(03-18-2014, 05:26 PM)Koninbeor Wrote:(03-18-2014, 03:55 PM)Ignacius Wrote: Oh, I've been in Amarr space for local chat. Â Trust me, you might be able to get a clique together you won't hate, but the community as a whole? Â FFXIV is a giant leaping step up over that. Â I've played more hardcore PVP games in my time; I thought EVE would be different because it was in space and very distant (as in the entire game feels like it's played at arms-length). Â It's not. Â It's essentially Quake in slow motion with extra grindy bits.
As far as I'm concerned, EVE Online proved once and for all what the strengths of the MMORPG genre by simply not having them. Â It's fun enough on your own; I can't complain that the game wasn't fun when no one was around to bother me. Â I suddenly realized, after about nine months, that I hated seeing everyone in EVE. Â People in my corporation needed things, but we didn't have anywhere "new" to go or anything "new" to see; solar systems are solar systems. Â So my only interaction with them was to gain materials or data cores in order to expand our base of power so we could get more materials or data cores. Â Sort of the grind without the reward. Â Everyone else was, best case scenario, going to simply leave and ignore me. Â Even in high security space, people would aggravate you for no reason other than space is empty and they're bored.
More importantly, that competitiveness isn't balanced by anything else. Â In essence, EVE reminds me a lot more of a game like Battlefield than a game like World of Warcraft. Â After you're past the PVP learning curve, there's just not much to it. Â The game is nothing but a PVP sandbox with a couple extra essentially levequest-style things thrown in. Â Minimal epic arcs. Â Having played games that wrench you a lot harder than EVE does in a PVP sense and enjoying a few of them, you'd figure this wouldn't be that big of a deal. Â But everyone who isn't you or yours, they're out to essentially disrupt you, no matter what it is you're doing or why you're doing it. Â Even if you've just hacked a relic site and they have no way to tractor your goods, they'll ram you just for the sheer dickishness of it. Â So after nine months, the second I saw a ship on my overview that wasn't part of my carefully maintained circle of "trusted" corpmates, the only thing that ran through my mind was that these people needed to just leave me alone. Â I wanted nothing to do with anyone randomly walking by.
Which, I thought, was where MMOs were going, but FFXIV goes a complete 180 away from that.  You want to see people.  It's not just chat that's better in FFXIV (I really haven't talked to anyone who's gotten on my case), but it encourages cooperation and makes you happy to see people.  Your nodes are your nodes for gathering, so you can do it with friends and all get the benefits.  During FATEs, you want there to be more people so you're hoping they'll dismount and help out.  You get EXP for helping people kill things even if they're not in your party, so saving people isn't a complete waste of time.  You can both get credit for a kill and loot even if you didn't start it.  Very often, in the case of FATEs, there are things happening in the open world you can't handle solo.  You gain something by having other people running around in your area.
Amarr. The second largest trade hub in EVE. Amarr. If any game in existence is judged by its trade chat, which is essentially Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, and Hek local chat, then there is simply no hope for humanity. Trade chat is, without a doubt, a culmination of the worst that society has to offer. There are channels in FFXIV that I have turned off and will never ever turn on and I use my block list regularly. We clearly have different views on this, which is fine. I've been involved in several wars and even then have never had a problem with any of the corporations who have tried so hard (and often succeeded) in blowing us to smithereens. I absolutely love sandbox games (I miss you, Star Wars Galaxies!) and while I agree that EVE has little to offer as far as quest excitement goes, the key to the game is that the players make it great. EVE has been running strong since 2003 and has the largest persistent world in the history of gaming, so clearly they're doing something right. Of course, EVE is definitely not for everyone. But hey, at least they give you a free trial to find out whether or not you think it's rubbish.
The sad part? Â I'd say it's a great game if it wasn't for all the people, which is why I played for so long before stopping. Â I actually did like flying around, scanning things down, PVP for short stretches. Â But my IRL job is hard; I'm dealing with everything from design to logistics on a daily basis, often in ten- to twelve-hour stretches. Â I want to come home to relax with friends and play a challenging game, not come home to constant FFA PVP. Â If I wanted to do that, I'd be playing Titanfall with my brother. Â When I PVP, I don't pansy around with the pretty stuff. Â I jump straight into the deep end where thirteen year olds in Austria can immediately begin embarrassing me.
But really, I feel like PVP kind of cheapens the game experience; we are our own content. Â There was a time when games were so damn difficult that completion was its own reward and, if the people you played with weren't on top of their game with you, you all couldn't move. Â I've come to see PVP as sort of outsourcing the job of making interesting games to the players. Â EVE's an example of that. Â FFXIV will release a gigantic leap of new content in their next patch, whereas EVE's last expansion released a few new ships, a random cosmic anomaly site, and a few bits and pieces. Â CCP's dev team doesn't really make the game more interesting or challenging. Â They count on the players to do that for them.
I've had the same reaction to FPS games lately. Â I'm sick of developers using the PVE end of their games as an advertisement for the PVP end because so many people wouldn't buy a truly difficult game. Â I don't think PVP makes a game difficult, though. Â That's one of the reasons I tend to roll my eyes when someone calls a game like EVE "difficult". Â It's not; EVE's a pretty simple game in the grand scheme of things. Â PVP is only difficult for the bottom half of the player base. Â That's kind of why I'm glad FFXIV's PVP is so terrible. Â At least I know Square is focusing on the game first.
I wouldn't say EVE is terrible, it's just a terrible waste of an MMO. Â Essentially, it encourages cliquishness by making sure anyone who doesn't have a vested interest in you being alive wants you dead. Â There are a lot of games out there like that, but not all of them were decent space sims that had an MMO community. Â I just think the strengths of an MMORPG are all built up in wanting to meet and play with strangers, so you're always making friends. Â As it stands, EVE's only real danger is other players; CCP made space a relatively benign place. Â It probably would have been more entertaining if they hadn't outsourced the job of trying to kill us to only us. Â Your MMORPG's players should never be more dangerous than your game's environment; it's a sign of lazy development when the masters of the game code can't make you more afraid of them than some jagoff with exactly the same resources you have.
I really hate being babied by modern developers. Â I pay good money for a game to try to kill me, not to kill other people for them. Â So I'm sure as Hell not paying a subscription to work as an unpaid developer of variable difficulty on some company's behalf. Â My reaction seeing another player in an MMO should be, "Oh, thank God! Â I hope this guy's feeling helpful, because I can't do this on my own."
