While I understand some of the younger peoples opinions on this I think you are misconcieving it. We "old" people don't want someone to remake our past game, and really do want the genre to evolve. However looking at gameplay it seems to be getting easier and easier. It would be like watching a football game where everyone wins. Without challange it's just not entertaining. The genre as a whole appears to be de-evolving. The trend for reguler RPG's is to got he route of a movie with options gutting out everything else, and the trend for MMORPG's tend to try and replicate WoWs success by making the game so easy a retarded monkey can play it. The genre as a whole needs to accept that most americans are stupid, and lazy. The genre needs to accept that out of that group of people, those who are willing to play MMO's, play WoW. WoW has the market for stupid, lazy gamers. I'm not saying that everyone who plays WoW is. Just that those that are, are definately playing WoW. When we say we want things to go back to the old school days, we mean we want an MMO with a challenge. It doesn't have to be an MMO for you. There are so many games out there now for the "casual gamer" which I think has been tortured into becomming "retarded gamer". I in fact think a lot of casual gamers are as well getting sick of how easy games are getting. My point is that there is a banquet of MMO's for those types of gamers. Can we, not necesarrily hardcore, gamers have an old school MMO that was about adventure and overcoming challeneges? Is it really so much to ask? I played WoW. I got to 80 and was in full tier 9 or better epic gear in 3 days. I finished the game, minus ICC, in 3 days after attaining the max level. I can mash my head on my keyboard and have success in WoW. I could easily make the same thread about newer generations of people and their rufusal to play anything with a challenge in it.
The arrogance is abundant in this one. It must be great to be sooooo much smarter than the rest of us. Imagine how great you would be if you could spell correctly.
I do not play WoW, but I highly doubt that you did everything in 3 days after reaching level cap.
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I would have to disagree. First of all, dirtyjoe pointed out what was fundamentally wrong with some UO mechanics. Secondly, I would love to point out Fallen Earth has some of those features and much improved. Including a community which is livelier and better then UOs was. So that's a +1 for modern games.
... SF
I'm sorry but nowhere in my post I mention UO. If I have to clarify, i'm talking about games like FFXI or DAoC.
Good try though. I know some ppl have that game in mind when talking about the old school days, but I personnaly don't like FFA PvP game.(what most ppl remember it for... I enjoyed the sandbox part though) They are a den of festering egos full of hardcore wannabe looking for an easy kill to boost there self-esteem.
The best game that could be made imho would be FFXI (you can tweak it a little, its not perfect) with sandbox elements added to it.
The market is in need of a PvE sandbox!!! That would be the game for me.
edit: No, not every FFA PvP player is a low self-esteem basement dweller.
While I understand some of the younger peoples opinions on this I think you are misconcieving it. We "old" people don't want someone to remake our past game, and really do want the genre to evolve. However looking at gameplay it seems to be getting easier and easier. It would be like watching a football game where everyone wins. Without challange it's just not entertaining. The genre as a whole appears to be de-evolving. The trend for reguler RPG's is to got he route of a movie with options gutting out everything else, and the trend for MMORPG's tend to try and replicate WoWs success by making the game so easy a retarded monkey can play it. The genre as a whole needs to accept that most americans are stupid, and lazy. The genre needs to accept that out of that group of people, those who are willing to play MMO's, play WoW. WoW has the market for stupid, lazy gamers. I'm not saying that everyone who plays WoW is. Just that those that are, are definately playing WoW. When we say we want things to go back to the old school days, we mean we want an MMO with a challenge. It doesn't have to be an MMO for you. There are so many games out there now for the "casual gamer" which I think has been tortured into becomming "retarded gamer". I in fact think a lot of casual gamers are as well getting sick of how easy games are getting. My point is that there is a banquet of MMO's for those types of gamers. Can we, not necesarrily hardcore, gamers have an old school MMO that was about adventure and overcoming challeneges? Is it really so much to ask? I played WoW. I got to 80 and was in full tier 9 or better epic gear in 3 days. I finished the game, minus ICC, in 3 days after attaining the max level. I can mash my head on my keyboard and have success in WoW. I could easily make the same thread about newer generations of people and their rufusal to play anything with a challenge in it.
The arrogance is abundant in this one. It must be great to be sooooo much smarter than the rest of us. Imagine how great you would be if you could spell correctly.
I do not play WoW but I highly doubt that did everything in 3 days after reaching level cap.
He didn't; from the sound of it he got carried trough some easy content after dinging 80 and then quit after his piggyback ride ended with the pretense of having "finished the game" believing this to qualify as "success".
The problem as i see it , is that we have evolved in terms of gaming way to fast , and that had a very big impact on our imagination .
I mean i am being realistic here , nothing is exciting anymore .... for example , mass effect 2 , dragon age , bioshock 2 had and i am being honest here , 0 impact on me , i got bored of them in about 2-4h of gameplay....
In terms of mmo's , other then eve online which still has a somewhat felling to it when i play it (and this is prob because i got 3years of playing it) , there is not 1 other mmo out there that can somewhat give me a small dose of a adrenaline rush or some sort of enjoyment when i play it , it just fells that i been there done that and there is nothing new to it (and yes i did try them all)... pretty sad.
Believe it or not , i actually have more fun turning on my emulator and plugging in Zelda a link to the past and just finish it over and over again then actually playing any of these new cutting edge graphic games.
Like someone already said , we are just w8'ting for the next step to virtual reality and i am pretty sure it's not that far away , we got coming this year , real motion controlers whit AI that's pretty much the same as your next door neighbor www.youtube.com/watch , 3D TV's (i think they are out already) and hell knows what else...
Let's face it , we are addicted to evolving as fast as possible and that's a solid fact.
You people are just getting old. Get used to it, it won't get any better with time. Yes, i am talking to most of the forum reads. We all have a soft spot for our first MMO, as it was pointed out in the recent article but sometimes too far is too far.
The growth of such a group in the gaming population is actually quite an interesting phenomenon. It creates some nice stratification, which IMHO is pretty entertaining to watch since till now gamers were regarded as hardcore or casual. Now we have the elderly ladie... i mean "veterans" too.
The problem is, just like your grandparents, you are not comparing the past (MMOs) with the present. We are comparing what we though the past MMOs were and what we remember of them. An idealised image. And let me tell you two things.. past MMOs, even the western ones were complex because they were not functional, and even if you did not notice it, they had grind as bad as the current "Korean".
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Very bad game. You get Pk-ed everywhere. Mining means click click click on a ROCK for hours (that is just BAD design). All the mining caves are full of people (where is the adventure)?
Do virtually anything i want does not makes a good game if most things that can be done are BORING. Why would I want to DYE clothes in my fantasy game? I want to go fight dragons and have adventures. There is a reason why EQ is 5x more popular than UO once it came out. Despite all its faults, it is a BETTER game. You interact with the game LESS (the game focuses on hack-n-slash & progression other than all these worthless freedoms) but it is more fun because the combat mechanics are better done.
The reason more people played EQ was because it was a much simpler game, and you didn't get killed by other people. Same reason people think WoW is addictive. Difference is, EQ was innovative, deep, and social when it came out. WoW was just a simplified knock off, so it doesn't get a free pass for using the same game model as EQ.
Lots of people care about owning a house, dying their armor and clothes, going treasure hunting, crafting, making their own mark on the world, and truly customizing their character. Does not make it a bad game to have options, simply makes the game more diverse, doesn't take away from anything at all to have the options there.
Oh, and in the 12 years since UO came out, people still haven't found a way to make gathering interesting, and I doubt you could if you tried. In fact, its even worse now, because at least in UO, there was the danger of being attacked.
I half agree. People who have their nostalgia goggles on too tight annoy the piss out of me. While most MMO's nowadays do blow massive dick, a lot of the ones I played ages ago only blew slightly less dick.
Totally agree, when i was younger the simplest games where entertaining and challenging. Yes indeed. I remember sitting and playing PONG for a couple of hours. WTF? I could no more do that now than I could grow wings and fly....oh wait....I CAN grow wings and fly now....in a game. Nevermind.
The lack of changes just made everything feel as old as our first MMO, i gave up hope on ever finding anything as entertaining as runescape classic, i know it sucked but my memories of it are pure awesome.
WoW classic gave me that feeling once more when i entered Stormwind for the first time, but It's just as lame as all the other MMO's out there now.
I will be sitting on this chair waiting until virtual reality is released, until then, everything will all look the same to me.
You know....I do have fond memories of UO, I really do. I have some bad ones too though. And I was actually a bit RELIEVED by the addition of Trammel (so sue me).
But I am also open-minded and love games....almost all games....enough to say this:
I love watching the genre. I love trying everything that is released. I have spent a small fortune on buying games I didn't even end up playing JUST because I wanted to see what the developers were going to do with the genre NEXT. I am a FAN....not of any one particular game (although I do have a few favorites)....but I am a FAN....of the genre ITSELF.
So bring on the new stuff. It doesn't intimidate me. I will try it ALL. Some of it...I will LIKE. Some of it....I will pay monthly fees to KEEP playing. I won't like every single game. I won't always like the most "popular" one, but....I will play them IF they are fun to me, and a good many of the newer games (including WoW) have given me hours and hours and even years....of fun.
I think we have to just decide if we are GAMERS....or OLD gamers. I....am a GAMER. My age doesn't have jack crap to do with the fact that games are fascinating and fun to me. My taste in them has changed in some areas over the years, and in some...it hasn't. But like I said....I will try all of them that I am able to try and I find each one fascinating in SOME way, even if I decide not to commit to another monthly bill. There are usually 2-4 of them, however, that will take a bite out of my monthly budget, so I say, "BRING IT, MMO DEVS!"
I would have to disagree. First of all, dirtyjoe pointed out what was fundamentally wrong with some UO mechanics. Secondly, I would love to point out Fallen Earth has some of those features and much improved. Including a community which is livelier and better then UOs was. So that's a +1 for modern games.
At everyone saying I "do not understand" well.. i started playing MMORPGs when Anarchy Online came out and have been on and off the genre since. It's the offtimes that allowed me to look at it from a perspective, as did coming back to AO in the last 2 years (and quitting around lvl 70ish).
@Cephus Not playing MMOs is not a solution. It might stop games from being worse, but it will certainly not help any small game get any better. Most probably such an approach will just stop them from being at all. There are many niche MMOs currently which do single small things right. Together they greatly contribute to the genre and form a complete picture. You never know if you are not going to like a certain game unless you try to get into it. Adopting and listening to communities is great, but sometimes has to be taken with a pinch of salt because of Internets anonymity effect. Where would EVE be now, if everyone left it?
SF
I just hit "quote" to say THIS:
THIS forum sig....kicks ass ----
"Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist."
I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or convert to Catholicism so I could go repent to a priest. And I don't even PLAY Farmville.
BRILLIANT forum sig....brilliant. The truth....is a painful thing to really consider.
The basic problem is not veteran players ( the elderly lady) vs. new players (youngsters) or "good old times" vs "the new age" or "the old coomunity" vs "the new community".
MMORPGs / MMOGs have one big problem. The companies desperately need some income to keep the game running and to be able to improve / extend the game. That's just a natural goal of every company. But some companies just try to please everyone, which brings problems of its own. You just can't please everyone. In addition group dynamics (I don't mean grouping) have another crucial effect on the game and a game's community.
Right now I have just two options:
play what is available
make my own game and experiment with concepts I'd like to test
EQ1 had an offline tutorial, was like a short single player game.
Back to the topic I agree that nostalgia makes things look better than what they were but this doesn't hide the fact that post WoW success, most companies (I give credit to indie ones trying different ways, too bad indie companies use to have indie budgets), are more interested selling boxes at launch day (And if you check the number of boxes sold in games like WAR and AoC, for example, you will see the numbers are no joke) using well known IPs and the "From the producers of..." or "From the creators of..." to fish more people to buy boxes than releasing good games.
The model has changed, part of the difference is the number of potential customers ten years ago versus post WoW days. We have moved from niche genre to mainstream genre, and bad copycats (of the one that makes more $) using shiny IPs and heaven-promising PR videos to sell boxes, is the price we pay.
I agree with the OP. That is how nostalgia works. You compare an idealised version of the past with a critically-viewed present. It makes me laugh how gamers have so quickly become victims of this. A very recent artform and already the rose-tinted-spectacles brigade are out in numbers.
I half agree. People who have their nostalgia goggles on too tight annoy the piss out of me. While most MMO's nowadays do blow massive dick, a lot of the ones I played ages ago only blew slightly less dick.
I know I suffer from comparing every mmorpg I try to my first mmo love - Anarchy Online. Could it be the fact that I still play AO? probably.
I know there are probably new, maybe even similar games, out there that are so much better, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop comparing them. Every so often, I'll try a new game, but I think the longest I've been able to play something else without going back to AO is just a few months.
I personally don't see anything wrong with holding onto that first mmo you adored, even if when looking back you realize it wasn't as grand as you remembered. It's the memories with friends you made, the ones that helped you, that you helped, the first time raiding, etc that makes it okay. Maybe some day I'll get over it, but it may take funcom giving AO the axe for me to do just that.
I agree with the OP. That is how nostalgia works. You compare an idealised version of the past with a critically-viewed present. It makes me laugh how gamers have so quickly become victims of this. A very recent artform and already the rose-tinted-spectacles brigade are out in numbers.
And yet, despite the dozens (if not hundreds) of MMO's released in the past 5 years, not one of them is comparable to DAOC in its heyday. (it is a hollow shell of itself these days.)
Its not nostalgia, today's games are substandard when compared to some of their predecessors, despite their improvements and ease of use.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Not playing MMOs is not a solution. It might stop games from being worse, but it will certainly not help any small game get any better. Most probably such an approach will just stop them from being at all. There are many niche MMOs currently which do single small things right. Together they greatly contribute to the genre and form a complete picture. You never know if you are not going to like a certain game unless you try to get into it. Adopting and listening to communities is great, but sometimes has to be taken with a pinch of salt because of Internets anonymity effect. Where would EVE be now, if everyone left it?
I didn't say don't play any MMOs, I said don't play bad MMOs. Support quality where you find it, don't give money to people who haven't earned it from you. If everyone did that, then only the good MMOs would survive and the bad ones, the ones everyone complains about, would rightfully go away.
The problem is, you've got far too many people who are addicted to MMOs in general. The idea that they should stop playing entirely until something good comes along is beyond their ability to comprehend. Their need for immediate gratification is more important than actually having some standards and demanding quality over bad entertainment right this second. Those people, I have no sympathy for, they do it to themselves and deserve what they get.
The basic problem is not veteran players ( the elderly lady) vs. new players (youngsters) or "good old times" vs "the new age" or "the old coomunity" vs "the new community". MMORPGs / MMOGs have one big problem. The companies desperately need some income to keep the game running and to be able to improve / extend the game. That's just a natural goal of every company. But some companies just try to please everyone, which brings problems of its own. You just can't please everyone. In addition group dynamics (I don't mean grouping) have another crucial effect on the game and a game's community. Right now I have just two options:
play what is available make my own game and experiment with concepts I'd like to test
Or: 3. Find a new hobby until something in the MMO marketplace that's actually worth supporting comes along.
Sometimes it just boils down to not finding newer games that have what you want. I like games were it is fun to group up from the get go for PVE but the last game I can think of that offered that was City of Heroes and that was released over five years ago. All of the games since then usually punish you for grouping by taking away any challenge you would have in doing your quest. Granted all newer MMOs have grouping quest/raids but they are just a small fraction of the whole game.
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
In what way are they better than AO? Graphics? Beyond that, most games are actually worse than AO. Which kind of brings up a point that some of the old timers might say about MMORPGs (much like some old timers might say about life in general). It has become more about flash than function. That might work for short bouts in a console game, but it leads to the tedium and ennui experienced by so many that play MMORPGs.
Started with UO, added EQ, added AC. Went with AO, SB, SWG, EB, CoX, EO, FWO, AA, RFO, DDO, WoW, LoTRO, FE, TR, and several other games here and there over the years.
Since Jan of this year, I have played EVE, DDO, AO, FE, LoTRO, and CoX. I just resubbed for a month to CoX, just to pass the time since I cannot afford the waste of money that is inherent with single player games. I normally cannot play CoX for more than a month or two without getting bored, but it has been that way since I did the beta.
So my "Back in my day..." would have to be, back when there was less processing power from computers for graphics, developers were more interested in what was going on with the game than how pretty it looked. Yep, many of the current games fit the cliche of the stereotypical blonde - great to look at, play around with for a bit, but not really the kind of girl that you want to make that long term investment in...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Now we can only blame ourselves for this because everyone FLOCKED to EQ when it came out. Thus began the games where the Developers say "Here is our world, jump on these rails and have fun on the ride"
I've seen quite a few people make references to EQ as a themepark for a while now. Obviously EQ isn't a 'sandbox' by definition, but it damn sure wasn't a themepark either.
Sure, there was a definite path of content for the min/max crowd. I can still remember those paths now, and I started playing EQ before Velious was released.
But in general, you had a nice big world (albeit separated by zones) that you could explore in any way you chose to. It certainly wasn't like Aion, for example, where you don't really have a choice for much of the game. You have to follow the content and questlines.. personally I can't stand that type of restricted play.
But back to my point, EQ wasn't the themepark that people seem to be calling it these days. I'm not sure where that came from, but if you truly played it 'back in the day', you should know better.
To the OP, yes I am a 'mmo vet'. I didn't start playing EQ until mid-2000, but these days that's pretty much vet. While EQ will always have a special feeling for me (the way it was, not the way it is now), I understand the evolution of gaming.
Back in those days, we didn't have a whole lot of options. Most of us, I think, didn't really care. We loved what we had. EQ Was quite functional and was not clunky like some others from that era.
I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but WoW truly did skew the evolution of MMO games forever. I'm not going to bash - I'm not going to say it got worse (though it did!), but I don't think anyone can claim that WoW didn't change the face of online gaming forever. This isn't so say that anyone is trying to say that, I'm just looking for some common ground here.
In my opinion, we have too many options these days. Now, if a MMO isn't PERFECT (in our own eyes), then we move on. While there's nothing wrong with that, it creates burnout and general disgust of the state of things.
This is all just my opinion of course. I don't see why we have to either be 'veteran' or 'new' players anyway. We're all gamers searching for the holy grail of MMOs. *shrug* And all of our opinions will tend to differ. Doesn't make anyone wrong.. well, at least, not most people. =P
You people are just getting old. Get used to it, it won't get any better with time. Yes, i am talking to most of the forum reads. We all have a soft spot for our first MMO, as it was pointed out in the recent article but sometimes too far is too far.
The growth of such a group in the gaming population is actually quite an interesting phenomenon. It creates some nice stratification, which IMHO is pretty entertaining to watch since till now gamers were regarded as hardcore or casual. Now we have the elderly ladie... i mean "veterans" too.
The problem is, just like your grandparents, you are not comparing the past (MMOs) with the present. We are comparing what we though the past MMOs were and what we remember of them. An idealised image. And let me tell you two things.. past MMOs, even the western ones were complex because they were not functional, and even if you did not notice it, they had grind as bad as the current "Korean".
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Very bad game. You get Pk-ed everywhere. Mining means click click click on a ROCK for hours (that is just BAD design). All the mining caves are full of people (where is the adventure)?
Do virtually anything i want does not makes a good game if most things that can be done are BORING. Why would I want to DYE clothes in my fantasy game? I want to go fight dragons and have adventures. There is a reason why EQ is 5x more popular than UO once it came out. Despite all its faults, it is a BETTER game. You interact with the game LESS (the game focuses on hack-n-slash & progression other than all these worthless freedoms) but it is more fun because the combat mechanics are better done.
The reason more people played EQ was because it was a much simpler game, and you didn't get killed by other people. Same reason people think WoW is addictive. Difference is, EQ was innovative, deep, and social when it came out. WoW was just a simplified knock off, so it doesn't get a free pass for using the same game model as EQ.
Lots of people care about owning a house, dying their armor and clothes, going treasure hunting, crafting, making their own mark on the world, and truly customizing their character. Does not make it a bad game to have options, simply makes the game more diverse, doesn't take away from anything at all to have the options there.
Oh, and in the 12 years since UO came out, people still haven't found a way to make gathering interesting, and I doubt you could if you tried. In fact, its even worse now, because at least in UO, there was the danger of being attacked.
That two element themselves were responsible for a huge improvement in gameplay. WOW further improves on it by getting rid of down-time, add in quest leveling, and make the whole experiences much more fun.
And when you say "lots" .. you must be a few, but not enough to move the market because few cares about housing or dying clothes in WOW .. and it has 11M players. Options themselves are not bad. But boring options that few wants .. take resources from developers who should focus on the CORE .. meaning combat & dungeons.
And if no one can make gathering interesting, get rid of it .. or make it less a prominent part of the game. No one wants uninteresting mechanics in a game.
Man I wish some of you would wake up from your dream state of suckling the WoW teet long enough to realize that it HAD 11 million players at one point, but I am willing to bet it doesn't now...unless you count gold farmers.
Being able to dye armor in EQ allowed players to be more unique because you had a huge array of colors you could choose from, unlike WoW where most players look alike. I wouldn't call it a useless mechanic. The only reason I can see that most WoW players don't care about housing or being able to dye armor (As put by the poster above me) is because most of those players are in too big of a rush to get to end cap to care, and it doesn't make them anymore 1337 in order to show off to everyone. Much like RL, the gaming community anymore seems to be caught up in the rat race....hurry hurry hurry. Sad really, because that isn't what MMORPG's were meant to be originally. But now they are becoming console games...hence why I don't play any for now and pray that someone eventually brings back exploration in an open world, meaningful quests (Imaginative story lines), not senseless tasks, etc, etc.
Everything back in the day seems better because people intentionally only remember the good things while completely blocking all the bad things from their memory.
I remember the bad things. I remember the very bad things. I eventually quit because the "old school" mmos I played because it became those bad things.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Comments
The arrogance is abundant in this one. It must be great to be sooooo much smarter than the rest of us. Imagine how great you would be if you could spell correctly.
I do not play WoW, but I highly doubt that you did everything in 3 days after reaching level cap.
--John Ruskin
No, seriously, most newer games really do blow compared to the complex games of yore..... really they do.
Its isn't us, its them and the casual players who enjoy them (well, for at least a month or two)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm sorry but nowhere in my post I mention UO. If I have to clarify, i'm talking about games like FFXI or DAoC.
Good try though. I know some ppl have that game in mind when talking about the old school days, but I personnaly don't like FFA PvP game.(what most ppl remember it for... I enjoyed the sandbox part though) They are a den of festering egos full of hardcore wannabe looking for an easy kill to boost there self-esteem.
The best game that could be made imho would be FFXI (you can tweak it a little, its not perfect) with sandbox elements added to it.
The market is in need of a PvE sandbox!!! That would be the game for me.
edit: No, not every FFA PvP player is a low self-esteem basement dweller.
The arrogance is abundant in this one. It must be great to be sooooo much smarter than the rest of us. Imagine how great you would be if you could spell correctly.
I do not play WoW but I highly doubt that did everything in 3 days after reaching level cap.
He didn't; from the sound of it he got carried trough some easy content after dinging 80 and then quit after his piggyback ride ended with the pretense of having "finished the game" believing this to qualify as "success".
The problem as i see it , is that we have evolved in terms of gaming way to fast , and that had a very big impact on our imagination .
I mean i am being realistic here , nothing is exciting anymore .... for example , mass effect 2 , dragon age , bioshock 2 had and i am being honest here , 0 impact on me , i got bored of them in about 2-4h of gameplay....
In terms of mmo's , other then eve online which still has a somewhat felling to it when i play it (and this is prob because i got 3years of playing it) , there is not 1 other mmo out there that can somewhat give me a small dose of a adrenaline rush or some sort of enjoyment when i play it , it just fells that i been there done that and there is nothing new to it (and yes i did try them all)... pretty sad.
Believe it or not , i actually have more fun turning on my emulator and plugging in Zelda a link to the past and just finish it over and over again then actually playing any of these new cutting edge graphic games.
Like someone already said , we are just w8'ting for the next step to virtual reality and i am pretty sure it's not that far away , we got coming this year , real motion controlers whit AI that's pretty much the same as your next door neighbor www.youtube.com/watch , 3D TV's (i think they are out already) and hell knows what else...
Let's face it , we are addicted to evolving as fast as possible and that's a solid fact.
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Very bad game. You get Pk-ed everywhere. Mining means click click click on a ROCK for hours (that is just BAD design). All the mining caves are full of people (where is the adventure)?
Do virtually anything i want does not makes a good game if most things that can be done are BORING. Why would I want to DYE clothes in my fantasy game? I want to go fight dragons and have adventures. There is a reason why EQ is 5x more popular than UO once it came out. Despite all its faults, it is a BETTER game. You interact with the game LESS (the game focuses on hack-n-slash & progression other than all these worthless freedoms) but it is more fun because the combat mechanics are better done.
The reason more people played EQ was because it was a much simpler game, and you didn't get killed by other people. Same reason people think WoW is addictive. Difference is, EQ was innovative, deep, and social when it came out. WoW was just a simplified knock off, so it doesn't get a free pass for using the same game model as EQ.
Lots of people care about owning a house, dying their armor and clothes, going treasure hunting, crafting, making their own mark on the world, and truly customizing their character. Does not make it a bad game to have options, simply makes the game more diverse, doesn't take away from anything at all to have the options there.
Oh, and in the 12 years since UO came out, people still haven't found a way to make gathering interesting, and I doubt you could if you tried. In fact, its even worse now, because at least in UO, there was the danger of being attacked.
I half agree. People who have their nostalgia goggles on too tight annoy the piss out of me. While most MMO's nowadays do blow massive dick, a lot of the ones I played ages ago only blew slightly less dick.
You know....I do have fond memories of UO, I really do. I have some bad ones too though. And I was actually a bit RELIEVED by the addition of Trammel (so sue me).
But I am also open-minded and love games....almost all games....enough to say this:
I love watching the genre. I love trying everything that is released. I have spent a small fortune on buying games I didn't even end up playing JUST because I wanted to see what the developers were going to do with the genre NEXT. I am a FAN....not of any one particular game (although I do have a few favorites)....but I am a FAN....of the genre ITSELF.
So bring on the new stuff. It doesn't intimidate me. I will try it ALL. Some of it...I will LIKE. Some of it....I will pay monthly fees to KEEP playing. I won't like every single game. I won't always like the most "popular" one, but....I will play them IF they are fun to me, and a good many of the newer games (including WoW) have given me hours and hours and even years....of fun.
I think we have to just decide if we are GAMERS....or OLD gamers. I....am a GAMER. My age doesn't have jack crap to do with the fact that games are fascinating and fun to me. My taste in them has changed in some areas over the years, and in some...it hasn't. But like I said....I will try all of them that I am able to try and I find each one fascinating in SOME way, even if I decide not to commit to another monthly bill. There are usually 2-4 of them, however, that will take a bite out of my monthly budget, so I say, "BRING IT, MMO DEVS!"
=D
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I just hit "quote" to say THIS:
THIS forum sig....kicks ass ----
"Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist."
I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or convert to Catholicism so I could go repent to a priest. And I don't even PLAY Farmville.
BRILLIANT forum sig....brilliant. The truth....is a painful thing to really consider.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
The basic problem is not veteran players ( the elderly lady) vs. new players (youngsters) or "good old times" vs "the new age" or "the old coomunity" vs "the new community".
MMORPGs / MMOGs have one big problem. The companies desperately need some income to keep the game running and to be able to improve / extend the game. That's just a natural goal of every company. But some companies just try to please everyone, which brings problems of its own. You just can't please everyone. In addition group dynamics (I don't mean grouping) have another crucial effect on the game and a game's community.
Right now I have just two options:
EQ1 had an offline tutorial, was like a short single player game.
Back to the topic I agree that nostalgia makes things look better than what they were but this doesn't hide the fact that post WoW success, most companies (I give credit to indie ones trying different ways, too bad indie companies use to have indie budgets), are more interested selling boxes at launch day (And if you check the number of boxes sold in games like WAR and AoC, for example, you will see the numbers are no joke) using well known IPs and the "From the producers of..." or "From the creators of..." to fish more people to buy boxes than releasing good games.
The model has changed, part of the difference is the number of potential customers ten years ago versus post WoW days. We have moved from niche genre to mainstream genre, and bad copycats (of the one that makes more $) using shiny IPs and heaven-promising PR videos to sell boxes, is the price we pay.
Back in my day you would be flamed off the forums.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
I agree with the OP. That is how nostalgia works. You compare an idealised version of the past with a critically-viewed present. It makes me laugh how gamers have so quickly become victims of this. A very recent artform and already the rose-tinted-spectacles brigade are out in numbers.
Chimpo ski desuka? w
I know I suffer from comparing every mmorpg I try to my first mmo love - Anarchy Online. Could it be the fact that I still play AO? probably.
I know there are probably new, maybe even similar games, out there that are so much better, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop comparing them. Every so often, I'll try a new game, but I think the longest I've been able to play something else without going back to AO is just a few months.
I personally don't see anything wrong with holding onto that first mmo you adored, even if when looking back you realize it wasn't as grand as you remembered. It's the memories with friends you made, the ones that helped you, that you helped, the first time raiding, etc that makes it okay. Maybe some day I'll get over it, but it may take funcom giving AO the axe for me to do just that.
And yet, despite the dozens (if not hundreds) of MMO's released in the past 5 years, not one of them is comparable to DAOC in its heyday. (it is a hollow shell of itself these days.)
Its not nostalgia, today's games are substandard when compared to some of their predecessors, despite their improvements and ease of use.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I didn't say don't play any MMOs, I said don't play bad MMOs. Support quality where you find it, don't give money to people who haven't earned it from you. If everyone did that, then only the good MMOs would survive and the bad ones, the ones everyone complains about, would rightfully go away.
The problem is, you've got far too many people who are addicted to MMOs in general. The idea that they should stop playing entirely until something good comes along is beyond their ability to comprehend. Their need for immediate gratification is more important than actually having some standards and demanding quality over bad entertainment right this second. Those people, I have no sympathy for, they do it to themselves and deserve what they get.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Or: 3. Find a new hobby until something in the MMO marketplace that's actually worth supporting comes along.
Funny how nobody remembers that option.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Sometimes it just boils down to not finding newer games that have what you want. I like games were it is fun to group up from the get go for PVE but the last game I can think of that offered that was City of Heroes and that was released over five years ago. All of the games since then usually punish you for grouping by taking away any challenge you would have in doing your quest. Granted all newer MMOs have grouping quest/raids but they are just a small fraction of the whole game.
In what way are they better than AO? Graphics? Beyond that, most games are actually worse than AO. Which kind of brings up a point that some of the old timers might say about MMORPGs (much like some old timers might say about life in general). It has become more about flash than function. That might work for short bouts in a console game, but it leads to the tedium and ennui experienced by so many that play MMORPGs.
Started with UO, added EQ, added AC. Went with AO, SB, SWG, EB, CoX, EO, FWO, AA, RFO, DDO, WoW, LoTRO, FE, TR, and several other games here and there over the years.
Since Jan of this year, I have played EVE, DDO, AO, FE, LoTRO, and CoX. I just resubbed for a month to CoX, just to pass the time since I cannot afford the waste of money that is inherent with single player games. I normally cannot play CoX for more than a month or two without getting bored, but it has been that way since I did the beta.
So my "Back in my day..." would have to be, back when there was less processing power from computers for graphics, developers were more interested in what was going on with the game than how pretty it looked. Yep, many of the current games fit the cliche of the stereotypical blonde - great to look at, play around with for a bit, but not really the kind of girl that you want to make that long term investment in...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I've seen quite a few people make references to EQ as a themepark for a while now. Obviously EQ isn't a 'sandbox' by definition, but it damn sure wasn't a themepark either.
Sure, there was a definite path of content for the min/max crowd. I can still remember those paths now, and I started playing EQ before Velious was released.
But in general, you had a nice big world (albeit separated by zones) that you could explore in any way you chose to. It certainly wasn't like Aion, for example, where you don't really have a choice for much of the game. You have to follow the content and questlines.. personally I can't stand that type of restricted play.
But back to my point, EQ wasn't the themepark that people seem to be calling it these days. I'm not sure where that came from, but if you truly played it 'back in the day', you should know better.
To the OP, yes I am a 'mmo vet'. I didn't start playing EQ until mid-2000, but these days that's pretty much vet. While EQ will always have a special feeling for me (the way it was, not the way it is now), I understand the evolution of gaming.
Back in those days, we didn't have a whole lot of options. Most of us, I think, didn't really care. We loved what we had. EQ Was quite functional and was not clunky like some others from that era.
I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but WoW truly did skew the evolution of MMO games forever. I'm not going to bash - I'm not going to say it got worse (though it did!), but I don't think anyone can claim that WoW didn't change the face of online gaming forever. This isn't so say that anyone is trying to say that, I'm just looking for some common ground here.
In my opinion, we have too many options these days. Now, if a MMO isn't PERFECT (in our own eyes), then we move on. While there's nothing wrong with that, it creates burnout and general disgust of the state of things.
This is all just my opinion of course. I don't see why we have to either be 'veteran' or 'new' players anyway. We're all gamers searching for the holy grail of MMOs. *shrug* And all of our opinions will tend to differ. Doesn't make anyone wrong.. well, at least, not most people. =P
Acidon
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Very bad game. You get Pk-ed everywhere. Mining means click click click on a ROCK for hours (that is just BAD design). All the mining caves are full of people (where is the adventure)?
Do virtually anything i want does not makes a good game if most things that can be done are BORING. Why would I want to DYE clothes in my fantasy game? I want to go fight dragons and have adventures. There is a reason why EQ is 5x more popular than UO once it came out. Despite all its faults, it is a BETTER game. You interact with the game LESS (the game focuses on hack-n-slash & progression other than all these worthless freedoms) but it is more fun because the combat mechanics are better done.
The reason more people played EQ was because it was a much simpler game, and you didn't get killed by other people. Same reason people think WoW is addictive. Difference is, EQ was innovative, deep, and social when it came out. WoW was just a simplified knock off, so it doesn't get a free pass for using the same game model as EQ.
Lots of people care about owning a house, dying their armor and clothes, going treasure hunting, crafting, making their own mark on the world, and truly customizing their character. Does not make it a bad game to have options, simply makes the game more diverse, doesn't take away from anything at all to have the options there.
Oh, and in the 12 years since UO came out, people still haven't found a way to make gathering interesting, and I doubt you could if you tried. In fact, its even worse now, because at least in UO, there was the danger of being attacked.
That two element themselves were responsible for a huge improvement in gameplay. WOW further improves on it by getting rid of down-time, add in quest leveling, and make the whole experiences much more fun.
And when you say "lots" .. you must be a few, but not enough to move the market because few cares about housing or dying clothes in WOW .. and it has 11M players. Options themselves are not bad. But boring options that few wants .. take resources from developers who should focus on the CORE .. meaning combat & dungeons.
And if no one can make gathering interesting, get rid of it .. or make it less a prominent part of the game. No one wants uninteresting mechanics in a game.
Man I wish some of you would wake up from your dream state of suckling the WoW teet long enough to realize that it HAD 11 million players at one point, but I am willing to bet it doesn't now...unless you count gold farmers.
Being able to dye armor in EQ allowed players to be more unique because you had a huge array of colors you could choose from, unlike WoW where most players look alike. I wouldn't call it a useless mechanic. The only reason I can see that most WoW players don't care about housing or being able to dye armor (As put by the poster above me) is because most of those players are in too big of a rush to get to end cap to care, and it doesn't make them anymore 1337 in order to show off to everyone. Much like RL, the gaming community anymore seems to be caught up in the rat race....hurry hurry hurry. Sad really, because that isn't what MMORPG's were meant to be originally. But now they are becoming console games...hence why I don't play any for now and pray that someone eventually brings back exploration in an open world, meaningful quests (Imaginative story lines), not senseless tasks, etc, etc.
Pre-CU SWG was the best game ever. I don't care what you say. The community, gameplay, player economy, grouping, etc. were amazing.
I remember the bad things. I remember the very bad things. I eventually quit because the "old school" mmos I played because it became those bad things.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.