Portal 2 wasn't hard enough, was done in one sitting, magicka was the same gameplay as any basic 10+ year old mmo from before full 3D MMOs , Saints Row 3 I haven't tried yet in fairness, Trine 2 is going to be much the same as failicka.
Let's say you might want to analyze gameplay a little bit more.
Nope, it's terribad. Same game play as any crappy dungeon crawler with a few gimmicks (that honestly, detract from the experience after the novelty wears off) and some movie references (which were appreciated but gets old so damn fast).
You are spouting pointless stereotypical comments from an obviously uneducated or inexperienced view point, because MMOs can, and do have EVERYTHING any normal game has, and then more often than not include it in a social context.
Everything a normal game has?
How long do you think WoW would last if they took the rewards away, mh?
Frankly... they have literally nothing that makes them worth playing (certainly not for as long as people keep playing)... other than the hooks of achievement and peer pressure.
With MMO's it's not the actual (repetitive, simplistic) gameplay, but the metagameplay, that gets people hooked... and the Meta is sadly still more or less the same as this: http://progressquest.com/.
The much lauded "social context" ironically also provides the reinforcement mechanisms.
How long would almost all of the current MMO's last if they had to compete on the merits of the actual gameplay experience?
Ask yourself honestly.
As for that lame comment about my "credentials"... I doubt many people have more MMO experience under their belt... as there were quite few MMOs before Everquest's release and boy I did play quite heavily, not just EQ but much of what came after. Take it from someone who's been there and who's seen the same thing in many fellow players over the years... most educated people with some rudimentary psychology knowledge eventually wake up to what MMO's are and how they work.
To be fair though... MMO's are not the worst (not by a long shot) exploitive game around anymore. That honor goes to the more recent webbased "social games" like Farmville, where gameplay takes yet another nosedive in favor of achievement and peer pressure. Same basic idea though: You use reward schemes / operant conditioning to get away with (cheaply) producing lots of repetitive low quality content to keep people playing (and paying.)
Heh, you really wanna compare gaming experience to me..?
AC, UO, AO, WoW, NC, BP, RF, TR, FF, DaoC, STO, Eve, RO, SWG, GW1, JG, Lineage, LOTRO, PSU, Planeshift, EQ, Rift, RS, SB, TOR (Beta only obviously), AoC, Vendetta, Aion, and countless MUDs.
If there are no numbers it's because I played the entire series of those games.
So, having played pretty much all the MMORPGs ever made worth playing at any point in their existence, I can honestly tell you that the best ones were the PvP focused, well balanced, and rounded ones, especially the ones which weren't tuned for 1on1 balance, but group vs group or clan/alliance vs clan/alliance balance.
More than 70% of my time on WoW was spent PvPing, early, in the open world, later in the massive battles that broke out spontaneously (and on my server became self-sustaining x_X) in the open world, city raids, and then battleground organised PvP raids, Neocron was more like 90%, DaoC and Aion close to 100%, I really wish TR had been more successful with a bit more polish it had sooooooo much potential, especially seen by those high enough to start thinking about PvP.
Sadly I don't really see this being a great thing in TOR at the moment, as the gameplay isn't smooth enough and certainly not variable enough for PvP to be interesting.
Everything else was a downtime/sidequest in all of the games, the few PvE only ones on that list lasted significantly less playtime before I got bored, but some of them had their own appeal.
Competitive gaming, it's the only thing worth attention.
It's the only thing that'll genuinely test you.
Coop games are everything that's lesser and/or wrong about MMOs concentrated into the only thing you can do.
It's more that I like "gaming" in general, but find that (traditional/typical) MMO's violate the very premise of good gameplay for above mentioned reasons.
As far as TOR goes I was simply hugely disappointed that Bioware still copied the same old paradigm with all its flaws.
They bolted a story onto it, true enough, and that may to some degree be a saving grace... if you could enjoy the story on it's own merits without dealing with the rotten MMO core beneath... yet somehow I doubt you will be able to. The whole point of MMO mechanics is to stretch out the content that you do have to take as long as possible to consume.
Not that I am misunderstood: I do not dislike the idea of MMOs in general. The contrary actually... I find games with huge communities and the possibility of social interaction hugely appealing. What i loathe is what passes as gameplay in current mainstream MMOs: i.e. using applied behavorism as a substitute for quality content. Worse, as far as gameplay goes the genre has become so utterly stagnant that it almost feels like dealing with the same game in a different "skin" everytime a new MMO gets released.
To my knowledge there is only one company trying to do anything different at this stage, Arena Net with Guildwars 2, and I'll buy their game on grounds of supporting innovation - even if I end up disliking that as well.
My folly is this... for about 20 years I have looked for a "massively multiplayer online (roleplaying) game" that is "worth playing" together with my friends - on merits of gameplay - and none of us have found it.
What we did find is the same greedy exploitive gameplay mechanic in pretty much everything that calls itself "MMO" these days.... and, thankfully, a world of non - MMO multiplayer games very much worth playing together.
Your folly bad taste. Although on TOR I am likely to agree with you; for entirely different reasons.
If you want storyline, go read a book, if you want gameplay, find a GOOD gameplay game, not some convoluted idea that content = gameplay.
FreeSpace has gameplay.
Mods give it content.
I'm quite happy with the 1999 release even now, so long as I have people to play with/against. - That's the mark of amazing game play, games you really honestly want to continue playing.
I'd still be playing WoW now if it weren't for the fact that I was getting tired of the fact that blizzard were limiting my gameplay with silly rules.
I'd still be playing Neocron now if it weren't for the fact that it's mostly dead because the community never really hit critical mass in the first place. :<
