In my opinion anything that came out after WoW is new anything before is old. Lord of the Rings hardly counts as an old MMO.
it is more theme park than WoW.
The thing I don't understand about the new vs old debate is why the social aspect of the game seemed so much better in old games. Even today UO still has a better social climate. Just doesn't make since to me.
Two things. Older games were more complex, immersive, and harder, which attracted older, more mature RPG players. Also, playing MMOs was very much a geeky thing to do back then, fewer players, all sharing very common interests.
Nowadays, MMOs are insanely accesible, easy, simple, linear, so it attracts just about everyone. There's almost MORE people playing now, this means there are more jerks and immature people/people with short attention spans.
I was sort of interested in these articles at first, but before long it devolved into the same 'not as exciting' babble over and over. The problem is excitement for one person is not excitement for another. I was around in the days of Ultima and Everquest and, dare I say it, Pen and Paper DnD. I in NO way miss permanent deaths, corpse running, or aimless killing with no actual goal. Clearly that is a definition of fun that is in direct opposition to someone who liked that experience.
I guess I was hoping for a meatier article. WHY did people consider that stuff fun, not just that it supposedly was. I'm genuinely curious. I don't understand how that tedium is fun. Could if make you feel accomplished? Absolutely. Shouldnt accomplishment in a video game mean anything? No. Which is why to me, it doesn't justify the intense amount of hours that went into that kind fo experience.
I guess it's true, the game market is geared toward people with that more casual mindset. The truth of the matter is, while there are more gamers now than there used to be, they're also older and have more than just 'dungeon crawling' on their to-do list.
Still, I wouldn't mind a genuinely hardcore, older style MMO for those who are into that kind of the thing; everyone should have the immersive experience they seek. Many MMOs have tried, but none of them had the community to support it. I suppose therein lies the problem.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
You sorta answered your own question.. When you call old mmo's as "video games", is that not a freudian slip on how you view things.. As I had already stated earlier, the old mmos were more RPG, then the current console (aka video) game player.. People such as myself that came from the original roll the dice rpgs like AD&D wanted to interact in a social world.. Todays games are more like video game lobbies then anything.. Which is a completely seperate creature..
I do disagree with the ending statement by you that there isnt' a community to support it.. There is a community to support "old" world mmos.. problem is, which you should of went with is that the devs ignored that community and looked at dollar signs instead.. Example.. I believe there is a community of true mmo players (300,000 strong in north america), that can give a company a nice bottom line.. However, devs are looking for the golden goose instead, wanting to get into that WoW type of market of millions..
For many MMO players they are just the next RPG. We don't get many new RPG's each year and if you want your yearly fix this is where you go. So there is a tendancy for 'multiplayer' only meaning that the cape you just saw flash by you was on a player not a game charecter.
alright.. well if RPG's are turning more into crap, hopefully War40k wont be the same, but if they are... im Turning my attention back to old school shards of Ultima or Ragnarok, hell if need be ILL HOST MY OWN DAMN SHARD AND PLAY LIKE OLD TIMES!
I miss those days, and i will recreate those old days if i have to... to have some fun and remember the good old days when PEOPLE HELPED PEOPLE!!!!
The only thing I miss from old MMOs is community. Damn we had a sense of community, random people would actually help you in a dungeon and groups were polite. Quite a change from now
I never cared much for Everquest back in the day, it was way to anal and i thought it was more for people with OCD.
I liked Asheron's Call a lot more, it was very solo friendly and it came out a little after Everquest. It didn't get as much fan faire because Microsoft didn't advertise it as much because all the expansion material was always givin to it's community for FREE. And eventually Turbine bought the game's license back and made a couple expansion and tried to bring the dieing game back. But to only little avail. But what was amazing about Asheron's Call is it was the first big sandbox game that didn't require to much to play. you didn't need to be drilled in some military way like you needed to be in EQ. There was no need because it doesn't contain raids. It's woodstock for the MMO community... Do what you want how you want to do it. There are no classes that keep you locked into a "role". Each character could play multiple roles if they so deem necessary. Although min/max players would digress.
The way newer games have gone are just a mix of all the things that were fun in older MMOs. It may have become a little more "kid friendly" with much less penalties for death. But to me that is really all that has changed. Communities are there, they are just more distinct and varied. Thus it takes longer to find that niche you once knew. Plus people are more spread out with the shear amount of MMOs to play now.
But in time it will all become full circle... because if you've ever played Guild Wars you would see much of the old ways still around. But with new elements of instancing. And i'm sure Guild Wars 2 will have more of a community feel to it.
The game community as a whole MMO and even Solo / multiplayer games tend to do like movies. When the latest "big thing" comes out, you have lots of "whana be's" that jump on the band wagon. And there are the select few that drive the genre forward. Such as companies like Blizzard, Bioware, and I'm sure Bethesda is not to far behind on an MMO title. Just give it time... SOE has been around awhile but they are more of "band wagon" crowd now. Rather than leaders of genre like they were when they made EQ. But the same could be said about Turbine as well with LoTR online and D&D online. They were the indie guys that got the ball rolling... but apparently not enough "gonads" to carry it forward.
But i'm sure there will eventually be some decent indie titles to pop up that will make it into some niche market that favors the older mmo crowd. it all just takes time, money and patience on the community that wants to see it happen. But there really never was a huge community for that sort of playstyle. it was because we didn't have much of a choice, and we delt with the trials and tribulations. plus those older games didn't really cater to the casual player as well as some newer games. Asheron's call was the only exception, which catered to all play styles. Thus made it hard for some people to get into. Because it didn't have an easy interface to help find people with similar play styles. you had to do it the old fashioned way by socializing. Lets face it, those older players now have families and children and just don't have the time to put into long drawn out stuff like corpse runs and raids. Also having to grind hours on end... That really is not a lot of fun.
But i do think that newer games could make better community sub-apps within their games to help people find other "like minded" people. So that it would facilitate better social atmospheres. Good filtering options for chat channels and the ability to create your own chat channels should be a standard. That way people can tailor their experience...
i'm going to be ageist here. you were 8 years old in 1999? you're too young to write this article. when you were playing everquest, your brain wasn't even capable of critical thinking yet, and it just barely obtained the ability to imagine the role of another person in order to play team sports effectively. i'm about 4 years older than you. i remember reading the ultima online pdf manual and imagining how cool it would be to play, and buying asheron's call and having to return it because my parents thought the idea of subscribing to a game was crazy. my first mmo was ffxi and i loved it, yet i wouldn't trust myself to write this article.
i clicked the title hoping to get the opinions of an older gamer, someone who was actually conscious in 1999, or preferably 1995. oh well. you should have picked a different topic and left this old vs. new thing to someone who actually experienced it as an adult, or at least an adolescent. shit.
"I wouldn’t expect any other genre developer to make their game easier and less in-depth all in the sake of including everyone."
Errr... have you been following anything other than MMO games in the last several years?
This is something I want to point out from the start - This "trend" happens with just about everything. I'll get back to this in a moment.
Now, would you be so kind as to name things more accurately? "Battle of old and new..." isn't the same as "A contest on scoring points given by one man in one split article on one site..."
Closer to the point, these differences have one common explanation - gameplay element for one is frustration for another. Every man has his own preferences, this particular article shows those of it's author. And while mine mostly coincide with them, I's still like to point out that those are merely personal preferences.
Anyone noticed how old game companies die-out? That's a display of one funny (and really irritating) trend - there are generally more "frustration" entries then "gameplay element" entries across the customer base. As such simplifying a part of a game leads to better business opportunities, and this world is bound by money.
On every damn point there's more of those who would like to see it simple rather then complicated.
Death penalties, open pvp, instanced dungeons, newbie zones, crafting... you name it. For every aspect there are people who'd want to see it their way. From where the busyness is headed I'd conclude that there's not enough customers to sell the old way anymore. A pity, but we (the players) are the ones responsible. Just go one by one over those questionable elements of an mmo and ask yourself how you'd want to see them. The ones you want to see simple and accessible are your contribution to simplification. The ones you don't are the work of the next guy.
You don't want your games to be simple - don't buy simple games. Maybe that'll lead somewhere. Discussing the good old times only ever leads to peaks of nostalgia and creates an impression of old farts among newer gamers.
... WHY did people consider that stuff fun, not just that it supposedly was. I'm genuinely curious. I don't understand how that tedium is fun...
The "why" would take approximately an article per point to adequately explain. Aside from several factors commonly seen in "hardcore" games that integrate well together and make specific gameplay parts fun (an example later), I'd say it's challenge, not an accomplishment.
When stuff is easy it's not fun it's time killing. You may make it long, you may force a player to retry x times before he succeeds, but if this only means x short walks from respawn point and maybe a symbolic monetary sacrifice, then it's merely a tedious work.
Hard is when you have to put in a lot off effort. (don't mix time and effort please) "The old way" really has a grasp on have from that statement.
Aside from that, many old elements work well together and create a specific gameplay.
The example I named is about sieges:
Old elements - complicated travel, harsh death penalty.
New elements - easy travel, non-existent death penalty.
Old system made it a war of soldiers. Losses were important on both sides. Tactic was an important element.
New system made it a war of meat. The numbers are about the only thing that matters. Anything that dies is back on the field in 3-5 minutes. The only thing important is which side gets bored of respawning faster.
Some say it's not fun to virtually have "one life" during a massive event. I'd say it's not fun when something that's killed is back within minutes. Makes it unimportant how your opposition fights, only how hard it presses forward.
Another stuff is solo content. When it's easy to solo who the heck needs tight-knit group or dungeon? When just about anyone can solo himself to max level what kind of activities can you expect at high level? I dunno about others but when I played WHO:AoR I was tired of people who's first multi-player interaction in a game happened on T4 sieges. I suppose I don't have to name my grudges for people to understand what can go wrong when a person your gameplay intertwines with doesn't have even the most basic knowledge.
Harsh solo plays a vital part in player's "education". Beats me why someone would decide to play solo in an MMO game when there are single player games which are geared towards it. Yet here we are...
Like I said, there's too much explanation to be done for one comment to have it all. Just pointing out - there's a big "BECAUSE" in all of this, it's just that casual audience doesn't want it in their game or even doesn't know about it (and keeps wondering why siege in [insert a name] isn't fun, or why the party cleric refuses to heal anyone), and the industry follows the money.
Keep in mind, I'm relatively (for the scope of this discussion) new to MMO. My 1st mmo contact was LA2, and the titles named in this article are history to me. Still, I do understand what they had in them (or at least i think I do) and I find the modern simplified gameplay lacking.
i'm going to be ageist here. you were 8 years old in 1999? you're too young to write this article. when you were playing everquest, your brain wasn't even capable of critical thinking yet, and it just barely obtained the ability to imagine the role of another person in order to play team sports effectively. i'm about 4 years older than you. i remember reading the ultima online pdf manual and imagining how cool it would be to play, and buying asheron's call and having to return it because my parents thought the idea of subscribing to a game was crazy. my first mmo was ffxi and i loved it, yet i wouldn't trust myself to write this article.
i clicked the title hoping to get the opinions of an older gamer, someone who was actually conscious in 1999, or preferably 1995. oh well. you should have picked a different topic and left this old vs. new thing to someone who actually experienced it as an adult, or at least an adolescent. shit.
rofl... wow... seriously. I was 23 in 1999. Its amusing that someone who really was a child in 1999 wrote this article and thinks they can judge.
... WHY did people consider that stuff fun, not just that it supposedly was. I'm genuinely curious. I don't understand how that tedium is fun...
The "why" would take approximately an article per point to adequately explain. Aside from several factors commonly seen in "hardcore" games that integrate well together and make specific gameplay parts fun (an example later), I'd say it's challenge, not an accomplishment.
When stuff is easy it's not fun it's time killing. You may make it long, you may force a player to retry x times before he succeeds, but if this only means x short walks from respawn point and maybe a symbolic monetary sacrifice, then it's merely a tedious work.
Hard is when you have to put in a lot off effort. (don't mix time and effort please) "The old way" really has a grasp on have from that statement.
Aside from that, many old elements work well together and create a specific gameplay.
The example I named is about sieges:
Old elements - complicated travel, harsh death penalty.
New elements - easy travel, non-existent death penalty.
Old system made it a war of soldiers. Losses were important on both sides. Tactic was an important element.
New system made it a war of meat. The numbers are about the only thing that matters. Anything that dies is back on the field in 3-5 minutes. The only thing important is which side gets bored of respawning faster.
Some say it's not fun to virtually have "one life" during a massive event. I'd say it's not fun when something that's killed is back within minutes. Makes it unimportant how your opposition fights, only how hard it presses forward.
Another stuff is solo content. When it's easy to solo who the heck needs tight-knit group or dungeon? When just about anyone can solo himself to max level what kind of activities can you expect at high level? I dunno about others but when I played WHO:AoR I was tired of people who's first multi-player interaction in a game happened on T4 sieges. I suppose I don't have to name my grudges for people to understand what can go wrong when a person your gameplay intertwines with doesn't have even the most basic knowledge.
Harsh solo plays a vital part in player's "education". Beats me why someone would decide to play solo in an MMO game when there are single player games which are geared towards it. Yet here we are...
Like I said, there's too much explanation to be done for one comment to have it all. Just pointing out - there's a big "BECAUSE" in all of this, it's just that casual audience doesn't want it in their game or even doesn't know about it (and keeps wondering why siege in [insert a name] isn't fun, or why the party cleric refuses to heal anyone), and the industry follows the money.
Keep in mind, I'm relatively (for the scope of this discussion) new to MMO. My 1st mmo contact was LA2, and the titles named in this article are history to me. Still, I do understand what they had in them (or at least i think I do) and I find the modern simplified gameplay lacking.
Not again... knock off the "solo player bashing" huh? We're all sick of hearing it. If you like to group, then group, but stop bashing the soloers all the bloody time. And that goes for everyone in MMO's. Get over it.
i'm going to be ageist here. you were 8 years old in 1999? you're too young to write this article. when you were playing everquest, your brain wasn't even capable of critical thinking yet, and it just barely obtained the ability to imagine the role of another person in order to play team sports effectively. i'm about 4 years older than you. i remember reading the ultima online pdf manual and imagining how cool it would be to play, and buying asheron's call and having to return it because my parents thought the idea of subscribing to a game was crazy. my first mmo was ffxi and i loved it, yet i wouldn't trust myself to write this article.
i clicked the title hoping to get the opinions of an older gamer, someone who was actually conscious in 1999, or preferably 1995. oh well. you should have picked a different topic and left this old vs. new thing to someone who actually experienced it as an adult, or at least an adolescent. shit.
rofl... wow... seriously. I was 23 in 1999. Its amusing that someone who really was a child in 1999 wrote this article and thinks they can judge.
Obviously I was just more of a "switched on" child then you were. Seemingly I was blessed with the powers of retrospect and analysis and therefore able to deduce why I prefer older games. I guess that’s why people are agreeing with me; I’m just one of the special ones maybe?
i'm going to be ageist here. you were 8 years old in 1999? you're too young to write this article. when you were playing everquest, your brain wasn't even capable of critical thinking yet, and it just barely obtained the ability to imagine the role of another person in order to play team sports effectively. i'm about 4 years older than you. i remember reading the ultima online pdf manual and imagining how cool it would be to play, and buying asheron's call and having to return it because my parents thought the idea of subscribing to a game was crazy. my first mmo was ffxi and i loved it, yet i wouldn't trust myself to write this article.
i clicked the title hoping to get the opinions of an older gamer, someone who was actually conscious in 1999, or preferably 1995. oh well. you should have picked a different topic and left this old vs. new thing to someone who actually experienced it as an adult, or at least an adolescent. shit.
rofl... wow... seriously. I was 23 in 1999. Its amusing that someone who really was a child in 1999 wrote this article and thinks they can judge.
Obviously I was just more of a "switched on" child then you were. Seemingly I was blessed with the powers of retrospect and analysis and therefore able to deduce why I prefer older games. I guess that’s why people are agreeing with me; I’m just one of the special ones maybe?
What a nice, and pointless, way of insulting me. Get over yourself.
This was a fun article, excited for part three. To all the people that are saying, "Why do you think these old games are fun? They had harsh penalties and were grinds," I think you have to understand that these games pulled more from pen and paper RPG's and text based MUD's. I mean think about it, to go from all text to a graphical UI freakin' blew players minds, it didn't matter that it was a grind because mainly you were expected to be with other players so part of the fun came from killing hundreds of bears with your friend and making bear jokes. So really the emphasis was on the "RP" aspect (not so much that you had to "role play" but that it was just awesome to be that character).
Today the emphasis is on the "Game" aspect, which isn't to say that's bad. The genre of MMOs and really video games has become more refined. Unless you're with someone you know does it sound like fun camping a mob spawn for 10+ hours? No, not really. But it is fun to go into a dungeon, fight a boss and win loot regardless of who you're with. Modern MMO's are much less based on the thrill of adventure and exploration as they are with gameplay mechanics, and balance (both PVP and solo vs grouping balance).
I think both aspects of MMO's have their values and (without going into too much sticky detail) I think that once MMO's became marketable to the populous it became inevitable that they were streamlined. Is this disheartening to the older players, yeah a little (Hell I still play MUD's from time to time for that very reason), but I think that the more people making and working on MMO's will lead to bigger innovations faster (it just sucks that we'll need a hundred mediocre MMO's to fail before we get there).
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
Soloing shouldn't be that high, very few classes in EQ could actually solo and those that could weren't always obvious in how you did it. DAoC was only marginally better, though admittedly UO supported it quite well.
Otherwise I tend to agree with you.
A more appropriate comment would be that unskilled and / or impatient players where incapable of soloing in EQ.
Most classes other than rogue could manage it just fine if they really had too.
Personally, I solo'd magician, necromancer, ranger, druid, wizard, cleric, shaman, sk, beastlord, enchanter, and bard. I knew people that had no issues soloing Warrior, berserker, or paladin (I simply had no interest in playing those three classes or rogue).
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
For all of it's faults SWG was pretty much the pinnacle of crafting in my opinion. It's been all downhill since.
I do also miss the community that MMO's used to offer. They attracted a more mature audience and that is no longer the case. WoW is a big culprit there, it seems like they have done everything they can to make the server you play on or the guild you play with meaningless. As well as being incredibly easy outside of bleeding edge raiding.
Yes, word. That was agood thing in MMOs, and even now ya can find some. Like in LOTRO I joined with fellowship playing together from EQ1, BUT ... that is the same ols community, those ppl were same we ran on fields of Norrath. But newborn guilds... only to gather gear and gold, no conect between ppl, even battles inside guilds, blame and curse....
I just met again my guildleader of my 1st EQ guild in facebook, we still remember each other, we still have memories like going thru missions in Vietnam, we have battles and fun.
But as much as I heard about new "communities" - they only run for gear, fame and glory.
No help for lower lvls, no share anything, greed, greed, greed.
Need ofr guilds is only based at faster lvling or getting gear.
To Finish - cheers to all Silver Knights of Norrath, if any read this web
Soloing shouldn't be that high, very few classes in EQ could actually solo and those that could weren't always obvious in how you did it. DAoC was only marginally better, though admittedly UO supported it quite well.
Otherwise I tend to agree with you.
So true about EQ. However, in WoW you can actually solo to level 80.
Spot on for many things, but most of all community. The shift to solo-able content has dumped mob grinding with dungeon/quest grinding it was kill mobs rest find quest turn-ins, kill mobs rest find quest turn-ins. Now it's get quests instance cash in, get quests instance cash in.
There is different in the grinding just newer MMO's found a way to hide it a bit.
I miss the excitement I felt when i entered a dungeon to see what might be there, not the mobs but what groups were camping what area's and keeping an eye on chat for that TRAIN!!! call and at times it meant free xp if your group could handle the pull that was chasing whoever, not always run and hide seeing a random cleric or druid healing the fleeing party because they wanted to help out, not just greifing.
Comments
Two things. Older games were more complex, immersive, and harder, which attracted older, more mature RPG players. Also, playing MMOs was very much a geeky thing to do back then, fewer players, all sharing very common interests.
Nowadays, MMOs are insanely accesible, easy, simple, linear, so it attracts just about everyone. There's almost MORE people playing now, this means there are more jerks and immature people/people with short attention spans.
I was sort of interested in these articles at first, but before long it devolved into the same 'not as exciting' babble over and over. The problem is excitement for one person is not excitement for another. I was around in the days of Ultima and Everquest and, dare I say it, Pen and Paper DnD. I in NO way miss permanent deaths, corpse running, or aimless killing with no actual goal. Clearly that is a definition of fun that is in direct opposition to someone who liked that experience.
I guess I was hoping for a meatier article. WHY did people consider that stuff fun, not just that it supposedly was. I'm genuinely curious. I don't understand how that tedium is fun. Could if make you feel accomplished? Absolutely. Shouldnt accomplishment in a video game mean anything? No. Which is why to me, it doesn't justify the intense amount of hours that went into that kind fo experience.
I guess it's true, the game market is geared toward people with that more casual mindset. The truth of the matter is, while there are more gamers now than there used to be, they're also older and have more than just 'dungeon crawling' on their to-do list.
Still, I wouldn't mind a genuinely hardcore, older style MMO for those who are into that kind of the thing; everyone should have the immersive experience they seek. Many MMOs have tried, but none of them had the community to support it. I suppose therein lies the problem.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
gaean,,
You sorta answered your own question.. When you call old mmo's as "video games", is that not a freudian slip on how you view things.. As I had already stated earlier, the old mmos were more RPG, then the current console (aka video) game player.. People such as myself that came from the original roll the dice rpgs like AD&D wanted to interact in a social world.. Todays games are more like video game lobbies then anything.. Which is a completely seperate creature..
I do disagree with the ending statement by you that there isnt' a community to support it.. There is a community to support "old" world mmos.. problem is, which you should of went with is that the devs ignored that community and looked at dollar signs instead.. Example.. I believe there is a community of true mmo players (300,000 strong in north america), that can give a company a nice bottom line.. However, devs are looking for the golden goose instead, wanting to get into that WoW type of market of millions..
For many MMO players they are just the next RPG. We don't get many new RPG's each year and if you want your yearly fix this is where you go. So there is a tendancy for 'multiplayer' only meaning that the cape you just saw flash by you was on a player not a game charecter.
alright.. well if RPG's are turning more into crap, hopefully War40k wont be the same, but if they are... im Turning my attention back to old school shards of Ultima or Ragnarok, hell if need be ILL HOST MY OWN DAMN SHARD AND PLAY LIKE OLD TIMES!
I miss those days, and i will recreate those old days if i have to... to have some fun and remember the good old days when PEOPLE HELPED PEOPLE!!!!
Complete and total drivel just like part one. I have good news for all you rose colored revisionists, eq1,ac,uo are still around go play them.
The only thing I miss from old MMOs is community. Damn we had a sense of community, random people would actually help you in a dungeon and groups were polite. Quite a change from now
I never cared much for Everquest back in the day, it was way to anal and i thought it was more for people with OCD.
I liked Asheron's Call a lot more, it was very solo friendly and it came out a little after Everquest. It didn't get as much fan faire because Microsoft didn't advertise it as much because all the expansion material was always givin to it's community for FREE. And eventually Turbine bought the game's license back and made a couple expansion and tried to bring the dieing game back. But to only little avail. But what was amazing about Asheron's Call is it was the first big sandbox game that didn't require to much to play. you didn't need to be drilled in some military way like you needed to be in EQ. There was no need because it doesn't contain raids. It's woodstock for the MMO community... Do what you want how you want to do it. There are no classes that keep you locked into a "role". Each character could play multiple roles if they so deem necessary. Although min/max players would digress.
The way newer games have gone are just a mix of all the things that were fun in older MMOs. It may have become a little more "kid friendly" with much less penalties for death. But to me that is really all that has changed. Communities are there, they are just more distinct and varied. Thus it takes longer to find that niche you once knew. Plus people are more spread out with the shear amount of MMOs to play now.
But in time it will all become full circle... because if you've ever played Guild Wars you would see much of the old ways still around. But with new elements of instancing. And i'm sure Guild Wars 2 will have more of a community feel to it.
The game community as a whole MMO and even Solo / multiplayer games tend to do like movies. When the latest "big thing" comes out, you have lots of "whana be's" that jump on the band wagon. And there are the select few that drive the genre forward. Such as companies like Blizzard, Bioware, and I'm sure Bethesda is not to far behind on an MMO title. Just give it time... SOE has been around awhile but they are more of "band wagon" crowd now. Rather than leaders of genre like they were when they made EQ. But the same could be said about Turbine as well with LoTR online and D&D online. They were the indie guys that got the ball rolling... but apparently not enough "gonads" to carry it forward.
But i'm sure there will eventually be some decent indie titles to pop up that will make it into some niche market that favors the older mmo crowd. it all just takes time, money and patience on the community that wants to see it happen. But there really never was a huge community for that sort of playstyle. it was because we didn't have much of a choice, and we delt with the trials and tribulations. plus those older games didn't really cater to the casual player as well as some newer games. Asheron's call was the only exception, which catered to all play styles. Thus made it hard for some people to get into. Because it didn't have an easy interface to help find people with similar play styles. you had to do it the old fashioned way by socializing. Lets face it, those older players now have families and children and just don't have the time to put into long drawn out stuff like corpse runs and raids. Also having to grind hours on end... That really is not a lot of fun.
But i do think that newer games could make better community sub-apps within their games to help people find other "like minded" people. So that it would facilitate better social atmospheres. Good filtering options for chat channels and the ability to create your own chat channels should be a standard. That way people can tailor their experience...
anyway i'm just sayin...
i'm going to be ageist here. you were 8 years old in 1999? you're too young to write this article. when you were playing everquest, your brain wasn't even capable of critical thinking yet, and it just barely obtained the ability to imagine the role of another person in order to play team sports effectively. i'm about 4 years older than you. i remember reading the ultima online pdf manual and imagining how cool it would be to play, and buying asheron's call and having to return it because my parents thought the idea of subscribing to a game was crazy. my first mmo was ffxi and i loved it, yet i wouldn't trust myself to write this article.
i clicked the title hoping to get the opinions of an older gamer, someone who was actually conscious in 1999, or preferably 1995. oh well. you should have picked a different topic and left this old vs. new thing to someone who actually experienced it as an adult, or at least an adolescent. shit.
"I wouldn’t expect any other genre developer to make their game easier and less in-depth all in the sake of including everyone."
Errr... have you been following anything other than MMO games in the last several years?
This is something I want to point out from the start - This "trend" happens with just about everything. I'll get back to this in a moment.
Now, would you be so kind as to name things more accurately? "Battle of old and new..." isn't the same as "A contest on scoring points given by one man in one split article on one site..."
Closer to the point, these differences have one common explanation - gameplay element for one is frustration for another. Every man has his own preferences, this particular article shows those of it's author. And while mine mostly coincide with them, I's still like to point out that those are merely personal preferences.
Anyone noticed how old game companies die-out? That's a display of one funny (and really irritating) trend - there are generally more "frustration" entries then "gameplay element" entries across the customer base. As such simplifying a part of a game leads to better business opportunities, and this world is bound by money.
On every damn point there's more of those who would like to see it simple rather then complicated.
Death penalties, open pvp, instanced dungeons, newbie zones, crafting... you name it. For every aspect there are people who'd want to see it their way. From where the busyness is headed I'd conclude that there's not enough customers to sell the old way anymore. A pity, but we (the players) are the ones responsible. Just go one by one over those questionable elements of an mmo and ask yourself how you'd want to see them. The ones you want to see simple and accessible are your contribution to simplification. The ones you don't are the work of the next guy.
You don't want your games to be simple - don't buy simple games. Maybe that'll lead somewhere. Discussing the good old times only ever leads to peaks of nostalgia and creates an impression of old farts among newer gamers.
I've been thinking about this thread.
It finally hit me.
New mmo's look better (graphics, sound and spell effects) and play better ( Combat, UI functionallity, soloability).
Old games made us "feel" better (better bonds with communities, immersion, depth of character attachment).
Somethings making someone feel better is all that matters too.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
The "why" would take approximately an article per point to adequately explain. Aside from several factors commonly seen in "hardcore" games that integrate well together and make specific gameplay parts fun (an example later), I'd say it's challenge, not an accomplishment.
When stuff is easy it's not fun it's time killing. You may make it long, you may force a player to retry x times before he succeeds, but if this only means x short walks from respawn point and maybe a symbolic monetary sacrifice, then it's merely a tedious work.
Hard is when you have to put in a lot off effort. (don't mix time and effort please) "The old way" really has a grasp on have from that statement.
Aside from that, many old elements work well together and create a specific gameplay.
The example I named is about sieges:
Old elements - complicated travel, harsh death penalty.
New elements - easy travel, non-existent death penalty.
Old system made it a war of soldiers. Losses were important on both sides. Tactic was an important element.
New system made it a war of meat. The numbers are about the only thing that matters. Anything that dies is back on the field in 3-5 minutes. The only thing important is which side gets bored of respawning faster.
Some say it's not fun to virtually have "one life" during a massive event. I'd say it's not fun when something that's killed is back within minutes. Makes it unimportant how your opposition fights, only how hard it presses forward.
Another stuff is solo content. When it's easy to solo who the heck needs tight-knit group or dungeon? When just about anyone can solo himself to max level what kind of activities can you expect at high level? I dunno about others but when I played WHO:AoR I was tired of people who's first multi-player interaction in a game happened on T4 sieges. I suppose I don't have to name my grudges for people to understand what can go wrong when a person your gameplay intertwines with doesn't have even the most basic knowledge.
Harsh solo plays a vital part in player's "education". Beats me why someone would decide to play solo in an MMO game when there are single player games which are geared towards it. Yet here we are...
Like I said, there's too much explanation to be done for one comment to have it all. Just pointing out - there's a big "BECAUSE" in all of this, it's just that casual audience doesn't want it in their game or even doesn't know about it (and keeps wondering why siege in [insert a name] isn't fun, or why the party cleric refuses to heal anyone), and the industry follows the money.
Keep in mind, I'm relatively (for the scope of this discussion) new to MMO. My 1st mmo contact was LA2, and the titles named in this article are history to me. Still, I do understand what they had in them (or at least i think I do) and I find the modern simplified gameplay lacking.
Who can argue with such a well thought out and articulated point of view.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
rofl... wow... seriously. I was 23 in 1999. Its amusing that someone who really was a child in 1999 wrote this article and thinks they can judge.
Not again... knock off the "solo player bashing" huh? We're all sick of hearing it. If you like to group, then group, but stop bashing the soloers all the bloody time. And that goes for everyone in MMO's. Get over it.
Obviously I was just more of a "switched on" child then you were. Seemingly I was blessed with the powers of retrospect and analysis and therefore able to deduce why I prefer older games. I guess that’s why people are agreeing with me; I’m just one of the special ones maybe?
What a nice, and pointless, way of insulting me. Get over yourself.
This was a fun article, excited for part three. To all the people that are saying, "Why do you think these old games are fun? They had harsh penalties and were grinds," I think you have to understand that these games pulled more from pen and paper RPG's and text based MUD's. I mean think about it, to go from all text to a graphical UI freakin' blew players minds, it didn't matter that it was a grind because mainly you were expected to be with other players so part of the fun came from killing hundreds of bears with your friend and making bear jokes. So really the emphasis was on the "RP" aspect (not so much that you had to "role play" but that it was just awesome to be that character).
Today the emphasis is on the "Game" aspect, which isn't to say that's bad. The genre of MMOs and really video games has become more refined. Unless you're with someone you know does it sound like fun camping a mob spawn for 10+ hours? No, not really. But it is fun to go into a dungeon, fight a boss and win loot regardless of who you're with. Modern MMO's are much less based on the thrill of adventure and exploration as they are with gameplay mechanics, and balance (both PVP and solo vs grouping balance).
I think both aspects of MMO's have their values and (without going into too much sticky detail) I think that once MMO's became marketable to the populous it became inevitable that they were streamlined. Is this disheartening to the older players, yeah a little (Hell I still play MUD's from time to time for that very reason), but I think that the more people making and working on MMO's will lead to bigger innovations faster (it just sucks that we'll need a hundred mediocre MMO's to fail before we get there).
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
A more appropriate comment would be that unskilled and / or impatient players where incapable of soloing in EQ.
Most classes other than rogue could manage it just fine if they really had too.
Personally, I solo'd magician, necromancer, ranger, druid, wizard, cleric, shaman, sk, beastlord, enchanter, and bard. I knew people that had no issues soloing Warrior, berserker, or paladin (I simply had no interest in playing those three classes or rogue).
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I get the impression that this guy is just trying to make friends with the old-schoolers, even though he puts the newer games as a win.
Yeah, commented on the wrong one, whelp ...
For all of it's faults SWG was pretty much the pinnacle of crafting in my opinion. It's been all downhill since.
I do also miss the community that MMO's used to offer. They attracted a more mature audience and that is no longer the case. WoW is a big culprit there, it seems like they have done everything they can to make the server you play on or the guild you play with meaningless. As well as being incredibly easy outside of bleeding edge raiding.
Edit:speeling
Community
Yes, word. That was agood thing in MMOs, and even now ya can find some. Like in LOTRO I joined with fellowship playing together from EQ1, BUT ... that is the same ols community, those ppl were same we ran on fields of Norrath. But newborn guilds... only to gather gear and gold, no conect between ppl, even battles inside guilds, blame and curse....
I just met again my guildleader of my 1st EQ guild in facebook, we still remember each other, we still have memories like going thru missions in Vietnam, we have battles and fun.
But as much as I heard about new "communities" - they only run for gear, fame and glory.
No help for lower lvls, no share anything, greed, greed, greed.
Need ofr guilds is only based at faster lvling or getting gear.
To Finish - cheers to all Silver Knights of Norrath, if any read this web
Gikku
Spot on for many things, but most of all community. The shift to solo-able content has dumped mob grinding with dungeon/quest grinding it was kill mobs rest find quest turn-ins, kill mobs rest find quest turn-ins. Now it's get quests instance cash in, get quests instance cash in.
There is different in the grinding just newer MMO's found a way to hide it a bit.
I miss the excitement I felt when i entered a dungeon to see what might be there, not the mobs but what groups were camping what area's and keeping an eye on chat for that TRAIN!!! call and at times it meant free xp if your group could handle the pull that was chasing whoever, not always run and hide seeing a random cleric or druid healing the fleeing party because they wanted to help out, not just greifing.