What makes an MMO a "themepark"? Is "themepark" just a buzzword used by people with no imagination?
What makes an MMO a "themepark"? Is "themepark" just a buzzword used by people with no imagination?
What makes an MMO a "themepark"? Is "themepark" just a buzzword used by people with no imagination?
It means a game with the kind of world where the zones exist only for you to go through them once in a linear fashion. At best you'll return to them for reputation grinding shit between expansions, and your interaction with the world is absolutely minimal.
This is wrong, think about how an actual themepark works.
It's a wide area with a bunch of rides (dungeons) that you stand in queue for, 'you gotta be this (level/gear requirement) tall to ride'. Each ride has a maximum amount of users before it starts. You can ride the same ride as many times as you'd like, some you can ride solo, others you can ride with friends.
The pvp battlegrounds are like the bumper cars where you need lots of people to make it work properly.
It's about instanced content that takes you out of the world like themepark rides.
wrong.
Im seeing three conflicting definitions of what themepark is supposed to mean in the context of MMOs. However I like all three explanations so I'm going to assume it's meant to be an amalgamation of all three
Essentially, yes. Just think antithesis to old Runescape, and you're gold.
runescape is a themepark too though.
all i'm getting from this thread is that an MMO is only not a themepark only if you're not intelligent enough to see the rails.
I think it's a symptom of modern MMOs not fulfilling their previous function. Back in the day they were more social cause social media sites weren't as big, but as they grew they supplanted MMOs and left them with nothing but their pre-made content which is basically just "go from A to B" and then you're done.
Playing horizon (ff11 pserver) gave me insight that older mmos were super grindy and slow, and today developers want people to play their game so instead of grind they do simpler more flashy stuff.
I wish I was retired so I could play ff11 all day lol
>Playing horizon (ff11 pserver) gave me insight that older mmos were super grindy and slow
Also keep in mind that on Horizon you're effectively playing XI long after it has been "solved". Now imagine playing that before everything had been boiled down to a science and people knew all the largely optimal shit level best leveling spots, best equipment, best job combinations, etc.
Part of the reason I couldn't invest in Horizon long term is because I realized a lot of the magic I had with old FFXI was the discovery period itself, not necessarily "DUDE LONG ASS GRIND"
I didn't mind being behind the curve, but people were sometimes really annoyed if you didn't research everything.
>bro you fricked up my SATA
I'm level 10 the frick are you talking about nikka
The only style of MMO doesn't work anymore. They were social spaces, and the mechanics went hand in hand with that fact.
Now people just organise through discord and look up the most numerically optimal builds for everything.
>Now people just organise through discord and look up the most numerically optimal builds for everything
wouldn't it be funny if MMOs had local voice and you couldn't turn off the input
if you force me to listen to some overweight loser, or, considering the audience of modern day MMOs, overweight losers making a high-pitched voiced because they think they're a woman, i am NOT installing your MMO
It’d just be social media at that point. Fat losers talking out loud about how they know the government is behind whatever it is that week and libs being oppressed by gravity.
It means that the world and activities in the game are like a ride you go on once and then you never do it again
In XIV for example the areas you go through in the world are just you on the "ride" of that expansion. Which is why as you go through them you get access to flight and teleportation so you never have to walk through them again, you're just there to do it once and then that zone ceases to exist for any relevant purpose.
are there any sandbox mmos that don't devolve into feudal ancap shit?
>What makes an MMO a "themepark"?
que based content
I will never understand the reasoning behind giving this a fastpass line or the people who willingly pay money for it either. This ride can churn through 600 people every 15 minutes, the current permanent queue cant even hold that many people.
Because you punched a ticket to go play attractions, like how themeparks operate. It's cheap and creatively bankrupt. If I want to play attractions then I'm going to the real thrmepark instead of this pathetic replica made for basement losers.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/486860/MMORPG_Tycoon_2/
If your favorite troony MMO can be replicated here, then its a themepark, simple as.
>https://store.steampowered.com/app/486860/MMORPG_Tycoon_2/
>MMORPG Tycoon 2
Kino
>Early acc-
Meh
just wait until it releases moron, it was literally announced 3 months ago
Theme park and sandbox are opposing design styles. All the big MMOs are theme park. You go to a zone and there are quests that take you to certain areas, by doing all the quests you will have seen all the zone and experienced all it's content. The entire time you route is planned by the developrs. You start at quest giver, go to place where the quest can be completed, and repeat.
Sandbox is the game giving you very little guidance about what to do in a zone. So you find your own spot/route to farm in. There is a reason it's not popular.
WoW is effectively a Warcraft themepark. It has all the zone callbacks to Warcraft with the attractions being dungeons and quests.
>"THEMEPARKTHEMEPARKTHEMEPARKTHEMEPARK"
>"Okay, how can a gameloop be consider a "themepark"? How does that work?"
>"Uuuh... themepark is when you go from Point A to Point B in a linear fashion... And other players can join too! :*~~"
Autistic people should be chemically castrated and die unaware of their eternal virginity.
Think how a themepark works in real life such as Universal Studios. Now think how WoW presents its content. It's really no different.
That doesn't make any fricking sense. The label is so incredibly ambiguous that almost any genre (online or not) can qualify. It is a virtual world, you mong.
Unless you're playing a sandbox-type game with no story/quests, your fun will always be dictated by its world and rules (whatever the frick the devs/designers made for you).
you lack critical thinking skills
I accept your concession.
>group up with other random solo players via partyfinder
>fast-travel to instanced hallway dungeon
>don't communicate and b***h whenever possible as you will never see them again
>rinse and repeat
Themepark.
>Born
>Live life
>Die
Themepark
most mmos aren't designed like a theme park. BUT THE GREATEST GAME, TOONTOWN ONLINE WAS
A theme park funnels you through a curated line of attraftions giving you little incentive to go back to prior attractions. Runescape is one of the few non theme park mmos as it constantly gives you incentives to go back to older areas to do new things.
Any MMO with optional PvP is automatically a themepark MMO.
>game has harsh death penalty and 99.9% of the world is open to PVP with no level restrictions
Inevitably devolves into mafia situations where powerful groups run a server
and? join my gang or else
>implying you will ever get to join their gang
You will never be anything more than a b***hboy paying tribute for the privilege of walking the streets without getting murdered on sight
>Inevitably devolves into mafia situations where powerful groups run a server
yup, souds like SOVL to me
>naturally forming social phenomenon like server politics
do stupid people really have a problem with this?
It sounds cool on paper because you imagine that you will be part of the ruling gang or that the people in top will be able to be reasoned with, but in reality you just end up getting fricked over by people abusing their power. You can play on a server for months and then you accidentally say the wrong thing to / refuse to get extorted by a guy who knows a guy and then they just run you off the server. Tibia had tons of situations like this:
>go to a spawn to grind for a bit and level up
>guy shows up and tells you to frick off or to drop your most expensive gear for him
>refuse to comply
>woops that guy was the cousin of the most powerful guildleader on the server and now you have 50+ people hunting you, all 100+ levels above you
In WoW classic there was a guild called Grizzly that sort of fit the description for server mafia. Eventually the rest of the server got tired of their shit and hundreds of players spent 12 hours denying Grizzly their sole chance at getting their AQ Scarab Lord. It was a beautiful moment of natural server politics that we haven't seen in any mmo in a decade or more.
Modern mmos need more of this. Everything feels so plastic and unnatural nowadays.
https://www.wowhead.com/classic/news/the-ten-hour-war-on-sulfuras-horde-seek-revenge-for-previous-griefing-317251
>in any mmo in a decade or more
I'm sure that shit has happened a few times in EVE Online.
Unfortunately, EVE isn't themepark enough to have anything as prestigious as being a Scarab Lord.
Sounds like they got what was coming to them, WoW has zero penalties for dying in PVP though so yeah only their prestige and pride were hurt.
>WoW has zero penalties for dying in PVP
They literally missed their only chance at getting the rarest mount in the game lol
If that was early Tibia PVP they would be losing 1-3 levels, some skills (takes hours of skilling just to get a single point later on), everything in their backpack and a piece of gear. Every time they die.
hey you and other anons should give me 100 bucks and as thank-you i'll drive by your house with the luxury car i'll buy with the money you all kindly donated every week.
do you not realise how fricking moronic that sounds, you fricking peon? having the entire server come together to get one guy some super special item is FRICKING moronic game design.
Are you illiterate? The post isn't about that at all.
Also, a ton of guilds got 10+ scarab lord mounts. It's not limited to one person.
>a ton of guilds got 10+ scarab lord mounts.
Maybe in your mockery of vanilla called Classic because everyone already knew exactly what was coming. In real vanilla you had one or two per server.
>wotlk ulduar
>guild decides to give every val'anyr fragment to the priest officer because all the other healers were on trial at the time
>he quits the game the week after completing the legendary
>the other healers ragequit the guild, taking their friends with them
>guild dissolves
people's social skills and communication ability dissolves in private servers, i've noticed over the long years. people quit and vanish out of nowhere constantly
CONSTANTLY
this was on retail.
Makes sense
Got the legendary, you've beaten the game, time to move on.
>everyone deserves to have everything
liberal mindset.
and?
>the 0.1% should have everything and everyone else should be propping them up
moron mindset.
>the 0.1% should have everything
you mean 1 or 2 items that other players don't have. not "everything" by any stretch of the imagination.
>>the 0.1% should have everything
So you're claiming that the 0.1% are the only players with good gear? Is that really what you believe?
>and everyone else should be propping them up
No one is forcing you to prop anyone up. Participation is voluntary.
nice strawmen, peon.
do it you moronic drone, send me the 100 bucks so i can drive by your house as your only reward.
>nice strawmen
Anon, what do you think "everything" means?
>and?
That means there are real penalties with dying, not oWo my worldbuffs and cosmetic mount nooooo
>That means there are real penalties with dying
Ok, and?
Had a situation in Wurm online PVP where the there are 3 factions. Usually nothing happens on your home island and you peacefully farm on your own, But when the enemy raiders came all the neighbours formed a militia and drove them off( they chickened out). It was the scariest moment in my gaming experience because you can actually get all your stuff destroyed by the enemy.
You would be wise to join my gang.
Theme park = The setting isn't a believable or engaging world, it's just a series of key-jangling attractions to pander to the player. It's not always bad, people like theme parks. It just doesn't really have any depth or integrity or authenticity or "soul" to it. It's not something that gives the impression that it could exist independently, because it only exists for you to go play tourist in it.
>one day later he's still mad
We reached the conclusion in the thread those posts came from, thanks to the many anons using EVE Online an as example.
If an MMO has ANY safety rails that prevent you from griefing another player, setting them back weeks or even months, then it's a themepark. It's as simple as that.
Yep, but OP is still extremely assblasted and simply can't fathom that wow is a game where player interaction has NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER on the game world, and that everything you obtain is done through curated content. You can literally own continents in EVE and Albion and control production of the entire region.
so pso2 is not a themepark because you can set a f2p player back by gobbling up the economy of a certain item.
that means it's only 98% theme park
cool
In Theme Park MMOs you make your fun with the content the developers have given you. In sandbox MMOs you make the content yourself via the game mechanics.
yes
WoWs not a theme park its a skinnerbox. Once you step away from WoW you realize the playerbase areall bots following whatever addons tell them to do.
I went on the cable car at busch gardens and instead of sitting with my hands and feet inside the car at all times I leaned off the edge and spat on Black person passing underneath.
I created content. Therefore, busch gardens is not a themepark.
rape
I decided to climb over the fence at Six Flags and frick around in the off limit area around the base of the roller coasters.
A cart of passengers flew by and one of their dangling legs decapitated me, and his leg got blown open.
I made content.
Six Flags is not a theme park.
it means the game has no role playing elements to it. your experience is curated from start to end-game.
Old school runescape and Maplestory are the only good MMOs
It was a word coined when MMOs started to have actual content to describe the problem where players only wanted to do the "most important" content.
A theme park is when an mmo is just a collection of minigames, rather than a cohesive RPG. FFXIV is a well known example.
No it isn't, FFXIV isn't an MMO so it can't be a themepark MMO.
>FFXIV isn't an MMO
Okay, Anon. Since it appears you are on a different plane of existence from the rest of us;
Define what an MMO is.
an ONLINE game where the main content requires playing with (or against) a MASSIVE number of people, i.e. MULTIPLAYER.
not solo dungeons with NPC bots
not piss easy scripted fights with 4 to 8 people
not having pretend text sex with other grown-ass men
not playing dress-up barbie
XIV is NOT an MMO.
>Theme park bad because you are not allowed to make your own fun.
>NO NO NO NO NOOOOO!!!! YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO PLAY LIKE THAT!!!!
So.. Planetside 2.
>NOOOOO!!!! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE FUN IN FFXIV BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!
Those are fun to you?
Lots of invisible walls, Lots of "hey look at character from our other games", Dungeons and raids so easy you just get railroaded through it. Constant brain dead "go here" or "kill x enemies" quests
Sandbox doesnt exist. The concept of killing mobs in a field isn't sandbox because the devs put them there intending you to grind them. Thus its a theme park element. Roleplaying is sandbox, but you can do that in any game.
How come there are people who still don't understand that social media killed mmorpgs for good
There is nothing, literally nothing that would make people tolerate the insane amounts of grinding and soulless game as a service tier mechanics without the social aspect that made the genre appealing in the first place.
The only way a MMOrpg would stop being a themepark in the current era would be to force people to enter the world of the game, as in forced VR simulation which you couldn't escape from to get people to actually play the game
generally progression
Go here
then go here
then go here
simply have a few options doesn't really count. having multitude of options doesn't really count.
The big deal with themepark MMOs is their content becomes obsolete. You engage with certain content when it is level appropriate then, when accumulating enough levels/gear, you move on the the next ride, never to look back. It's vain, and not only demands unfeasible workloads, but it produces completely asinine time wasting mechanics to make what little content (rides) remain relevant at end game in order to retain players.
This is contrast to what would be regarded as sandbox MMOs, where, generally speaking, most of the content is relevant to most players. Not by population, but by progression. Every play should want to go to move every part of the world, at any time, not merely for the novelty of the zone (level niche), but because it affords some valuable resource, or else just a different challenge for a familiar resource. All to facilitate player interaction through trade, competition, and cooperation. These things basically don't apply in theme parks, because soon your playerbase becomes so diluted across the entire span of content you can not expect ANYONE to have even a single other person to play with around level appropriate content.
Theme park MMOs are shallow, vain, and wasteful.
You know, you could just stop replying instead of continuing to feed the clown.
MMOs are social games. Modern MMOs are anything but social.
It’s if the game actually gives you quests to go places instead of just having zones you grind mobs in. That’s literally it.
FF14 is the most theme-park mmo that exists, and it's aimed squarely at the casual / second life market because they spend obscene amounts of money on outfits.
It's dumbed down to a ridiculous level, which is ironically what wow did to become popular in the everquest era. 14 just did it to a far greater degree, to the point is' barely an mmorpg at all.
FF14 is less themepark than WoW. Its core content is ERP which is entirely player driven and not oriented or even encouraged by the devs at all, which is the polar opposite of themepark.
Its main content is the MSQ which is the most railroaded thing in MMO history. You vastly overestimate the amount of people rping in XIV outside of Balmung.
>FF14 is less themepark than WoW.
Do stupid people actually believe this?
I mean, they're both theme park as frick, but at least WoW has a world to explore and actual physical locations instead of just selecting it all from an arcade menu.
It's not even really about ERP because that takes a certain amount of social interaction, it's just about dressing like a bimbo and buying outfits and using massive tit mods from patreon modders to dance in your mog house disco. That and taking pictures of characters to post on social media, this is why so many moronic women play it. A lot of women play ff14 and they are the lowest tier of second life women you can imagine too.
FF14 isn't an MMO so it can't be a themepark MMO. It's a shitty VN with an ERP chatroom endgame.
This is not up for discussion.
It's simple, OP. Here's a flow-chart (in text form) for you,
>Like the game?
Not theme park.
>Don't like the game?
Theme park.
Also remember this somehow only applies to MMO. No other genre.
A lot of middle aged women play ff14, they moved directly from second life. They are basket cases.
If you need an idea of the kind of women I'm talking of
i crave the ripe hag fruit
damn maybe i should switch games
nothing but greasy neckbeards in wow
At least half of the good players in my ultimate progs are women.
FF just has prettier aesthetics for girls, I think. Also characters you can get attached to appearing in narrative. Like, let's be real - if the plot of WC3 was actually in WoW, Arthas would straight up be the most popular character in the entire franchise because players of WoW would have actually experienced his fall, and that playerbase is way larger then WC3S. And he would be every girl's favorite character from the series.
Lmao. Women don't like the Warcraft because it's capeshit on steroids. The world feels disjointed and unrealistic and there is no sense of danger or loss or anything to get attached to. It's all standalone moments of characters "being epic", there is no character development, there are no long-term consequences for anything, no struggle about resources or world population despite the world being constantly at war with [Villain of the Month]. It's not a world anyone but the most braindead consoomer can get lost in. In fact most of its players laugh at paying attention to the game as anything but a numberphile excel spreadsheet.
Blizzdrones always drool over culling of Stratholme because it's the only event in the entire franchise's history that isn't shallow and meaningless and gave them a very brief and weak taste of what real writing is like.
>culling of Stratholme
>real writing
No
It was still done in capeshit style, with characters having no agency and their actions not making any sense
>killing people and making giant graveyard would stop necromancers from making zombies
Still peak moronic motivation
>a very brief and weak taste
read homosexual READ
>thread about themepark MMOs
>devolves into XIV vs WoW, both dogshit themepark MMOs that killed the genre
You people are fricking cultists.
Instead of b***hing, you could always talk about something else.
EVE or Planetside for example which don't fit neatly into the normal MMO checkboxes.
Also, the conversations are mostly dominated by 2 people shitting at each other back and forth forever.
And if you want recs, feel free to ask and I'll give you some weird shit.
good pvp mmo that isnt weebshit?
Doesn't exist, sorry.
He said it right there. Planetside 2.
is PS2 even still populated?
Yeah. It's also still getting events and stuff. They celebrated 20 years in May alongside various patches.
ff14 endgame
Looks based, like the parties of eld in sandbox mmos
its true. on a friday/saturday night, the party finder is more packed with rp events than raiding parties.
No, it's the opposite of a sandbox.
It's an oilsphere?
Water Strainer
"Themeparrk MMO" is a meaningless term like "Character action" and "Immersive sim"
Character action is a pretty useful descriptor though, often involving a third-person camera with a focus on flashy combat.
I think people are conflating the word 'themepark' with 'roller coaster'. Themeparks aren't on rails, they can be totally non-linear but the content is presented as if they're attractions that stay the same forever. Like doing deadmines in WoW over and over, you're essentially on a themepark ride, like a pirate themed haunted house.
so a themepark is any MMO that focuses on repeatable, scripted content? why not just say "pve focused" MMO instead of using dishonest labels?
PvE content can be presented in other ways that don't resemble a themepark, like a living breathing world that changes dynamically.
you mean a FOMObait game?
Pretty good b8
its a buzzword spammed by the same dozen full loot pvp mmo enthusiasts just ignore those freaks none of the games they play ever reach more than 300 players online peak
*by the same dozen shitposters
The enthusiasts are busy playing.
It means the developers write a story and you play along the game on their rails. You're essentially playing a single-player RPG but lazily turned in to an "MMO" so they can extract monthly paychecks from you.
Pre-WoW MMOs were about making your own fun. EQ had a story....theoretically, but really the game was raid/gear grind. Guild Wars was build experimentation and playing a mix of PvE/PvP. DAoC's entire endgame was Realm vs Realm PvP brawls out in the frontiers. Star Wars: Galaxies was some kinda wild experiment on society building n sheeeeit which that madlad Raph Koster designed but then they dumbed SW:G down for all the nerds who just wanted to play as Jedi with lightsabers and go vwooooom vwooooooom.
People who don't like the term themepark mmo are mad that its being used to negatively describe a game they like. Just be glad you aren't paying themepark prices.
theme park mmos are when you rescue someone from bandits and they instantly despair in the bandit camp so other players can rescue them
>despair
*respawn
I don't know what MMO the OP pic is meant to be, but that homie looks like Yakub LOL
Focusing on "attractions" (quests, instanced dungeons, raids... etc.) instead of a hands-off game where the player can do many activities, often activities that were not envisioned by the developers. There's nothing wrong with a themepark MMO these days though, as sandbox MMOs get overrun by third-worlders who destroy all forms of immersion and fun; you join the locust swarm or be devoured by it.
Original definition is player lead from one "attraction" to another, with all side activities being part of "entertainment"
Examples:
Ff11
Eq
Wow
Sandbox is you are free to make your own adventure
Ultima
Ragnarok online
Shitton of muds
Sw galaxy
Ironically modern "surviving" games like ark would count as sandboxes
Everything else is cope from kids who started playing games in 00s
I also dont subscribe to the theme park experience and stay level 1 just stalking people
>we now live in a world where zoomers are making talking points based on their limited world experience
MMO's before games like WoW allowed you to have way more freedom on how you played and enjoyed the game. MMO's post WoW all copy pasted WoW's system and they've become boring contrived garbage ride simulators.
tbh I've moved on from themepark (if I ever really used it) to just comparing modern MMO's to lobby based games like CoD. All you do is sit in town lobby up into a queue for a dungeon and log off. Yawn.
>he will make this thread tomorrow and seethe just as hard as everyone disagrees with him
A themepark MMO is when you have to do a lot of queues to hop on a ride (dungeon or raids), said rides gives you tickets that you can exchange for prises (weapons, armor, etc).
Like final fantasy XIV
WoW players have been conditioned to hate PvP because their only experience with it is getting ganked by much stronger players. WoW was never balanced for PvP.
WoW promotes being an antisocial solo player with all its matchmaking fast-travel gameplay that requires zero communication. No risk, no reward gameplay to keep your sub active.
PvP MMOs are incredibly popular outside of NA and EU because they couldn't afford to be brainwashed by WoW. Those games are about teamwork and making friends or enemies. High risk, high reward. Winner takes it all.