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Do people actually want oldschool MMOs?
Explorium
Member Posts: 395
Oldschool MMOs have come out.
Take Vanguard for example. A great "sequel" to Everquest, a lot more so than Everquest 2...and a nice open world. A great oldschool style MMO.
You say "BUT IT HAD A BAD RELEASE!"
And I say
"An icecream man dropped my icecream and I will never buy icecream again!"
Best analogy I could think of on the second. Yeah, bad release, so what? Its better now....WAY better.
The bad release seems to be more of an excuse in this case than a reason. Especially since its so much improved.
Or the "lol its SOE, I hate SOE"...they have made bad decisions I admit (SWG, wow did they ruin that) and free EQ2 is less free than paying for the regular game...but just because its SOE isn't really an excuse. I don't like Square Enix at all (they just make 1,000,000 and 1 final fantasies)...but some of the games they have are rather good (I liked Final Fantasy 9 and 10, 7 was good as well)
So just because its SOE is kind of a weak argument. Especially if someone really wanted a good oldschool style MMO. "Oh look VG is an oldschool...oh its SOE...I'll go onto the forums and ask for an oldschool MMO to come out"
Now I can see if its the lack of updates...because there hasn't been an update in months...thats a big turn off and a legitamate complaint. And my biggest complaint I have really. If they just put out an update just once to show they still care, man I would subscribe for life. But the game still has tons of stuff to do. People still haven't seen or done everything in VG, or seen all the crafting AND diplomacy stuff.
A game's bad release doesn't mean much when its fixed and working, and a game that I figured judging from MMORPG.com a lot of people are looking for.
So, is it really oldschool MMOs people want? VG is a good sign its the exact opposite. If I was a company or someone looking to develop a game, I would see Vanguard and say "Well, not many people want an oldschool MMO. Hmm see people say they do, but numbers and what they say prove otherwise."
What are your thoughts on this?
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Comments
Vanguard is a bad example because Sony stopped doing anything with it a long time ago. It is dead in the water and doesn't look like it will receive any future support at all.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Vanguard I hated at launch and ... well, I still don't like it. I've tried. Spiritually its more of a successor to eq1 than eq2, but it still just isn't much fun. I think the 'hardcore' / 'old school' mmo's have a place... but it's really niche anymore, especially in interface and appearance. Difficulty wise I could use a bump up, but difficulty is not the same as grind which is how things seem to be equated out today.
The key is... how do you make a fight difficult with out it becoming just a gimmick? The current wow/eq2 methods are a failure... throwing hp at it or having enormous knock back or 'gimmick' battles... bleh... but on the other hand I have no better solution to present inside the genre as it exists.
The genre has need to evolve at this point.
Shadus
Yes we want old school mmos but on good technical standard and bug free. Not like Vanguard if it only was the bad release the game was half assed released.
Also-- just sayin... a better analogy for this would be:
"An icecreamcompany icecreamman got caught draining his main vein in the lemon soft serve, I'm never buying lemon soft serve from icecreamcompany again!"
I really don't care how good the 'lemon soft server' is now... I think I'll just pass after that ordeal.
Shadus
Yes if Vanguard had an update once in a while and didn't make me feel I was on a dying game I would be subbed for life as well! The game could easily be the best on the market right now and years to come as well if SOE wasn't such morons.
Well i would have to say that Vangaurd had its time to shine. I personally was 1 of the many people ready to jump all over this game. It came down to a super bad start, the lack of content and the bugs ingame were just to much. It was unbarable. So some time goes by and now the game is running smooth but now theres other games out there . I would say the game could be a sleeping giant like Eve but they dont even have a legit dev team now. But yeah i love old school mmos
Yes!
I would take a game like UO/AC1 at release in a heart beat, with updated graphics of course.
Keep the gameplay the way it was at release where I had to make my own arrows, and potions, and food, and there were no quest trackers because you actually had to hit up the town criers in each town to get info in bits and pieces to figure out quests, and a skill system, no classes, etc, etc.
I'd be there in a minute if a game like that was ever released.
Hell I'd probably still be playing AC1 if they'd fix their antiquated net code.
*cries*
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
I feel the same, i would have subed along time ago if it didnt feel like the game was dead or going to flatline at any moment
many people like the idea of and old school mmo untill they play it and start bashing it for what it doesnt have or its to hard, so on and so on.
Most people who say they want one would quit a few days after release.
Many quit Vanguard because it was too hardcore, not because it had bugs, even though Vanguard wasn't even hardcore at all. People are used to WoW now.
I remember the whines of Vanguard players on Silky Venom because Vanguard had no mounts at lower levels and no hubs at launch.
"we have to run" waaaaa
It was a great game though and there is still room for those games, but the majority of self-proclaimed "hardcore" players are softies.
Vanguard, FFXIV, EQ, Lineage, MHO there are a handful of hardcore games out right now, but most people aren't willing to play them.
You seem rather dismissive of why people don't play Vanguard. The game was horrid upon release. it was so bad the game failed. To site that as the example why there is no interest in this type of oldschool style game seems a bit unfair.
So what if they fixed it. If a game is broken at release, the trend is it never recovers. There are lots of reasons. Blaming it a lack of interest in old school style games, again seems a bit unfair.
I would like a sandbox game with skill points and no predefined classes. It would be a game more closely resembling real life, which is why some refer to this type of game as a virtual world. A big giant world without loading screens and overuse of instances.
Precu SWG was a lot of fun for me. I would like that game but it doesn't exist, so I'm waiting for something similar.
Fallen Earth came close, but then you have to do certain quests to get ap, thus instigating an ap/quest grind. Also they do not have housing, player cities, player run structures, etc, and their crafting system is your typical A+B+C=D. Yes, Fallen Earth was close but didn't go far enough.
The game actually was not that bad at release. Yes Vanguard had CTD (crash to desktop) but that was fixed rather quickly. And if people actually liked the game enough, they would have sticked with it for those few weeks it took to get the bugs out.
I'm convinced that the main reason was that Vanguard was too hardcore for most players.
The thread has kind of gone off into a VG tangent instead of whether or not people actually want old school MMOs, but returning to that original point.....I think that what people want is not an old school MMO, but an MMO that captures the feelings we had during those games. Personally I would never want to go back to EQ1 and UO game play (If I could I would still be playing those games or Project '99 and I am definitely not), however i would love a game that would allow me to relive, recapture, or experience anew the feelings and experiences I had in those original titles.
Steam: Neph
There is no AP grind in FE any longer...And the construction skill is in and players are making some great camps , Houseing is on the horizon..
I played vanguard from beta to several months after release. It was ok but I still didn't consider it an old school mmo. It was much closer to eq1 than eq2 was, but it still wasn't really oldschool. They had some really huge dungeons that was awesome but I really hated the way they broke it up into level groups. Than you had to fight past all the crap to get to the appropriate group for your level and you had to do it quickly or the super fast respawns would end up pwning you at the wrong time. I don't know, it just was not a completed game to me. To many things felt wrong in the game world and was either missing stuff or stuff out of place. I don't know what to say really, the bugs didn't really bother me so much and it was fully playable on high graphics settings on my rig. I think one of my biggest issues with it was the world itself. Dont get me wrong, graphically it was great, but all the different areas didn't really seem to mesh well with each other. It is very hard to explain for me, but the game world itself is what truely drove me away.
Yes. There's a reason I keep going between UO and FFXI, and never stick with any of the newer games.
Playing - EVE, Wurm
Retired - Final Fantasy XI, Anarchy Online, Mabinogi
Waiting - ArcheAge, Salem
The AP grind is still there. They just maxed how much AP you can get per level. You still have to go back at some point and grind quests at endgame if you want max AP to be competitive in pvp. Or am I wrong? Perhaps I misunderstood the changes...
Housing may never be implemented from what I understand. I read somewhere it had been shifted to one of their 'long term' goals, and my never see the light of day. Again, I could be wrong. Just going by what I have read on forum boards.
I think most of us want the old school challenge and depth like anarchy online for example, but we do not want another huge grinder like eq1 and where its all about endgame, raiding, and eleitism, so in otherwords we do to an extent, mostly with the problems worked out while retaining the amount of depth and meaning of a true mmo.
Lol i quit Vanguard because they dumbed it down with rifts and mounts, and numerous other reasons but the Gimmebears helped to ruin that game also, The Rift and flihgts made Ships Obsolete , And then the ridiculous crying that they wanted dots over the mobs to tell what lvl .... and so on ..
EQ was not about that when it was launched. Raids came much later, elitims was almost non-existent in the early days, it was more about adventuring than stats. EQ was not that gear dependent back then either, levels were much more important than what you wore.
Although I don't disagree that it's about that now, but then that's what every MMO seems to be about now, who can reach endgame the quickest and beat their chest.
Nahh no grind at all now you can only spend 25 AP per lvl , you get 20 so only need to earn 5 per lvl thats easy ....
And the Housing your right they did waver abit but there seesm to be a great influx of players now so im hopin it moves to the front burner..:)
If Vanguard had an annouced expansion and regular content releases then I would play it. It doesn't, so I don't. I think many people feel the same way.
I like it as it is.. but such a great investment of time can only be justified by knowing it is going somewhere...
Last update shown on the official site was Dec 9, 2009! Now, thats just embarassing.
I disagree. I left for many reasons but it certainly wasn't because it was to hardcore. When they put in the traveling system, I hated it. I felt they dumbed it down to much to quickly.
The problem with old school is mmos is they are outdated. The graphics are horrid, and lets face it, we love our reflective bling!
Here are things I think dev's really need to step back and think.
The world needs to make sense and areas need to feel distinctive. Take for example EQ. When your running through dagnors cauldron and you come upon unrest. Unrest just feels like it belongs where it is. I think almost all zones in EQ1 felt like they had a purpose and wasn't just filler.
If you compare eq1's spell effects to todays spell effects, the newer one wins. However, EQ1 had the best particle system hands down. Their spell effects where generations ahead of the times and its funny how the new games, while looking great, seem to be going backwards in spell effects. You would think by now, a mage casting spells would be a glory to behold, but its not. Its rather dull with a few sparklies thrown in.
Make us care about our characters. Make us afraid while playing. That is where the thrill is.
And last but not least, slow down gameplay. Killing a mob in 5 seconds is not fun. We need time to react to situations, Not its dead in 5 seconds or we are dead in 5 seconds. I have to hand it to healers intodays games. I don't see how they are able to do it when everything happens within a 10 second window. Heck, used to be we had spells that took that long to cast lol.
My thought is that the more I play these games the more I probably want an old school mmo.
And I do have a sub to Vanguard though I play it somewhat casually.
that said, i really don't like the somewhat antiseptic "newer" style of mmo's. This is not to say they don't offer something but there is a tendency for them to be a bit too safe.
At one point "the lord of the rings" had some danger to it (believe it or not) At one point when heading to Rivendell there were large trolls on the road and the old forest was not only difficult to navigate but you could easily get killed if not paying attention.
That was more my style. Understandable that it's not to the liking of some (most?) players but "you asked".
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Honestly i thing you are a funny guy OP. First you seam to think people that want a old school can accept a buggy mmo; no they can't i think vangaurd, conana, and all those was the proof of it. 10 years of bugged games you have to pay for the box+ mounthly fee is enough.
Now about the grind, you seam to think an old school mmo must be a super grindy game. I'm not sure you know it but the grind became popular in 2000 when mmo where in fact by design nothing esle but a slaped engine, with only the very core components. Nothing even comparable to the massive game play choices the old school mmo delivered. So if you think old school = grind, then you are wrong. Uo is even today i think one of the less grindy mmo, you can max out your pvp skills in a weak or so... So please don't mix up old school which mean 1r or 2d generation with the 2000+ gen of mmos. The 2000+ mmo are grindy, not the old schools.
Yea +1 , that 1st run to Riv was an adventure for many , and these are many of the things that devs have gotten away from , its a shame.............
But i dont think we are hurting as gamers because of it , we do have many options ...
Devs that have stuck to there vision do have success and really bring some of the best experiences to gaming for us ...
CCP with Eve is one example , great game , a harsh world for sure , and for those folks who enjoy that setting its second to none....
Icarus Ent with Fallen Earth , brings really the only game to the table where you really feel the need to survive , Everyday brings challenges where learning and molding your toon become paramount in a truly post apocolyptic world.....
Cornered Rat with WW2 online , another truly epic feel to a game and setting that is second to none...
Aventurine with Darkfall have carved out there corner of the world with there vision of a warring fantasy world.....
All examples of Devs that are doing it for the love of the game, of building a world that lives and breathes for you, to live or die in , true artists that believe in there vision , and all have success with it..
Like many of the original groundbreakers created this genre, Garriot and Long with UO wanted to create a world to mold "your story" or Brad McQuaid with EQ remember "You are in our World Now " slogan , and you were, it was a dream a vision of love for these guys, a true adventure for them just building it im sure,And Turbine with AC , we were all just blown away by this living World to discover ,explore and die in ..
But in contrast now Sony slogan is "We are in your Wallet Now" and EA has shredded Britannia from Garriots vision for the dollar, And Turbine is now a debunked bride cashier of the item shop for Warner Bros..
Theme park games have a much easier time borkin there Lore, most are not run by artists with a true vision , they are run by the corporate conglmerate that will bend your mothers lore if it will make them a dollar..