The issue with developers changing things (making achievement easier), is that it personally ticks players off. Think about it. A lot of people that play MMOs, put much time and effort into them and then one day a change is made making all those achievement worthless. Love to bring Blizzard into this because they’re masters at gimping things. Just recently they removed weapons training, changed hunters mana bars to focus, made it so all players have to spec the same, removed keys, the list goes on and on. Same thing with EVE. Only played it for a month but if you played the game for years, working to get all the training completed and then one day, changes were made and now training was required (can anyone say ‘DELETE’)..lol. Same reason I don’t play WoW anymore.
Meh I am going to say that I feel everything now is easy mode, but that is simply because I can now max level a character in under a month in most mmo's when the old ones took closer to a year. And oddly my only bad memories aside from falling into space from luclin in EQ, and getting a house built on me swg are of lag. But that is just me I guess, I liked the long hard trek in the older games cause I came to like my characters. Now adays if I don't have a friend playing the mmo with me I will just max out a toon ditch the account and move on like it is nothing more than a consol game.
First Article Isabella , I half agree and I disagree.
Agree that nostalgia , Agree with Fun , Agree with making gaming more easy .
Disagree with this article , cause the main reason we all play MMORPG .
Is to meet other people , its not a dating service , fine if you and I found our partner online .
But we didn´t set out with that in mind , We set out cause of escapisme of real life.
We set out cause we wanted to make a difference , either by playing for others , or playing cause of loyalty to others .
This is what people are moaning about , the current trend of games are set while FUN .
Its all about ME MESELF and I , yes we all have that period , even here on the forums .
That people needs to be heared and understood .
But when you cater everything to FUN and underline ME MESELF and I .
And FUN is subjectief , dont forget some people FUN is being a asshole .
They seek there escapisme in MMO , they know there is no consequences .
And they are having the most FUN , just by being a jerk .
Now when games like Cataclysme , you are not in the ENDGAME (pardon me for expressing , you do understand the endgame ) It doesn´t account for anything for the Youth .
You didn´t had that achievement , you were not there , so saying WoW a game thats easy .
But you dont want to commit to the endgame .
Shows exactly why the game cater to the Me Meself and I attitude .
Nobody in WoW has to do the ENDGAME anymore , why ? 2 more expansion on the horizon.
Who cares about epics (the me meself and I attitude) cause next expansion .
All the greens or blues 2 levels up will replace or equel all the epics now .
There is no feeling of accomplishment or achievement with a group of people in easy gaming.
You dont create the old society anymore , its streamlined down to press a button long enough get a reward .
I will end with this .
The journey is meaning less , the end goal is trival or personal taste .
The people along the way are here today gone tommorow .
Really no point in responding, though I have a few free minutes so why not waste the time. Fairly clear, as grimfall mentioned, that this person wasn't around for those old games. That's not to say they didn't have their bad parts: name an MMO that doesn't. It's just blatantly clear from the subject matter of this "article" that the author doesn't get what those old timers are talking about and in an effort to just "say something" she grabs an opinion from left field and lobs shots that hit all the trivial negative points that the old schoolers did indeed want changed anyway. Typical rant in that instead of doing actual research and talking with these folks to get a true understanding she just takes a general arguement and blasts away.
Kyleran also hit the target with his comments as usual.
As I said at the beginning, though, no point in trying to funnel accurate information toward the author as I highly doubt she will come back and read the responses much less make a genuine effort to correct the misinformation she shoulders as fact.
MMOs of yesterday were like learning to play guitar, whereas todays MMOs are like learning to play guitar hero.
Perfect answer and 100% truth,bravissimo.
Thanks, Ive used this before because it seems to be a good analogy. You have to learn to play with folks playing other instruments to truly be a great musician, after all thats the point. On the other hand, playing guitar hero you can be good at doing so, but its a skill that doesnt teach the depth of commitment and sacrifice that playing the real thing does, nor does it really matter if you take the time to play with other people to truly solidify your craft.
Of course people will always choose the easier path, always giving them that easier path has really hampered MMOs and their development over the years.
I disagree with the article that players just want that old feeling back. Most mature MMOers know that convenience comes at a price. Just look at WoW's LFD - the greatest convenience mechanic in that game - great for spending 30 - 60 minutes, horrible for any kind of community, sociability or consequence, you know, those things that actually make an MMO an MMO.
34 classes in game, Oh noes players feel it's to much lets dump it down to 6 or 9 classes.
Housing, Oh noes let those who want housing play The Sims
Crafting, We don't like crafting unless my Rouge Warrior can also craft, who needs dedicated crafters?
A Virtual world, Nooooo we want our games small so we can stay in touch with our friends god forbid we need to do a little travel or even prepare for our playsession.
Down-time as in waiting for transport, really? Should we now talk to total strangers?, my time is rare I don't have time for that, lets totaly forget ALL other genre's of gaming that provide no down time, so lets make it so that MMO's also have no down time
Explore the gameworld, why?, We want to play games like a job and let the game excactly tell me where to go and how to get there.
To much reading, cause my precious 30 seconds it takes to read some quest/mission text is time I value to much.
Okay rant off/
Why do people of this new generation think that we of the old value bugs so much
We want our old games back but in a highly polished way, is that really to much to ask when today's generation of gamers already have plenty to choose from?
Sorry just had a bad week, articel was wel written, but as said it seems that some people focus on different type of issue's of the old and thinking it's that what we of the old seem to want back.
I just would like to say thanks for your articles.Of all of the writers I seem to relate closest you, and hence enjoy your articles keep up the great work.
Originally posted by Arcken Originally posted by inBOIL
Originally posted by Arcken
MMOs of yesterday were like learning to play guitar, whereas todays MMOs are like learning to play guitar hero.
Perfect answer and 100% truth,bravissimo. Thanks, Ive used this before because it seems to be a good analogy. You have to learn to play with folks playing other instruments to truly be a great musician, after all thats the point. On the other hand, playing guitar hero you can be good at doing so, but its a skill that doesnt teach the depth of commitment and sacrifice that playing the real thing does, nor does it really matter if you take the time to play with other people to truly solidify your craft. Of course people will always choose the easier path, always giving them that easier path has really hampered MMOs and their development over the years.
That would imply that there was some kind of skill involved in playing the games...there wasn't. You just had to have more patience. That might be a skill in fishing, but you're not really learning anything. This applies whether you're playing UO, EQ1 or WoW.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I am sorely tempted to say cryptic + neverwinter nights, and ask how what they are doing is making it better? but I don't yet know if it is an mmo or not. Anyone wondering what I mean, they are using a D&D franchise and they are having I think 6 classes. When an industry is taking an established world, gaming system, races, lore and everything, and they are dumbing it down to have less stuff to make it easier on them, then yes something has gone wrong.
Congratulations on a demeaning and insulting article, which also reeks of ignorance. Others have posted at length rationale for why your thoughts on the "opining" for older game mechanics are unfounded. In fact, it seemed the only actual examples you had were the positive aspects of WoW. Perhaps you ought to do a bit more research than starting areas in WoW before writing.
I agree that it is mostly experience thats makes games seem easier now. I find that I pick up much more quickly on any new game I try. The early ones were much harder but only because of a lack of experience.
If anyone wants a challenge go play an early mud. You just got dropped in this strange world, a short intro, a short time in the arena and you were out in the world. They were fun and in time got much easier because of experience.
I have played since games were only available on main frames and enjoyed each level of tech applied in all. I very much like some explaination of what is expected of me.
For the uber tough guys....I also played GW and had most titles maxed. It was interesting to see so many of the suppossed tough players paying ( I made a fortune) for hard mode missions help. I don't consider myself even close to the truely good players but it seems talk is cheap and I wonder how many that wish for the bad ole days realy have a clue.
Very true, excellent article. Nostalgia aside, I still prefer the days of Asheron's Call or even old UO. At least those games did not shoehorn your character into a ridgid class structure. Yeah they had clunky interfaces and balancing issues, but the level of fun was far more than what we are offered these days.
I think Wow's revamp of the 1-60 areas is remarkable.
As to the Cataclysm 80-85 content, I did not like the new zones very much. Many of the quests are chained together, so you can't just skip a quest you don't care to do because you lose access to a lot of the subsequent quests.
I know I could be doing better things that finding my virtual corpse.
Then again, realizing what a hassle it was to retrieve a corpse often made people a little better player in the clutch, as opposed to saying oh well, wipe, respawn nearby and try again.
But if the goal of the developers of those times was to deter players from exploring and finding new and exciting things, then the invention of the corpse run successfully killed the fun in that for me and I'm sure a lot of players that enjoy absorbing content rather that conquering it.
Then I would have to respond that the game was not designed with you in mind. I used to be an explorer. In EQ exploring was exciting, suspensful, and dangerous. Whenever I wanted to explore a new area I would always get all of my necessary spell components ready, my printed maps, put on my adventuring gear and set out to see what I could find.
I would have to constantly look around me, avoid mobs, sneak around players, really think hard about how to get into a structure and have an exit strategy in case things went bad.
In WoW I just simply ran to the new area.... that was it... I lost my adventuring spirit in EQ2 actually, and then it was completely killed in WoW... With no real death penalty exploring lost it's excitement, it's edge. Sure I got to see new areas, but I did that in a day in WoW and I was bored half way through. it took months in EQ and I never saw everything for the years that I played.
If you're having trouble grasping my meaning try thinking about exploring in EQ as sky diving and exploring in WoW as jumping off your bed.
...[Joe] is killed... ...a more powerful player has looted [Joe's body]...
That wasn't even close to Arken's point.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
That would imply that there was some kind of skill involved in playing the games...there wasn't. You just had to have more patience. That might be a skill in fishing, but you're not really learning anything. This applies whether you're playing UO, EQ1 or WoW.
I disagree that older MMOs did not take "skill" to play. They did not take great hand-eye coordination, that's true.
That does not mean, however, that they did not require more engagement than today's standard fare MMO game to progress.
Today's average MMO requires no thought or any other cognative abilities other than some very very basic reading skills, and that's arguable. If you can see the screen and press 1-5 on your number pad, you win.
MMOs released before 2004 required a lot of skill to play well. Teamwork, problem solving, decent communication skills (reading/writing), and critical thinking just to name a few.
When you take just 1 small facet that an old and new game share (like fishing) and compare them you're not really getting the big picture. In the grand scheme of things EQ was a much more difficult game because of the entire experience, not just 1 tiny part.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I dont mind change change can be good if done right. However some changes are bad.
For example lets go over some of the bad changes:
I will pick Lotro my favorite love to hate it game that I have a lifetime sub to. Bad changes Nerf's as we call them. Lets go over Mini - Minstrel when mom rolled out they nerfed this class down so hard for about 6 months it was hard to find somebody playing one, in fact most folks dropped them all together in favor of rolling an RK. The nerf was done to help healing but made the class very hard to play at a solo level. Now lets talk about the nerfs to Champion this was done because champs were way op and were taking the guardians place as main tank. Then the nerfs to RK lately as folks were complaing they were to op in the pvp role. All these nerfs were done in the name of balance. Now the one bad change I totaly hate in this game is the items being placed in the store like rep mounts, and other things that invalidated the need to grind these things out. The store in my thoughts has done more to destroy the immersion of this game.
Other games have nerfs too, anybody in eq2 remember the changes in 2008 to the caster classes that totally nerfed down every caster class in the game. Warlocks being hurt the worst, because they claimed it was in the name of balance.
Balance always seams to be the key word for nerfs. I wish companies would take a look at that, instead of nerfing stuff down come up with other options that improve classes to better equal them out. To me when I hear the argument about we got to do this to restore balance I often think of the comercial where the kid has a red toy fire truck, then the guy takes it away and give him a toy truck and say hey that was for a limited time only kid. If devs would program the game right in the first place we would not need to balance stuff out. I hate that word phrase we got to balance things out, espcially after you had a class for over 2 years then all the suden nerf oh thats to bad.
Now lets looks at some of the good changes.
Lotro, you had the starter areas have been redesigned not once but were on our 4th iteration now. Places like archest, Thorin's, and yes even the shire have all been touched up and retouched, in the name of making it easy for the new guys to come on board. Other good changes were cutting the amount of xp needed to level you up.
I will end my huge wall of text by saying good changes I don't mind, however this past year I have seen a lot of changes across several games that were not good, but that's my opinion, and you know what they say about them; everybody has one.
Originally posted by Dameonk Originally posted by lizardbones
That would imply that there was some kind of skill involved in playing the games...there wasn't. You just had to have more patience. That might be a skill in fishing, but you're not really learning anything. This applies whether you're playing UO, EQ1 or WoW.
I disagree that older MMOs did not take "skill" to play. They did not take great hand-eye coordination, that's true. That does not mean, however, that they did not require more engagement than today's standard fare MMO game to progress. Today's average MMO requires no thought or any other cognative abilities other than some very very basic reading skills, and that's arguable. If you can see the screen and press 1-5 on your number pad, you win. MMOs released before 2004 required a lot of skill to play well. Teamwork, problem solving, decent communication skills (reading/writing), and critical thinking just to name a few.
When you take just 1 small facet that an old and new game share (like fishing) and compare them you're not really getting the big picture. In the grand scheme of things EQ was a much more difficult game because of the entire experience, not just 1 tiny part.
The same people who power through quests in WoW powered through the content in EQ without bothering to read details or spend a whole lot of time discussing strategy.
AI has hardly progressed since UO, but it hasn't regressed either. Outsmarting the weak intelligence of the AI isn't anything more than learning the pattern that the AI follows. This is still the case in WoW just as it was in EQ.
Fishing was an example of something that requires patience in real life. That's all the old school games took and it's all it takes in the new school games, just less of it. EQ was more difficult...the random number generator didn't go your way as much. If you rolled the dice enough times you won, and skilled up and geared up and then over powered the content. Or, instead of hitting one button and waiting for your crafted item to pop out of nothing, you hit 6 buttons. It's nearly the same thing with more patience required.
More difficult? True. Required more time? Certainly. Better? Subjective opinion. Required more skill? Not true. Colossally boring? Subjective opinion again.
Article on people who play Everquest with their children. Some of them are four years old. "So easy a child could play it" didn't start with WoW.
"If you don’t like it, don’t play the damn thing."
You know what your easy mode has provided?
A game that plays itself. A game where you can run an entire guild worth of characters, and have no more than one or two actual human beings in said guild.
A community of narcissistic, entitlement babies that not only expect, but demand, to have everything handed to them on a silver platter because they or their parents pay for their subscription.
A game where the core players, only rarely even need to associate with other players as they are quite competent in soloing all of the group content in the game, short of raids. Which in fact, this soloing, is the only way many players can find even the smallest semblance of challenge.
A game that is filled with players, incompetent with their selected roles, until someone puts up a you-tube video. At which point they become the second coming of Napoleon or Hitler as they dictate exactly what everyone is supposed to do according to the you tube video. "Wait, tank! Two steps to the left is where you start."
And as to the quote of yours I provided. Your kind infest the forums of every game demanding that each new game be easier than the last. You throw tantrums, you throw ultimatums, you threaten, you complain, you report anyone who disagrees with you as being combative. You want to play your mmos from your phones, from your cars, from your effing facebook profile, any way possible but actually sitting down and playing the gd game.
When you have succeeded, and turned every game into an extension of your overblown sense of ego. When you sit there and go, ho hum, this is getting boring now, be prepared for Nelson's "ha ha".
And as to yours and others problems with wow now. Don't worry. Regardless of whether or not the youtube how-to vids come out, Blizzard will dumb it all down. Within 3 months it will be WOTLK all over again where folks are soloing heroics. I know I was soloing em with my bear tank a few months ago before I deleted and cancelled all of my toons. "The healers I know keep blinking in surprise and saying that they can no longer heal an instance while half-asleep; surely this is a good thing? The tanks I know are having to pay more attention too, and the DPS classes apparently have more to do than just figure out when to pew-pew and at what." Congratulations, you have apparently not been playing very long, have you? Let's see, when world of warcrap first came out and they actually fixed the bugs in MC, they let it sit that way for a bit. Then they introduced Black WIng Lair. Guess what they did? They dumbed MC WAY down because the mouthbreathers weren't keeping up with the core. When the next dungeons came, they dumbed down the previous ones. IF you knew your ass from a hole in the ground you would know this. But then again, like most everything in this article, if you, the "author" and I use the term loosely, actually knew what hte hell you were talking about, if you knew anything apart from your own personal narrow opinions based on nothing factual, then you would have saved yourself and all of us the time that has been wasted here.
Making the game run better is always a good thing. There is, however a huge difference between making a functional game and making a simplistic game and while you touch upon it, you come to faulty and unsubstantiated conclusions, which I should not be surprised by, it is your kind that sit there come up with your conclusions, then do your experiments, and only select the results that support your ignorant, narcissistic conclusions. Of course, if you actually tried to approach your trash of an article with some semblance of intelligence rather than with the attitude of "we won, accept it or fuck off" then you wouldn't have an article.
I haven't posted here in awhile, so I suppose the article did its job in that regard.
Otherwise, I would have to agree with other posters who believe the author needs to rethink or readjust her perspective. From what I've read of her article and of the posts in this thread, I'd have to say she missed a majority of the key factors that really drew "oldschool" players to "oldschool" games, and those that she did mentioned were glossed over in a very vague or generalized manner. All I know is that it's fairly obvious simply by the nature of gaming that MMO's are becoming less intelligent. As some others have already pointed out, this is due to creating games for the lowest common denominator (or broadening the targetted audience, whichever you prefer) and cannot be disputed. It's perfectly valid and human to have a preference, but it doesn't alter that MMO's are becoming homogenized and simplified to the extremities of being identical products (or at the least, difficult to distinguish).
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I think easier means they don't have to put in as much time to get the same in-game features. Things like levels, gold, mounts, skills, etc. My brother was just telling me how they lowered the level requirements for a bunch of mounts in WoW, and now you can get a character to level 80 in 1/4 the time as when the last expansion came out, etc. So that game is 'easier' in the sense that rewards take less time to get.
But the writer isn't talking about time taken to get rewards I don't think, it sounds more like shes just talking about game mechanics?
Comments
The issue with developers changing things (making achievement easier), is that it personally ticks players off. Think about it. A lot of people that play MMOs, put much time and effort into them and then one day a change is made making all those achievement worthless. Love to bring Blizzard into this because they’re masters at gimping things. Just recently they removed weapons training, changed hunters mana bars to focus, made it so all players have to spec the same, removed keys, the list goes on and on. Same thing with EVE. Only played it for a month but if you played the game for years, working to get all the training completed and then one day, changes were made and now training was required (can anyone say ‘DELETE’)..lol. Same reason I don’t play WoW anymore.
Perfect answer and 100% truth,bravissimo.
Generation P
Meh I am going to say that I feel everything now is easy mode, but that is simply because I can now max level a character in under a month in most mmo's when the old ones took closer to a year. And oddly my only bad memories aside from falling into space from luclin in EQ, and getting a house built on me swg are of lag. But that is just me I guess, I liked the long hard trek in the older games cause I came to like my characters. Now adays if I don't have a friend playing the mmo with me I will just max out a toon ditch the account and move on like it is nothing more than a consol game.
First Article Isabella , I half agree and I disagree.
Agree that nostalgia , Agree with Fun , Agree with making gaming more easy .
Disagree with this article , cause the main reason we all play MMORPG .
Is to meet other people , its not a dating service , fine if you and I found our partner online .
But we didn´t set out with that in mind , We set out cause of escapisme of real life.
We set out cause we wanted to make a difference , either by playing for others , or playing cause of loyalty to others .
This is what people are moaning about , the current trend of games are set while FUN .
Its all about ME MESELF and I , yes we all have that period , even here on the forums .
That people needs to be heared and understood .
But when you cater everything to FUN and underline ME MESELF and I .
And FUN is subjectief , dont forget some people FUN is being a asshole .
They seek there escapisme in MMO , they know there is no consequences .
And they are having the most FUN , just by being a jerk .
Now when games like Cataclysme , you are not in the ENDGAME (pardon me for expressing , you do understand the endgame ) It doesn´t account for anything for the Youth .
You didn´t had that achievement , you were not there , so saying WoW a game thats easy .
But you dont want to commit to the endgame .
Shows exactly why the game cater to the Me Meself and I attitude .
Nobody in WoW has to do the ENDGAME anymore , why ? 2 more expansion on the horizon.
Who cares about epics (the me meself and I attitude) cause next expansion .
All the greens or blues 2 levels up will replace or equel all the epics now .
There is no feeling of accomplishment or achievement with a group of people in easy gaming.
You dont create the old society anymore , its streamlined down to press a button long enough get a reward .
I will end with this .
The journey is meaning less , the end goal is trival or personal taste .
The people along the way are here today gone tommorow .
Excellent and accurate response
Thanks, Ive used this before because it seems to be a good analogy. You have to learn to play with folks playing other instruments to truly be a great musician, after all thats the point. On the other hand, playing guitar hero you can be good at doing so, but its a skill that doesnt teach the depth of commitment and sacrifice that playing the real thing does, nor does it really matter if you take the time to play with other people to truly solidify your craft.
Of course people will always choose the easier path, always giving them that easier path has really hampered MMOs and their development over the years.
I disagree with the article that players just want that old feeling back. Most mature MMOers know that convenience comes at a price. Just look at WoW's LFD - the greatest convenience mechanic in that game - great for spending 30 - 60 minutes, horrible for any kind of community, sociability or consequence, you know, those things that actually make an MMO an MMO.
34 classes in game, Oh noes players feel it's to much lets dump it down to 6 or 9 classes.
Housing, Oh noes let those who want housing play The Sims
Crafting, We don't like crafting unless my Rouge Warrior can also craft, who needs dedicated crafters?
A Virtual world, Nooooo we want our games small so we can stay in touch with our friends god forbid we need to do a little travel or even prepare for our playsession.
Down-time as in waiting for transport, really? Should we now talk to total strangers?, my time is rare I don't have time for that, lets totaly forget ALL other genre's of gaming that provide no down time, so lets make it so that MMO's also have no down time
Explore the gameworld, why?, We want to play games like a job and let the game excactly tell me where to go and how to get there.
To much reading, cause my precious 30 seconds it takes to read some quest/mission text is time I value to much.
Okay rant off/
Why do people of this new generation think that we of the old value bugs so much
We want our old games back but in a highly polished way, is that really to much to ask when today's generation of gamers already have plenty to choose from?
Sorry just had a bad week, articel was wel written, but as said it seems that some people focus on different type of issue's of the old and thinking it's that what we of the old seem to want back.
I just would like to say thanks for your articles.Of all of the writers I seem to relate closest you, and hence enjoy your articles keep up the great work.
Thanks, Ive used this before because it seems to be a good analogy. You have to learn to play with folks playing other instruments to truly be a great musician, after all thats the point. On the other hand, playing guitar hero you can be good at doing so, but its a skill that doesnt teach the depth of commitment and sacrifice that playing the real thing does, nor does it really matter if you take the time to play with other people to truly solidify your craft.
Of course people will always choose the easier path, always giving them that easier path has really hampered MMOs and their development over the years.
That would imply that there was some kind of skill involved in playing the games...there wasn't. You just had to have more patience. That might be a skill in fishing, but you're not really learning anything. This applies whether you're playing UO, EQ1 or WoW.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I am sorely tempted to say cryptic + neverwinter nights, and ask how what they are doing is making it better? but I don't yet know if it is an mmo or not. Anyone wondering what I mean, they are using a D&D franchise and they are having I think 6 classes. When an industry is taking an established world, gaming system, races, lore and everything, and they are dumbing it down to have less stuff to make it easier on them, then yes something has gone wrong.
too easy is boring tho because it numbs the mind
Congratulations on a demeaning and insulting article, which also reeks of ignorance. Others have posted at length rationale for why your thoughts on the "opining" for older game mechanics are unfounded. In fact, it seemed the only actual examples you had were the positive aspects of WoW. Perhaps you ought to do a bit more research than starting areas in WoW before writing.
This article is really original.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Another great read !
I agree that it is mostly experience thats makes games seem easier now. I find that I pick up much more quickly on any new game I try. The early ones were much harder but only because of a lack of experience.
If anyone wants a challenge go play an early mud. You just got dropped in this strange world, a short intro, a short time in the arena and you were out in the world. They were fun and in time got much easier because of experience.
I have played since games were only available on main frames and enjoyed each level of tech applied in all. I very much like some explaination of what is expected of me.
For the uber tough guys....I also played GW and had most titles maxed. It was interesting to see so many of the suppossed tough players paying ( I made a fortune) for hard mode missions help. I don't consider myself even close to the truely good players but it seems talk is cheap and I wonder how many that wish for the bad ole days realy have a clue.
Very true, excellent article. Nostalgia aside, I still prefer the days of Asheron's Call or even old UO. At least those games did not shoehorn your character into a ridgid class structure. Yeah they had clunky interfaces and balancing issues, but the level of fun was far more than what we are offered these days.
I think Wow's revamp of the 1-60 areas is remarkable.
As to the Cataclysm 80-85 content, I did not like the new zones very much. Many of the quests are chained together, so you can't just skip a quest you don't care to do because you lose access to a lot of the subsequent quests.
Enojoying early wow while it is quiet fun and enjoy it while you can. Learn to play the mmo scenee and good luuck to you.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I disagree that older MMOs did not take "skill" to play. They did not take great hand-eye coordination, that's true.
That does not mean, however, that they did not require more engagement than today's standard fare MMO game to progress.
Today's average MMO requires no thought or any other cognative abilities other than some very very basic reading skills, and that's arguable. If you can see the screen and press 1-5 on your number pad, you win.
MMOs released before 2004 required a lot of skill to play well. Teamwork, problem solving, decent communication skills (reading/writing), and critical thinking just to name a few.
When you take just 1 small facet that an old and new game share (like fishing) and compare them you're not really getting the big picture. In the grand scheme of things EQ was a much more difficult game because of the entire experience, not just 1 tiny part.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I dont mind change change can be good if done right. However some changes are bad.
For example lets go over some of the bad changes:
I will pick Lotro my favorite love to hate it game that I have a lifetime sub to. Bad changes Nerf's as we call them. Lets go over Mini - Minstrel when mom rolled out they nerfed this class down so hard for about 6 months it was hard to find somebody playing one, in fact most folks dropped them all together in favor of rolling an RK. The nerf was done to help healing but made the class very hard to play at a solo level. Now lets talk about the nerfs to Champion this was done because champs were way op and were taking the guardians place as main tank. Then the nerfs to RK lately as folks were complaing they were to op in the pvp role. All these nerfs were done in the name of balance. Now the one bad change I totaly hate in this game is the items being placed in the store like rep mounts, and other things that invalidated the need to grind these things out. The store in my thoughts has done more to destroy the immersion of this game.
Other games have nerfs too, anybody in eq2 remember the changes in 2008 to the caster classes that totally nerfed down every caster class in the game. Warlocks being hurt the worst, because they claimed it was in the name of balance.
Balance always seams to be the key word for nerfs. I wish companies would take a look at that, instead of nerfing stuff down come up with other options that improve classes to better equal them out. To me when I hear the argument about we got to do this to restore balance I often think of the comercial where the kid has a red toy fire truck, then the guy takes it away and give him a toy truck and say hey that was for a limited time only kid. If devs would program the game right in the first place we would not need to balance stuff out. I hate that word phrase we got to balance things out, espcially after you had a class for over 2 years then all the suden nerf oh thats to bad.
Now lets looks at some of the good changes.
Lotro, you had the starter areas have been redesigned not once but were on our 4th iteration now. Places like archest, Thorin's, and yes even the shire have all been touched up and retouched, in the name of making it easy for the new guys to come on board. Other good changes were cutting the amount of xp needed to level you up.
I will end my huge wall of text by saying good changes I don't mind, however this past year I have seen a lot of changes across several games that were not good, but that's my opinion, and you know what they say about them; everybody has one.
I disagree that older MMOs did not take "skill" to play. They did not take great hand-eye coordination, that's true.
That does not mean, however, that they did not require more engagement than today's standard fare MMO game to progress.
Today's average MMO requires no thought or any other cognative abilities other than some very very basic reading skills, and that's arguable. If you can see the screen and press 1-5 on your number pad, you win.
MMOs released before 2004 required a lot of skill to play well. Teamwork, problem solving, decent communication skills (reading/writing), and critical thinking just to name a few.
When you take just 1 small facet that an old and new game share (like fishing) and compare them you're not really getting the big picture. In the grand scheme of things EQ was a much more difficult game because of the entire experience, not just 1 tiny part.
The same people who power through quests in WoW powered through the content in EQ without bothering to read details or spend a whole lot of time discussing strategy.
AI has hardly progressed since UO, but it hasn't regressed either. Outsmarting the weak intelligence of the AI isn't anything more than learning the pattern that the AI follows. This is still the case in WoW just as it was in EQ.
Fishing was an example of something that requires patience in real life. That's all the old school games took and it's all it takes in the new school games, just less of it. EQ was more difficult...the random number generator didn't go your way as much. If you rolled the dice enough times you won, and skilled up and geared up and then over powered the content. Or, instead of hitting one button and waiting for your crafted item to pop out of nothing, you hit 6 buttons. It's nearly the same thing with more patience required.
More difficult? True. Required more time? Certainly. Better? Subjective opinion. Required more skill? Not true. Colossally boring? Subjective opinion again.
Article on people who play Everquest with their children. Some of them are four years old. "So easy a child could play it" didn't start with WoW.
http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/parent.html
*edit* I really hate the post editor used in these forums. I shouldn't have to try and debug it's interpretation of quotes.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
"If you don’t like it, don’t play the damn thing."
You know what your easy mode has provided?
A game that plays itself. A game where you can run an entire guild worth of characters, and have no more than one or two actual human beings in said guild.
A community of narcissistic, entitlement babies that not only expect, but demand, to have everything handed to them on a silver platter because they or their parents pay for their subscription.
A game where the core players, only rarely even need to associate with other players as they are quite competent in soloing all of the group content in the game, short of raids. Which in fact, this soloing, is the only way many players can find even the smallest semblance of challenge.
A game that is filled with players, incompetent with their selected roles, until someone puts up a you-tube video. At which point they become the second coming of Napoleon or Hitler as they dictate exactly what everyone is supposed to do according to the you tube video. "Wait, tank! Two steps to the left is where you start."
And as to the quote of yours I provided. Your kind infest the forums of every game demanding that each new game be easier than the last. You throw tantrums, you throw ultimatums, you threaten, you complain, you report anyone who disagrees with you as being combative. You want to play your mmos from your phones, from your cars, from your effing facebook profile, any way possible but actually sitting down and playing the gd game.
When you have succeeded, and turned every game into an extension of your overblown sense of ego. When you sit there and go, ho hum, this is getting boring now, be prepared for Nelson's "ha ha".
And as to yours and others problems with wow now. Don't worry. Regardless of whether or not the youtube how-to vids come out, Blizzard will dumb it all down. Within 3 months it will be WOTLK all over again where folks are soloing heroics. I know I was soloing em with my bear tank a few months ago before I deleted and cancelled all of my toons. "The healers I know keep blinking in surprise and saying that they can no longer heal an instance while half-asleep; surely this is a good thing? The tanks I know are having to pay more attention too, and the DPS classes apparently have more to do than just figure out when to pew-pew and at what." Congratulations, you have apparently not been playing very long, have you? Let's see, when world of warcrap first came out and they actually fixed the bugs in MC, they let it sit that way for a bit. Then they introduced Black WIng Lair. Guess what they did? They dumbed MC WAY down because the mouthbreathers weren't keeping up with the core. When the next dungeons came, they dumbed down the previous ones. IF you knew your ass from a hole in the ground you would know this. But then again, like most everything in this article, if you, the "author" and I use the term loosely, actually knew what hte hell you were talking about, if you knew anything apart from your own personal narrow opinions based on nothing factual, then you would have saved yourself and all of us the time that has been wasted here.
Making the game run better is always a good thing. There is, however a huge difference between making a functional game and making a simplistic game and while you touch upon it, you come to faulty and unsubstantiated conclusions, which I should not be surprised by, it is your kind that sit there come up with your conclusions, then do your experiments, and only select the results that support your ignorant, narcissistic conclusions. Of course, if you actually tried to approach your trash of an article with some semblance of intelligence rather than with the attitude of "we won, accept it or fuck off" then you wouldn't have an article.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I haven't posted here in awhile, so I suppose the article did its job in that regard.
Otherwise, I would have to agree with other posters who believe the author needs to rethink or readjust her perspective. From what I've read of her article and of the posts in this thread, I'd have to say she missed a majority of the key factors that really drew "oldschool" players to "oldschool" games, and those that she did mentioned were glossed over in a very vague or generalized manner. All I know is that it's fairly obvious simply by the nature of gaming that MMO's are becoming less intelligent. As some others have already pointed out, this is due to creating games for the lowest common denominator (or broadening the targetted audience, whichever you prefer) and cannot be disputed. It's perfectly valid and human to have a preference, but it doesn't alter that MMO's are becoming homogenized and simplified to the extremities of being identical products (or at the least, difficult to distinguish).
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
What does player perspective mean?
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I think easier means they don't have to put in as much time to get the same in-game features. Things like levels, gold, mounts, skills, etc. My brother was just telling me how they lowered the level requirements for a bunch of mounts in WoW, and now you can get a character to level 80 in 1/4 the time as when the last expansion came out, etc. So that game is 'easier' in the sense that rewards take less time to get.
But the writer isn't talking about time taken to get rewards I don't think, it sounds more like shes just talking about game mechanics?
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.