Shantae
Banned
One thing that really bums me out about the current state of gaming is the current landscape of online multiplayer games. It's all about the upsell so much that I haven't been able find one I can get into anymore. It's not like I come purely from a place of single player only games. I was there when the Dreamcast had multiplayer games, and was hooked on stuff like Phantasy Star Online, even when it had a monthly fee. I played Final Fantasy XI for at least 10 years, until I just felt like I couldn't keep up with the game anymore, but I still loved my time with it. Was like my second life for all those years. I was a huge fan of what Star Wars Galaxies was going for before it got major changes, and eventually got destroyed because everything had to turn into WoW, which is a game I never really liked.
For as much money so many live service games make these days, I feel like they've only regressed in their potential for being engaging experiences. At least the ones I've played. People are willing to throw so much money at games that I feel offer them less than the type of live services games I used to play. And even though I bought my fair share of expansions over the years for something like FFXI, they always felt like massive content updates, and I didn't feel like I was being nickeled and dimed, even with the monthly fee.
A friend of mine has been playing Destiny 2 a bunch lately, and I never really booted it up. I played through most of the content Destiny 1 had, but only single player as I didn't have friends to play it with. So stuff like raids mostly eluded me, but I at least felt like I got a somewhat fun experience of out the "campaign" of Destiny 1. Brings me back to Destiny 2, and I boot it up on Steam for the first time...made a new character, and it puts me through the intro of Destiny 1 again, I'm like okay, this is fine, Gunplay still feels fun. After the intro though, I almost immediately felt like I was punched in the gut. I was like ooooh no....
I knew this was wrong...the game literally throws you in with no more direction as to what the hell to do, because all the players are just cogs in this money making machine. Instead of like the first Destiny where I felt like it was decent at guiding you what to do next, the town in dropped me into in Destiny 2 just felt like Microtransaction Square. The nearest damn icon I ran up to didn't take me to any new mission, but rather a fucking storefront to buy more shit. I couldn't even find anything that would guide me to the next thing to do. No context as to what the hell I was supposed to do in the city, just...go do whatevs, just give us money. Least that's how it felt as someone who hadn't ever picked up the game. It just felt dirty, and I didn't waste much time returning to desktop, and uninstalling the game.
This is just the landscape of multiplayer games now also...back in the day I felt guilty for sometimes using gil sellers to afford a piece of armor I wanted in FFXI. The real reward in that game for me was always earning my gear, and spending the time to do it. I knew I was not only killing the spirit to buy gil, but it felt wrong too. Now games seem to be built around just buying your reward, and not earning it, hence the whole satisfying aspect of playing these games seems gone. Don't even get me started on games that charge for fucking emotes. I would not have liked FFXI half as much if I had to pay for my /panic tarutaru animation.
You can say it was worth paying for, but it was part of the damn experience. If I had to pay for it, I probably wouldn't have ever gotten it or used it.
I've kinda veered off on a tangent as to why I made this topic in the first place. I didn't want to purely bitch about the state of these games that do it wrong, but rather find out if there are any games out there that do it right anymore. I was browsing the Steam Sale, and after the all the time it's been out, I've been curious about games like Elder Scrolls online, because it looks like it could be cool, but I'm afraid to even buy these kinds of games anymore because of the experiences I've had that have shown me how greedy they all are now.
For as much money so many live service games make these days, I feel like they've only regressed in their potential for being engaging experiences. At least the ones I've played. People are willing to throw so much money at games that I feel offer them less than the type of live services games I used to play. And even though I bought my fair share of expansions over the years for something like FFXI, they always felt like massive content updates, and I didn't feel like I was being nickeled and dimed, even with the monthly fee.
A friend of mine has been playing Destiny 2 a bunch lately, and I never really booted it up. I played through most of the content Destiny 1 had, but only single player as I didn't have friends to play it with. So stuff like raids mostly eluded me, but I at least felt like I got a somewhat fun experience of out the "campaign" of Destiny 1. Brings me back to Destiny 2, and I boot it up on Steam for the first time...made a new character, and it puts me through the intro of Destiny 1 again, I'm like okay, this is fine, Gunplay still feels fun. After the intro though, I almost immediately felt like I was punched in the gut. I was like ooooh no....
I knew this was wrong...the game literally throws you in with no more direction as to what the hell to do, because all the players are just cogs in this money making machine. Instead of like the first Destiny where I felt like it was decent at guiding you what to do next, the town in dropped me into in Destiny 2 just felt like Microtransaction Square. The nearest damn icon I ran up to didn't take me to any new mission, but rather a fucking storefront to buy more shit. I couldn't even find anything that would guide me to the next thing to do. No context as to what the hell I was supposed to do in the city, just...go do whatevs, just give us money. Least that's how it felt as someone who hadn't ever picked up the game. It just felt dirty, and I didn't waste much time returning to desktop, and uninstalling the game.
This is just the landscape of multiplayer games now also...back in the day I felt guilty for sometimes using gil sellers to afford a piece of armor I wanted in FFXI. The real reward in that game for me was always earning my gear, and spending the time to do it. I knew I was not only killing the spirit to buy gil, but it felt wrong too. Now games seem to be built around just buying your reward, and not earning it, hence the whole satisfying aspect of playing these games seems gone. Don't even get me started on games that charge for fucking emotes. I would not have liked FFXI half as much if I had to pay for my /panic tarutaru animation.
I've kinda veered off on a tangent as to why I made this topic in the first place. I didn't want to purely bitch about the state of these games that do it wrong, but rather find out if there are any games out there that do it right anymore. I was browsing the Steam Sale, and after the all the time it's been out, I've been curious about games like Elder Scrolls online, because it looks like it could be cool, but I'm afraid to even buy these kinds of games anymore because of the experiences I've had that have shown me how greedy they all are now.
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