Maybe I'm what's changed.

[Solo4114]

What I meant by the actual playing being boring was the interface itself. It all felt very hands-off. I was looking for something different. I was in the safe zones and it was boring. Killing rats for no real purpose and just flying around aimlessly on my own. It all felt very isolated and unconnected (this was also before you had human avatars and could walk around on stations, so you basically were a picture and your ship).

I decided to take a few runs through low and null sec zones, making a shipping run in my newbie ship, and got podded. Given that I wasn't really having a ton of fun in the actual nuts-and-bolts playing of the game, I decided it wasn't worth my money.

I've played other MMOs since then and one before. Started with Star Wars Galaxies, tried the free trial of WoW and played for a few years in City of Heroes/Villains. COH/V I liked the best, but that got stale too, since it was basically a theme park. MMOs seem to essentially be one of two extremes: a lameass themepark, or total anarchy. I like neither. If a game's got a good setting and engaging mechanics, it MAY keep me in for a while, but nowadays I just don't play often and/or long enough to make it worth paying a monthly fee to have a target on my back. Fuck that. I'd rather spend it on booze.

--EDIT--

On further reflection, I think I've identified what it is about my attitude towards gaming that's changed: I'm no longer willing to put in "work" to game. If the game is fun and I enjoy playing it, it doesn't feel like work. But if it feels like I'm in an uphill battle...fuck it. I have better things to do with my time. I game STRICTLY for leisure now, and that means I want a fun ride through a game, not a slog through fire and mud. The reward of "YES!! I FUCKING BEAT THE GAME!!!" is not worth the effort to put in anymore. It was at one point, but no longer.

I had this realization when I tried getting into Dark Souls: Prepare to Die, which my cousin lauded to me. I tried it out and just found it an exercise in frustration, at the end of which, I had nothing really to show for it other than saying "Look. I beat it." (Except I didn't beat it. I got to a difficult-to-reach checkpoint, saved, moved past that, died AGAIN, and got pissed and turned it off.) The experience of actually just playing the game left me irritated and tense. It wasn't enjoyable, it wasn't relaxing, and the satisfaction of accomplishing what passed for victory in the game wasn't that enjoyable either.

From that experience, I realized that I'd rather do pushups, clean my bathroom, or try cooking a new recipe than work on getting better at a game that hasn't effectively grabbed me, particularly when playing it is doing little more than frustrating me. At least that way I'll have something practical to show for it.



This isn't to say that I'm not willing to keep playing if I find the game fun but hit a snag. But there's a certain approach to gaming that, I think, players get into because they enjoy the thrill of beating a particularly difficult game to the point where they're willing to get angry enough to want to throw their mouse/controller through their screen in the process, as long as they ultimately prevail in the end. I don't have the patience for that anymore.

 

[little P]

If the game is fun and I enjoy playing it, it doesn't feel like work. But if it feels like I'm in an uphill battle...fuck it. I have better things to do with my time. I game STRICTLY for leisure now, and that means I want a fun ride through a game, not a slog through fire and mud. The reward of "YES!! I FUCKING BEAT THE GAME!!!" is not worth the effort to put in anymore. It was at one point, but no longer.

The experience of actually just playing the game left me irritated and tense. It wasn't enjoyable, it wasn't relaxing, and the satisfaction of accomplishing what passed for victory in the game wasn't that enjoyable either.

I completely identify with these two points, man we are all getting to be old farts... Robustus would be proud! :lol:

Mondo - I loved EVE but the thought of paying a monthly fee for something I'm not going to be playing very frequently put me right off. Could you explain either here or pm if you wish how you go about using in-game currency to pay for the sub fees? That's really got me interested again...

 

[Ogami Itto]

There so many truths in here that have been touched on. I'd like to reiterate some and share some other observations. Twitch skill does decrease over time, unfortunately. For the most part, us older gamers can counter that with superior knowledge, planning and craftiness. When I admin'd Ghost Recon at Wolf and as part of the Review Committee, one of the things that drastically improved my game-play was being able to see what different skilled players would do via the replay mechanism of GR. That along with the sharing of tip and tricks with other Wolf players, Enilder in particular, really spiked my abilities in that game. In games where that replay/observation system is not present for those who wish to make use of it, the sharing of techniques is essential for progression as Duke has mentioned.

EvE is a harsh game, which I really like for a long time. There are a couple of things said about EvE that I'd like to mention in support of stories people have related and the theme of this thread (which is becoming more and more encompassing as we continue). "You consent to PvP when you log into EvE!" As Solo found to his hardship, there isn't anywhere in the EvE environment where you are necessarily free from PvP. Cost-benefit relationships will determine that even in high-sec if you're carrying enough valuable cargo you will be shot if it's likely to turn a profit or even for giggles because effective ships can be rather cheap if you've got the proper numbers. The second saying is: "When a player quits EvE to play WoW, the average IQ of both communities gets higher!" The obvious implication is that WoW is a dumbed down MMO, and players will gravitate towards something that is the right fit for them. Now where this intersects this thread is, which game was more popular/made more money? The answer is clearly WoW and game devs and especially publishers aren't ignorant of that fact. Even if a bright dev wants to make something that appeals to them and similar gamers, publishers will push for it to be more inclusive to all parts of the IQ bell curve and thus you get a ton of titles that make you say "Meh!".

@Mondo, you said you're at the top of food chain, as a former player I'm curious what you mean exactly, so I'd love a BattleClinic linky for your toon to see how you define that food chain. No challenge meant, just so many people have differing opinions of what that means.

Now in all honesty, I've come to love the ArmA series and really like the new engine and its refinements, but I need more content. To that end, I've been playing ArmA II with the ACE and ACRE mods at United Operations while waiting for new maps and real-world weapons to be re-incorporated ArmA III. Perhaps some of you might want to give that a try as well. Gameplay varies from Co-op to TvT based on popular voting a large portion of the time and they do expect in-game military simulation (i.e. squad coordination and communication to the mission CO). It has added to my appreciation for the ArmA series and allowed me to more successfully play against the AI without resorting to the standbys of range or suppressed weapons for success. In fact I have witnessed many mistakes made around here (4/30's Viking mission comes to mind) on both engines and will gladly impart that knowledge if asked (don't want to be the bossy know-it-all). Getting started is easy as they use a custom repository which will create a new UO profile. sixupdater://six.unitedoperations.net/srv1.yml

Hopefully that wasn't too long, saw some things in here I really wanted to comment on and help explain at least my take on some stuff to people.

 

[mondo]

@ogami - I'm in probably the most powerful, richest and best organised alliance in EVE, Goonswarm federation. We do everything from Black ops, high sec ganking, small gang to of cause large scale PVP with multiple 250 man fleets and capital warfare when it comes to Sov taking. Although its soon to change we own the very best space going. All my ships are either covered by reimbursement (as long as I'm not retarded when I lose them - taking 1.2 billion ISK sub cap ships into 500 man fleet battles is nerve racking but if I lost it I'd get the billion back) and many ships, including capitals are heavily subsidised. Really we're all a bunch of greasy nerds who aren't very good at EVE but theres so many of us and we're well led with lots of IT infrastructure we do well...we're also the most hated alliance in EVE by the general unwashed masses of high sec. But we laugh at ourselves as much as our enemies.

We're not 'elite' pvp, we're the opposite spectrum and we go out of our way to kill those who say they are but we're certain at the top of the EVE food chain, practicing a sort of utopian space communism. The fun thing is, we encourage low SP players to join us and fly in fleets using T1 frigates and cruisers in support of our main fleets.

@Solo - Fair enough, the game has changed since the time you played it but really the core is still who you know as much as what you know. The UI has certainly improved anyway, its a shame you didn't get to see the big fleet combat or the more specialised fleet types because its really good fun, like Black Ops, dropping on unsuspecting people ratting in carriers and kill them them of and leaving before help arrives etc.

@littlep - Basically you can buy game time from CCP for real money, you can then trade this in game with players for ISK, the in game currency. Theres two ways of doing this but its CCP's answer to RMT. It costs about 500m ISK a month to subscribe to EVE. For the unwashed pubbie thats a shit ton of cash but if you know what you're doing you can make 500m in about 30 minutes total. I made about 1b the other day just by watching commodity prices, took me 5 minutes. In retrospect I should liquidised all my assets and put the whole lot on it because I could have made about 20B ISK in a matter of minutes. But I'm not that experienced at it.

Cost-benefit relationships will determine that even in high-sec if you're carrying enough valuable cargo you will be shot if it's likely to turn a profit

Guilty. I killed 4 freighters last week in high sec.

 

[Solo4114]

Right, see, basically, I'm just not that interested in (A) being in competition with everyone else (de facto or de jure), or (B) the interface itself. When I say the interface turned me off, I meant the hands-off quality to it. I was hoping to be in the cockpit, using a joystick to fly. Instead, it was more "fly the ship over there. >click< Now activate the turrets. >click< Ok, let's see how fast this rat dies." And travel was slow and tedious, too. The only times it wasn't was when I was getting shot at, which usually meant when I was dying. It just wasn't really for me. I respect it on a conceptual level, mind you, I just don't really find it all that fun to play.


Ultimately, that's my yardstick now: is the game fun right out of the box. If it isn't, fuck it. I move on. I find that single player games and co-op games are more fun for me now than competitive gaming. I guess I've moved from hardcore gamer to casual gamer. I'm good with that, though.

 

[mondo]

Fair enough. The cockpit thing is something they look like they'll address for fighters, the drones that carriers deploy and its certainly strange to fly a 4km p/s interceptor with point and click but 4km per second! That is fast. Also killing rats, I've not done that since the last decade its so boring.

 

[Solo4114]

Yes, it was! But I couldn't really handle anything else at the time. I only did the 14-day trial, which didn't do anything to really grab me.

 

[mondo]

Well if you did want to try again, I can't promise anything but I could possibly open a few doors straight into a nullsec corp.

 

[Solo4114]

I appreciate the offer, but like I said, the gameplay itself just wasn't really my thing.