Originally posted by Aerowyn mostly that all new experience feeling. After playing countless games over the past 20+ very few games in recent years give me that feeling.
Agree .. was going to post something similar, for me it was the wonder and feeling (and community) looking back objectivley, games really have progressed in a lot of ways, and degenerated in others.
I think we forget a lot of the flaws of our old faves too, because of the fond memories.
That said, it seems much harder these days to find the same type of community bonding, from some of the old games, and gamers in general have become uber-impatient.
I miss gamers who played for the fun and immersion, not just a mad race to consume all content.
Well I would say stepping out and choosing where to go and what to do on a whim, but GW2 gives me that feeling everytime I play. I suppose that means I miss nothing now (well except maybe all the hours spent playing mmos )!
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
1. The Community - In old games reputation mattered. Rude, dishonest and bad players did not get good groups. Players were not only nicer, but were more mature and better skiled players. Not afraid of time commitments or challenges. I recall when it was rare where a player would leave a pug group without givingt he group an hour notice before leaveing and usually finding a replacement for his spot. Players had much better commincation skills as they talked in something close to actual sentences rather todays jibberish. People helped strangers, gretted new people and would even gasp send a person a tell before sending a random invite to group.
2. Ones level actually had meaning. If you saw a level 50 you assumed they knew how to play their class. Not hitting max level the first few days of release.
3. Consequences for bad play. Actual penalties forbad play. I recall meeting two people on an lt in EQ1 they were both level 158or so and they explained to me they had bith been level 18 for 3 months as they could not gain expereince faster than they were lsoing it by dying. I played with them for awhile and found out why but despite the detahs I did not drop the group. I just tried to help them not die as much.
4. Sandbox type aspects like city building and community events.
5. The need to actually plan a character before making one. Where bad choices could result in a gimped character.
Originally posted by Aerowyn mostly that all new experience feeling. After playing countless games over the past 20+ very few games in recent years give me that feeling.
^^^
This
Honestly, when I think over my "nostalgia" of the old school MMOs, deeply, I certainly do not miss most of the things associated with them. Everquest was the first MMO which I devoted years and years to, but when I think about what I actually DID in the game, there's no way in hell I would ever play a game even remotely similiar to it again. I think I spent 80% of my in game time over those years of playing with my character just sitting and regaining mana....
No, old school MMOs were far inferior games to what we have today. What makes them great, in hindsight, is the nostalgia. And what made them great before we understood just how bad alot of the mechanics were was the fact that they were new experiences and invoked feelings of wonderment that we never had in a game before. Honestly, the only actual non-nostolgic thing which old school MMOs did better than many of the MMOs today is how they fostered a good community. One could argue that is more a factor of the community being far smaller and less mainstream than anything to do with the games.
In the case of MMOs, nostalgia is a funny thing. Because if you really, truly do miss those old school games, a whole lot of them are still operational....you could be playing them if you wanted to.
That said, it seems much harder these days to find the same type of community bonding, from some of the old games, and gamers in general have become uber-impatient.
I miss gamers who played for the fun and immersion, not just a mad race to consume all content.
How much of that "racing" mentality is the fault of the gamers though? I suspect much of it is because the current generation of games literally trains them to be that way and most people just don't step back and say "Hey, I play games for FUN, dammit!"
Community The thing that seperated mmorpgs from the other game genres
Now days the mmorpg industri have removed that becouse now the mmorpg industri is big business and here come the economics who cant think outside of a spreadsheet, even if it would get them more cash (ROI).
Player owned houses (NOT instanced)
PS been playing from the 80's mmorpg, muds and I do smile when some one says its a WoW clone as then they give out there actauly a true 'Newbie.
I miss the sheer scale of the old MMO's, the massive part of MMO. Current games restrict us too much with their 20 or 25 man instances. I remember when EQ brought out the epic weapons and 120 some mages went up to Plane of Sky to raid for one of the rare drops.
Same goes for PvP, with BG's only allowing small numbers. DAoC allowed for hundreds of players to take part, and while GW2 has gone some of the way to replicating that I don't think they've quite cracked it yet, given the queue times some people have been experiencing.
I also think that the older games had a more polite playerbase. Maybe that's an age thing and maybe not but I definately find todays MMO crowd more abusive than 10 or 15 years ago. This leads to a lack of community, something that these types of games should be encouraging as much as possible.
In EQ i lived in the world of norrath and adventured, explores, worked on the grind be it levelling or crafting or even repuatation. being able to solo mobs at the start of a zone and still have a chance of a rare dropping.
Rare items!
Rare items lived up to the name. Schimitar of the mistwalker was a sought after extremely rare weapon for a Ranger. it wasnt a case of killing a mob and it would drop, the mob was rare due to it taking a week to repop after being killed, then the item was a rare for the rare mob. so back in the day not many existed. play a game today and it's usually just a case of killing the same boss at the end of a dungeon a few times and you will either get your drop or it will be awarded as a quest reward.
For me it has got to be near endless horizontal progression. Playing Asherons Call for years and never reaching the level cap. Having something to always strive for in character progression that didnt include gear or having to group with 80 other individuals is what I miss the most.
Ohh how I would love to have a classless based MMO which used a combination of Asherons Call experience based skill system with TSW's skill deck building system.
My one and completely obsessive single thing I miss about old school mmo(s) is actual travel methods. In detail, I miss the boat rides in EQ1. That is literally the thing I miss the most. There was always methods of downtime fun that I would do between spawn camps I hung out at, and the main one was riding a ship from one point of the world to the other.
I've talked about it for years and no game has ever even attempted it. I miss that so much.
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
Speed classes. There are a few short speed burst abilities in GW 2 and most MMOs have mounts, but it's not the same as playing or being in a group with a class that has perma-speed.
To expand on that. What I do miss is any sense of progression in the way MMO's are designed in recent years. Most new titles feel like clones of clones of clones of clones. The skin may be different but on the inside it's still the same as what has come before. What I would like to see are new MMO's in the future that don't try and copy what has come before. But actually try something new. Ten years ago for instance. You had a new generation of MMO's allt rying new game mechanics and concepts. Some of them survived to become the massive titles we know today. Others failed and others died a slow death over time.
What I'm trying to say is that developers mostly don't seem to be in the innovation business any more. It's the demogrpahic and money making business. Cater to the widest audience possible based on what has been most popular in the apst. Rather than trying to do new things and trailblaze new standards in MMO design.
One can only hope if this trend will decline long run.
finding that 1 rare mob that spawns like once a week/month. Eq i remem camping that snow griffon for the eyepatch of plunder, or the pegasus for the cloak, or the ( i think) cyclops for the jboots. Its just finding or doing something so rare that when done or found it puts you in a top 5% of pop who have found/discover it .
Also just being different. Most of todays mmos everyone looks or has the same stuff. I remem seeing ppl running around with epic weapons or 1.5/2.0 versions and being like " WOW he has an epic weapon thats so cool" ,Cuz it wasnt every day you see one.
Comments
I miss when all the old jaded people remembered how to enjoy themselves in a game.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Building a castle, defending it, throwing parties online.
Sure it's nerdness to the max, but I am what I am.
a yo ho ho
Agree .. was going to post something similar, for me it was the wonder and feeling (and community) looking back objectivley, games really have progressed in a lot of ways, and degenerated in others.
I think we forget a lot of the flaws of our old faves too, because of the fond memories.
That said, it seems much harder these days to find the same type of community bonding, from some of the old games, and gamers in general have become uber-impatient.
I miss gamers who played for the fun and immersion, not just a mad race to consume all content.
Well I would say stepping out and choosing where to go and what to do on a whim, but GW2 gives me that feeling everytime I play. I suppose that means I miss nothing now (well except maybe all the hours spent playing mmos
)!
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
The greatest thing I miss from old school MMOs?
------------------------------------------------------------------
The fact that I was younger back then.
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
1. The Community - In old games reputation mattered. Rude, dishonest and bad players did not get good groups. Players were not only nicer, but were more mature and better skiled players. Not afraid of time commitments or challenges. I recall when it was rare where a player would leave a pug group without givingt he group an hour notice before leaveing and usually finding a replacement for his spot. Players had much better commincation skills as they talked in something close to actual sentences rather todays jibberish. People helped strangers, gretted new people and would even gasp send a person a tell before sending a random invite to group.
2. Ones level actually had meaning. If you saw a level 50 you assumed they knew how to play their class. Not hitting max level the first few days of release.
3. Consequences for bad play. Actual penalties forbad play. I recall meeting two people on an lt in EQ1 they were both level 158or so and they explained to me they had bith been level 18 for 3 months as they could not gain expereince faster than they were lsoing it by dying. I played with them for awhile and found out why but despite the detahs I did not drop the group. I just tried to help them not die as much.
4. Sandbox type aspects like city building and community events.
5. The need to actually plan a character before making one. Where bad choices could result in a gimped character.
^^^
This
Honestly, when I think over my "nostalgia" of the old school MMOs, deeply, I certainly do not miss most of the things associated with them. Everquest was the first MMO which I devoted years and years to, but when I think about what I actually DID in the game, there's no way in hell I would ever play a game even remotely similiar to it again. I think I spent 80% of my in game time over those years of playing with my character just sitting and regaining mana....
No, old school MMOs were far inferior games to what we have today. What makes them great, in hindsight, is the nostalgia. And what made them great before we understood just how bad alot of the mechanics were was the fact that they were new experiences and invoked feelings of wonderment that we never had in a game before. Honestly, the only actual non-nostolgic thing which old school MMOs did better than many of the MMOs today is how they fostered a good community. One could argue that is more a factor of the community being far smaller and less mainstream than anything to do with the games.
In the case of MMOs, nostalgia is a funny thing. Because if you really, truly do miss those old school games, a whole lot of them are still operational....you could be playing them if you wanted to.
How much of that "racing" mentality is the fault of the gamers though? I suspect much of it is because the current generation of games literally trains them to be that way and most people just don't step back and say "Hey, I play games for FUN, dammit!"
people who dont run away from tanks when having agro.
there was a simple rule back in the days, you have agro? move your ass to the tank.
"believe me, mike.. i calculated the odds of this working against the odds that i was doing something incredibly stupid and i did it anyway!"
Now days the mmorpg industri have removed that becouse now the mmorpg industri is big business and here come the economics who cant think outside of a spreadsheet, even if it would get them more cash (ROI).
Player owned houses (NOT instanced)
PS been playing from the 80's mmorpg, muds and I do smile when some one says its a WoW clone as then they give out there actauly a true 'Newbie.
I miss the sheer scale of the old MMO's, the massive part of MMO. Current games restrict us too much with their 20 or 25 man instances. I remember when EQ brought out the epic weapons and 120 some mages went up to Plane of Sky to raid for one of the rare drops.
Same goes for PvP, with BG's only allowing small numbers. DAoC allowed for hundreds of players to take part, and while GW2 has gone some of the way to replicating that I don't think they've quite cracked it yet, given the queue times some people have been experiencing.
I also think that the older games had a more polite playerbase. Maybe that's an age thing and maybe not but I definately find todays MMO crowd more abusive than 10 or 15 years ago. This leads to a lack of community, something that these types of games should be encouraging as much as possible.
living in a world not a level.
In EQ i lived in the world of norrath and adventured, explores, worked on the grind be it levelling or crafting or even repuatation. being able to solo mobs at the start of a zone and still have a chance of a rare dropping.
Rare items!
Rare items lived up to the name. Schimitar of the mistwalker was a sought after extremely rare weapon for a Ranger. it wasnt a case of killing a mob and it would drop, the mob was rare due to it taking a week to repop after being killed, then the item was a rare for the rare mob. so back in the day not many existed. play a game today and it's usually just a case of killing the same boss at the end of a dungeon a few times and you will either get your drop or it will be awarded as a quest reward.
No maps!
My one and completely obsessive single thing I miss about old school mmo(s) is actual travel methods. In detail, I miss the boat rides in EQ1. That is literally the thing I miss the most. There was always methods of downtime fun that I would do between spawn camps I hung out at, and the main one was riding a ship from one point of the world to the other.
I've talked about it for years and no game has ever even attempted it. I miss that so much.
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes
Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge
Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
For me? Nothing.
To expand on that. What I do miss is any sense of progression in the way MMO's are designed in recent years. Most new titles feel like clones of clones of clones of clones. The skin may be different but on the inside it's still the same as what has come before. What I would like to see are new MMO's in the future that don't try and copy what has come before. But actually try something new. Ten years ago for instance. You had a new generation of MMO's allt rying new game mechanics and concepts. Some of them survived to become the massive titles we know today. Others failed and others died a slow death over time.
What I'm trying to say is that developers mostly don't seem to be in the innovation business any more. It's the demogrpahic and money making business. Cater to the widest audience possible based on what has been most popular in the apst. Rather than trying to do new things and trailblaze new standards in MMO design.
One can only hope if this trend will decline long run.
finding that 1 rare mob that spawns like once a week/month. Eq i remem camping that snow griffon for the eyepatch of plunder, or the pegasus for the cloak, or the ( i think) cyclops for the jboots. Its just finding or doing something so rare that when done or found it puts you in a top 5% of pop who have found/discover it .
Also just being different. Most of todays mmos everyone looks or has the same stuff. I remem seeing ppl running around with epic weapons or 1.5/2.0 versions and being like " WOW he has an epic weapon thats so cool" ,Cuz it wasnt every day you see one.