon trainer first.
• Speaking of trainers, you had to see a trainer in town to learn your new class skill/spell. Now it automatically spawn in your action bar as you level.
• Some spells only worked on specific mobs, strengthening the lore. Paladin's exorcism for example was to be used against undead/demons while now it works the same on any mobs.
• Magic/fire/frost resistance gears were useful against specific boss. Once again it strengthen the lore. Some mobs had fire resistance too and/or were weak against frost spells. Frost resistance gear was vital against Sapphiron etc.
• Classes were a lot more different: in term of rotation, but also some didn't have any interrupt, or any cc, or any group buff etc. In the same way, lots of class, especially pure DPS, didn't have a single heal. Now almost every class has the same set of interrupt/cc/heal/group buff.
• Mana and health regenerate way slower, so you NEEDED to stop and eat/drink every few fights. Food and drink actually mater, and mana for DPS caster mattered too. When's the last time you bought normal food in game?
• Spell levels (Holy Light 1, Holy Light 2 etc.) existed and were useful to manage your mana.
• Each classes has unique quests to unlock specific stuff: mounts for warlocks and paladins, postures for warriors, druid's forms, poisons and Certificate of Thievery for rogues etc.
• Every classes had an extra equipment slot where you put your libram, sigil, throw, totem, idol, wand etc.
• Original talent tree allowed hybrid class to freely mix healing, tanking and dps abilities (even if it wasn't often imba!).
• According to your race or spec, different weapons meant different abilities: maces used to stun, axes had extra crit chance, swords were faster or had a chance to double strike...

World & quests:

• Basic campfire required simple wood and a flint.
• Reagents (candle, feather, stone...) were needed to cast lots of utility spells. Some could be simply bought but others needed farming all around the world.
• Auction Houses were local. At start, only Ironforge (for Alliance) and Oggrimar (for Horde) had one. Also goblin's AH were neutrals so they were used by smugglers to trade rare items between factions.
• You need to travel to dungeons and battleground. Now you don't even need to know where they are.
• Breathing bar was shorter and quests that required you to go under water didn't auto-give you water breathing buff like now.
• There was no instance in the world: If people were in the same place they see and could help each others.
• Quests objectives weren't displayed on your map. Quest items didn't sparkle (or had an outline) and quest givers didn't show up on the minimap. Also quest mobs didn't have their names highlighted for you.
• Lots of group quests so you have to, well, make group while leveling.
• Four Dragons of Nightmare were hidden around Azeroth and required raid-sized groups to be defeated.
• Some of the most powerful spells were only learnable from rares Codex. They dropped from dungeons or raids but weren't BoP so you could trade/sale them.
• Expansions or some raids used to be announced with huge pre-release events, like The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, Dark Portal Opens or The Scourge Invasion. This was abandoned after Cataclysm. They were truly massive as the whole realm was participating.
• One of the most epic quest-chain had a cooking recipe reward. You needed a group to loot the mats from elite chimeras.

Professions:

• Rare recipes required you to travel all over the world, either to find/buy them or to do special quests and even dungeons to unlock them. For example you needed a priest to mind-control a mini-boss to teach you Enchanted Elementium; now it's just a drop.
• Some crafting recipes (Sulfuron Hammer, engineer Jeeves/Chopper, some food...) required lots of work and mats. Now it's just a couple, rarely 3, max.
• Sound logical, but you actually needed a fishpole to fish, a knife to skin, a hammer for blacksmith etc.
• You had to level gathering before getting to the next zone. Now tou can skin/gather in Draenor even if you're level 1.
• You need the actual mats to be in your bag. Now you can have them in your bank and craft anything in the wild.
• Alchemists and jewelcrafters needed alchemy labs to make some of the best flasks and reagents.
• Some professions had sub-specialisations: Blacksmith could specialize in weapon-smith or armor-smith; Alchemist could become transmute, potion or flask masters; Engineers could focus on goblin or gnome recipes. (some of those specialisations still exist but aren't updated anymore)
• Skinners could skin either normal leathers or scales (used for mail armor). Now only normal leather exist.
• Some creatures (like Onyxia) required special tools to be skinned, which rewarded you with very rare scales to craft unique gear.
• Blacksmiths and engineers could craft Skeleton keys and small bombs that you could buy to open lockboxes or doors.
• Only enchanters could, well, disenchant items.
• There used to be a weekly Kalu’ak Fishing Derby in Northrend.
• In Alpha there was a Survival Skills profession used for making campfires and torches. Torches were used for scouting darker areas, such as Duskwood (you couldn't see anything past 20-30 yards in front of you).

PvP:

• World PvP ranks with specific rewards like gear but also repair discount or access to a special World Defense channel.
• Alterac Valley lasted for hours with lots of PvE quests included, You could even summon bosses to fight for your side! (You can still technically do it but it's not relevant anymore)
• You could loose honor if you killed civilians from opposite faction.

Flow of time:

• Gold was scarce, it took a LOT of time to save up 10g. Now you can literally make thousand of gold in a day.
• Mounts had different speeds. Now they all go to your max speed. Also summoning mount took twice as long (3 sec vs 1.5 sec now).
• Leveling took way longer, so the focus was more about the journey, less about the destination.
• Mobs were harder to kill: you could fight a couple of them but pulling a whole group often meant death. Same for rare mobs that requiered a group. Now you can easily pull 5-10 mobs and solo any rare you encounter while leveling.
• No instant mail, even to alts. Now there are mailboxes every 20 yards in every cities.

Raids and Dungeons:

• When hard raid mode was first introduced (in Ulduar), it was done via in-game action, ie: you had to do trigger specific things during an encounter. Now it's via a click on a menu. (this kind of gameplay removal -World of MenuCraft- is very well explained in this video)
• Some raids couldn't be entered directly, you first had to do long and epic questlines to unlock them. Now you can even kill a boss before knowing about his story (Isthar in HFC for example).
• Dungeons were real mazes that could take hours to complete. Now it's mostly 3 bosses separated by corridors that took less than 20 minutes to defeat. This picture explains perfectly the situation.

Misc:

• You couldn't have Alliance and Horde chars on the same PvP server, which helped faction pride.
• Tauren could plainsrun (in beta).
• Undead could speak common (in beta).
• Keys existed. To open special doors you had first to find the key, ask a rogue to picklock it, have a blacksmith craft a key or use an engineer's charge.
• Servers used to be completely separated. This made realm communities and personal behavior extremely important because if you did something like ninja loot, you were labelled as "that guy" and were responsible for your behavior. At the same time, everyone knew who the best players on the server were in PvE and PvP respectively. The server was your world.
• Housing was tested in early alpha (as seen in this video): players could buy/build their own house in Stormwind/Goldshire.
• Being part of the Brew of the Month Club rewarded you with a monthly sample beer.
• Players used to be automatically dismounted when they entered waters... But gnomes were the only ones to be also dismounted in shallow waters, such as Zangarmarsh or Swamp of Sorrows.

 

[430am]

It's because the MMO community today are essentially people that don't like MMOs.
Yes, it started with WoW that gave MMOs mainstream popularity that the genre didn't have before, and started pandering to people that didn't like MMOs to the point that the original MMO audience got gradually forced out.

Remember Ultima and EQ? They weren't perfect but they were designed in a way that someone playing by themselves mostly won't have the resources or features to make it on their own. You had to group up if you wanted to get past a certain obstacle, or not get owned by groups that hunt people down for their loot. Blizzard looked at that and said well, that's cool, but what if we can make other player's actions affect you less? Why should you NEED buffs from another player instead of them just being a benefit? Why are there so many types of classes when they can be distilled into three colors? What if we structured the content a bit more? Why shouldn't more classes have access to healing, crowd control, etc. And you know what? It was a smash hit that lowered the floor of accessibility to a wider and less patient audience. It was at a point where people still kind of needed each other at first, and then gradually went down the gutter because more people start to expect and want that "convenience", without understanding what it does to the core design of the game. CC is too important? Maybe we can make it less important. Mana issues slow things down? Maybe we can speed that up. Dungeon layouts too confusing? Well what if they were a bit more linear. And other games saw these things, and the direction it was going, and how it was making money hand over fist, and they went along with it. And the audience, new and old, spoiled by an age of non-interactivity, demand these kinds of features. The genre became so diluted with new titles that most which came out couldn't support a healthy population anymore... So things are just made even more casualized for the people who remain, so they can still play them by themselves.

And now, in essence, modern "MMO" players don't care at all about things like community, player agency, interacting or exploring a world or roleplaying in it or having any kind of personal impact aside from following the railroaded story script where YOU personally are the chosen one (instead of being a character in a player-run world). They don't care about dungeon crawling or any actual RPG mechanics, or even witnessing other groups and people running around and having a cohesive pseudo-society experience. Some games like Elder Scrolls Online are essentially better singleplayer experiences at this point, and that's brought up as a positive point.
If you mention any of this to the average MMO player they won't even comprehend what you're talking about because it will go straight over their head since they just fundamentally don't like MMOs and would be better off playing something else.

 

[luj1]

What is the main difference between a RPG and a non RPG?

Core game format

 

[luj1]

I liked a bit GW1.

Cult game

 

[Cryomancer]

Some mmoRPG's :

• Dungeons & Dragons Online
• Shadowbane
• Neverwinter from AOL 1991(not the modern game)
• Dark Sun Online : Crimson Sands
• Ultima Online
• Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues
• Vanguard : Saga of heroes
• (...)

Some mmo's with light RPG elements :

• WoW classic till WotLK
• Silkroad online
• Guild wars 1
• Mu Online
• Age of Conan
• (...)

Some dressing self entitled mmorpg games which has less RPG elements in it than shooters :

• retail WoW
• FF 14
• Albion Online
• Guild wars 2
• (...)

As you can see, the decline in mmos is much higher than single player games.

 

[Alex]

What is the main difference between a RPG and a non RPG? The RPG has mechanical and narrative character building. That is why Morrowind is a RPG and TES Redguard isn't. Why Elden ring is (...)

Stopped reading there. Good joke, though!

 

[anvi]

Cryo you should play Rift before it goes away forever. All MMOs are shit though, there are only 2 I liked and they are both dead. And hardly anyone knows what the thing I liked was even like.

 

[Cryomancer]

Cryo you should play Rift before it goes away forever.

I rather play DDO. My favorite mmo so far. Character building is as good as any 3.5E/PF1e CRPG.Already reached "legendary" levels with a Pale Master and will do the same with a water savant. And yes, it has feats, attributes, point allocating character building, multiclassing, metamagic, epic levels, reagents for casting certain spells and everything present in 3.5E. Also has DM narrator narrating your adventure. Much better than endless gear farming, cooldown managing.

 

[Cohesion]

Cryo you should play Rift before it goes away forever.

I rather play DDO. My favorite mmo so far. Character building is as good as any 3.5E/PF1e CRPG.Already reached "legendary" levels with a Pale Master and will do the same with a water savant. And yes, it has feats, attributes, point allocating character building, multiclassing, metamagic, epic levels, reagents for casting certain spells and everything present in 3.5E. Also has DM narrator narrating your adventure. Much better than endless gear farming, cooldown managing.

Play Dark Age of Camelot.
And your MMO rating is way off.
Though DDO isn't bad.

 

[Cryomancer]

Dark Age of Camelot.

I tried many times to create an account but never did it. Any way to play it?