Epic turning off online play for some older games

[twonha]

Kids today need that extrinsic reward loop, and can't appreciate the intrinsic joy of just playing the game.

I question whether kids need that persistance and reward, and I'm sure they do also appreciate the joy of playing, but I think there are two other factors at play in what you're saying. One is that if you have to choose between a game with stats and rewards, and a game without, then the choice is obvious: the game that actually appreciates you returning for it will win out. The other is that with those stats, it's so much easier to share and discuss progress with friends; there's an added social layer. Plus, personalization is a plus in multiplayer games - it used to be that you'd give your name all kinds of funky colors in Counter-Strike or Quake Arena, but now you've got an actual character with actual progress. The dopamine drip helps, but I think there's much more to it than just that.

That said, I wonder if an arena shooter could be anywhere near as succesful as other shooters if they followed suit. Halo Infinite feels like the sole survivor of arena shooters, but wardens 343 manage to screw up every second step they take, while Call of Duty feels similar to arena shooters but is certainly a different beast.

 

[Trunks0]

Death match just grew boring on the same tiny little maps. Once Starsiege: Tribes hit, the trend toward large maps, teams and objective started and never stopped.

 

[JZL]

A few from the top of my head.

Realism --- most preferred playing a character that seemed closer to human, rather than one constantly bunny hopping and rocket jumping at 100 miles per hour
Direction --- objectives drew people to certain areas of the map and gave them clear goals (like plant/defuse the bomb)
Hitscan over Projectile --- Arena shooters were packed with Projectile weapons and most didn't like constantly shooting predictive shots. The biggest MP game back then was CS which was hitscan for all its weapons
Teamwork --- the objectives meant you knew where to go and what to do with your team even without voice communication. Random people could drop in and out of a server and play just fine most of the time
RPG elements --- Things like earning xp and unlocking items/skins and perks felt weird at first but eventually became part of the norm​

These are some of the reasons modes like Onslaught (Warfare in UT3) and CTF and vCTF (vehicleCTF) were popular and worked well. They are non-arena objective team-based games. The vehicles are cool.

And for the love of gawd, SAVE THE REDEEMER from the hands of the devil!!