I think the reasons that tight community aren't a common occurence anymore is quite simple and isn't simply caused by the change of generation. The developpers made decisions that brought this obvious change.
The developers brought this change because of player demand. And i don't believe people want the "old community" that much. I think people just want to play a assessible fun game, and sometimes with no string attached.
I think this is a case of "be careful what you wish for". I watched the players demand the changes that made leveling faster, grouping unnecessary, loot really matter. Then I watched those self-same players bitch and moan about it.
I liked my game as it was. I could, just as easily as today, log in for an hour and have fun. Sure, i might not have leveled, might not have made a crap ton of gold, and probably wouldn't make a significant dent in my ex bar. But those weren't MY goals. My goals were to have some fun, kill some stuff, and catch up with my e-buddies.
But, I'm a bit weird. I didn't mind imbalanced classes, it just mean that I had to work around them. I didn't mind the non-game breaking bugs (like falling through the floor of Camelot and ending up in that fountain). I didn't mind being out numbered in PvP, or out played. And I didn't mind that there were some things I couldn't do unless I had friends to help.
Still don't
*edited because I can't spell "significant"
I don't have to be careful. I already got what i wish for. Diablo 3, WOW, DCUO, Borderlands 2 .... are all very assessible, co-op multiplayer games.
And i am perfectly fine having fun with them.
You never see me bitch and moan about fast grouping ... in fact, i said it many times, the only reason why i went bak to WOW, is because of LFR.
And loot only matters if you have a chance to get it. It does NOT matter to me if one piece takes 10 hours of camping, i just don't have that time.
You kind of proved my point.
As you said, you have exactly what you want, Multiplayer co-op games. That you put WoW, D3 and Borderlands2 in the same category, kind of makes me fear for the future of this genre...
While you are perfectly fine with that, a lot of us would love to have some aspects of our classic MMORPGs back. The social and political aspects that we used to see in MMORPGs was an extra layer of depth that many of us loved. It was more than a simple multiplayer co-op experience.
You also said in your previous post :
" I think people just want to play a assessible fun game, and sometimes with no string attached."
I agree, some people probably want that. There are TONS of game that give you that experience.
A lot of us would like something more, though.
Like it or not, genre changes. With more and more online games available, and people are divided into even more entertainment, it is hard to see many players would want to stick to just ONE game, and engage in the social aspect of just ONE game.
And yes, i do consider WOW, D3, and BL2 the same type of entertainment experience, whether they are "officially" in the same genre. The play styles are close enough.
But "fear" is a strong word. I never "fear" anything concerning entertainment. So genre changes and go away (for example, i love lock room mysteries, and they are no longer written in the US), but so what? It is not like there is a lack of entertainment.
In fact, if there is a "fear" for me, it is the lack of leisure time (it is not like i don't have a career and a family too) to enjoy all the entertainment that i like.
Case in point, just in the last week, there are TWO new games (BL2 and TL2) to play, a new novel (David Weber new Safehold novel) to read, and I am STILL playing Diablo 3. Something have to drop off .. my guess is that i am NOT playing MOP yet, and probably focus on BL2 and leave TL2 until i have time.
Originally posted by Wardop And as I admitted, it wasn't a utopian society, but black lists mattered to the majority of the players and guilds I interacted with. The community on the server I played on was smaller, you knew or heard of most of the people online with you. It was hard to be an asshat and get anywhere.
My experience was different, and I never really understood this social factor in MMOs. How was this list passed around? Was it an "in guild" kind of thingy? Not many people even read message boards.
I played EQ for about 3 years. Towards the end, I was in a guild. I don't recall ever seeing a "blacklist" or even hearing players mentioned by name on my server. Do I believe that there was a group of players who did keep track of this kind of stuff? I am sure there were.
After all is said and done, I would wager that less than half of the server's population could name the "biggest guild" on that server. Maybe they could and I am the anomaly. Wouldn't be the first time
I just find it hard to picture that a couple of hundred (imaginary number) players on a server knew everyone else and kept track. I would be most surprised if anyone else knew *my* character's name, outside of the few people I adventured with. I was not an ass-hat. I was not the "super great player." I was a mediocre player enjoying my time on-line.
It wasn't like that at all. It was about knowing your OWN blacklist so when a group formed for something, or you're in a group looking for that last member, you can tell your friends/guild/group about that guy that ninja'd your class-specific item when they were the wrong class so they could vendor it for a couple gold (or "for my alt when he's higher"). I love blacklists so I don't have to personally remember or write down the people I've had issues with ingame.
Everything that makes life easier reduces the importance of community. You only have to look at the evolution of cities to see that. Since you are talking goods we have gone from barter to shopping to using the internet. Now days you don't even have to see someone to buy something, let alone talk to them. We see the same thing in MMO's.
So it is all down to what type of MMO you want. Streamlined, so you reach end level and can move on to the next MMO or designed for players to have to interact, which makes it slower. But also gives the idea of multiplayer some meaning.
Originally posted by Wardop And as I admitted, it wasn't a utopian society, but black lists mattered to the majority of the players and guilds I interacted with. The community on the server I played on was smaller, you knew or heard of most of the people online with you. It was hard to be an asshat and get anywhere.
My experience was different, and I never really understood this social factor in MMOs. How was this list passed around? Was it an "in guild" kind of thingy? Not many people even read message boards.
I played EQ for about 3 years. Towards the end, I was in a guild. I don't recall ever seeing a "blacklist" or even hearing players mentioned by name on my server. Do I believe that there was a group of players who did keep track of this kind of stuff? I am sure there were.
After all is said and done, I would wager that less than half of the server's population could name the "biggest guild" on that server. Maybe they could and I am the anomaly. Wouldn't be the first time
I just find it hard to picture that a couple of hundred (imaginary number) players on a server knew everyone else and kept track. I would be most surprised if anyone else knew *my* character's name, outside of the few people I adventured with. I was not an ass-hat. I was not the "super great player." I was a mediocre player enjoying my time on-line.
That was my experience as well. IMO reputation just didn't matter to the majority, blacklists were routinely ignored. I woudl bet that only the tiniest percentage of players (in EQ anyway) 1. Ever even saw a blacklist, 2. Cared about the list or what people said in chat at all.
Most people just played in their group for the hour/day and that was it. Yes you did get to know a few people that but more than that? Not really, again except for a tiny few.
Again only a tiny tiny percentage saw any list or cared about reputation, or even knew more than a handfull of people.
We still managed to have a lot of fun though.
See we played from different perspectives. You were in a guild, I lead a guild. And an alliance. You interacted with a few people every day, I interacted with hundreds. If someone was an asshat, I was the one people came to to resove the issue. And, guild leaders talked to each other. If someone joined my guild, and had done something that got them kicked out of their last guild, their old guild leader would tell me about it. But this was also a time where a guild might ask for references from other people, require an application, or at least an interview to join. I didn't, but I knew a lot of guilds that did.
And guilds did things together, alliances did things together. We encouraged it. I'd have 4-5+ groups of people all focused on one task. Some silly, like our level 1 raid on Hib. Some serious like taking back all and repairing all of our keeps after a bad night of PvP. In my experience, hundreds of people did know who you were, because we encouraged hundreds of people to work together.
A black list wasn't necessarily an actual piece of paper I had sitting at my desk, there weren't ever enough people on it to have to keep an actual list.
Everything that makes life easier reduces the importance of community. You only have to look at the evolution of cities to see that. Since you are talking goods we have gone from barter to shopping to using the internet. Now days you don't even have to see someone to buy something, let alone talk to them. We see the same thing in MMO's.
So it is all down to what type of MMO you want. Streamlined, so you reach end level and can move on to the next MMO or designed for players to have to interact, which makes it slower. But also gives the idea of multiplayer some meaning.
And that is the way i like it.
When i am going shopping for a computer, i do NOT want to make friends with anyone working at the store. It is progress when i can search and find the item i want, and buy it with less fuzz, and no interaction with people.
It is the same thing in MMO. When i want to buy a sword, i do not want to spend time socialization with whoever selling the sword.
The MEANING of a AH is that you can interact with a LOT of sellers (or buyers) and find the best deals. That is why a AH is preferably to me. Other form of interaction, like chatting, provides me nothing in terms of meaning of interaction.
Everything that makes life easier reduces the importance of community. You only have to look at the evolution of cities to see that. Since you are talking goods we have gone from barter to shopping to using the internet. Now days you don't even have to see someone to buy something, let alone talk to them. We see the same thing in MMO's.
So it is all down to what type of MMO you want. Streamlined, so you reach end level and can move on to the next MMO or designed for players to have to interact, which makes it slower. But also gives the idea of multiplayer some meaning.
And that is the way i like it.
When i am going shopping for a computer, i do NOT want to make friends with anyone working at the store. It is progress when i can search and find the item i want, and buy it with less fuzz, and no interaction with people.
It is the same thing in MMO. When i want to buy a sword, i do not want to spend time socialization with whoever selling the sword.
The MEANING of a AH is that you can interact with a LOT of sellers (or buyers) and find the best deals. That is why a AH is preferably to me. Other form of interaction, like chatting, provides me nothing in terms of meaning of interaction.
And that's great. For you.
I, however, do my shopping in stores. I talk to the sales person. I joke and laugh and have a conversation with the sales person. I enjoy the interaction. When I come back to the store at a later date, the sales person remembers me and we interact again.
It's the same thing in MMO's. When I want to buy a sword, I want to spend time socializing with whoever is selling the sword.
The AH removed the need and the process that allowed/required you to interact with others. Those forms of interaction provided me with a contact to buy future swords from, or someone who might need to buy something I made some day. They might even have ended up as someone I would group up with later and go do stuff with. Those other forms of interaction, like chatting, provided me a lot in terms of meaning of interaction.
It's all a matter of taste. You like the automated process, I like the personal touch. Neither is better, I just miss having it. Even my favorite games added those things. A lot of people liked the convenience, but later wondered where the sense of community went.
Example: DAoC in the early days, the cities were filled with crafters selling their items by announcing they were online and taking orders. Price was kept in check because they weren't the only weapon crafter making Uber Sword of Bunnyslaughterness. You'd talk to a couple crafters, compare prices, negotiate a deal based on quality, and then talk to that guy while they tried to make your item.
Jump forward a few years and the automated system was put into play. Nearly overnight the cities emptied of anyone not training. People sat alone in their house and put finished products on their merchants. Buyers searched the merchants and bought what they wanted. No one said a word to each other about it.
I too don’t want to talk to someone when doing internet shopping. But when I am playing in a MMO I am not internet shopping. I am playing a online game with other players, I expect more interaction than you get from a NPC’s shop in a solo game.
Not having a AH does cause some problematic issues, but every form of gameplay you see in a MMO causes issues. A player driven economy makes the game more about the players, which makes them more involved in the MMO. If you have no auction house though I would argue for crafting being not so important on a day to day basis. So no degrading items etc. With no AH you want to stick to crafting making items people want but not so often that other gameplay is held up on a regular basis while you search for a player vendor. I know some would say degrading items is the key, for me restricting the quality of loot drops should be enough. It is a fine balance but then it always is with gameplay.
I miss the old crafting community in DAOC myself, back in those days I never really crafted until WoW. But they were great guys to chat to and on an alternative progression path that had its own intrinsic value.
I too don’t want to talk to someone when doing internet shopping. But when I am playing in a MMO I am not internet shopping. I am playing a online game with other players, I expect more interaction than you get from a NPC’s shop in a solo game.
Not having a AH does cause some problematic issues, but every form of gameplay you see in a MMO causes issues. A player driven economy makes the game more about the players, which makes them more involved in the MMO. If you have no auction house though I would argue for crafting being not so important on a day to day basis. So no degrading items etc. With no AH you want to stick to crafting making items people want but not so often that other gameplay is held up on a regular basis while you search for a player vendor. I know some would say degrading items is the key, for me restricting the quality of loot drops should be enough. It is a fine balance but then it always is with gameplay.
I miss the old crafting community in DAOC myself, back in those days I never really crafted until WoW. But they were great guys to chat to and on an alternative progression path that had its own intrinsic value.
I hated actually crafting in DAoC. Loved the guys who did.
I'm a t a toss up with degrading items. On one hand I liked it. It made sense that my sword would wear out and I'd have to buy a new one every so often. On the other, it was a royal pain in the ass at times to get that new one. I think I'd still take the old DAoC concept of hard crafting, degrading items, AND restricted quality of loot. It made me plan ahead a bit, or be forced to use something inferior until I could get my Uber Sword of Bunnyslaughtering made again.
I too don’t want to talk to someone when doing internet shopping. But when I am playing in a MMO I am not internet shopping. I am playing a online game with other players, I expect more interaction than you get from a NPC’s shop in a solo game.
Hmm .. when i am on the AH, i *am* doing internet shopping (not unlike ebay) for a virtual item. It is exactly that. You are buying something (abate using an in-game currency) from another person on the Internet. That is the DEFINITION of internet shopping.
And i don't want to talk to the person i buy something via the AH anymore than a Amazon representative.
Why should i?
Plus, there are so many items & players on the AH, there is no time to talk anyway. The point is to find a good deal of a virtual sword (or whatever item fancies you), NOT chat.
I, however, do my shopping in stores. I talk to the sales person. I joke and laugh and have a conversation with the sales person. I enjoy the interaction. When I come back to the store at a later date, the sales person remembers me and we interact again.
It's the same thing in MMO's. When I want to buy a sword, I want to spend time socializing with whoever is selling the sword.
Sure. You have your preference. I have mine. As long as i am not forced to talk to anyone when i buy something, it is fine with me.
The AH removed the need and the process that allowed/required you to interact with others. Those forms of interaction provided me with a contact to buy future swords from, or someone who might need to buy something I made some day. They might even have ended up as someone I would group up with later and go do stuff with. Those other forms of interaction, like chatting, provided me a lot in terms of meaning of interaction.
I don't need a contact to buy future swords from. The whole point of AH is to make a deep market so you can buy something when you want it. I don't want to maintain a contact list .. that is just work. And it is not like there is a shortage of swords on the AH, so you have to track down the person.
And when i want to group, i can either hit the LFD button, or pick someone from my friend list. Chatting is not the reason why i want to play a game.
It's all a matter of taste. You like the automated process, I like the personal touch. Neither is better, I just miss having it. Even my favorite games added those things. A lot of people liked the convenience, but later wondered where the sense of community went.
Sure. But why would you miss it? There are full of people in a MMO city. If you want to chat, go chat. No one is stopping you. There is a reason why this "sense of community" is not important to many. If it is, AH and grouping features would not be so popular.
Originally posted by Wardop I cut my MMO teeth on Dark Age of Camelot about a decade ago, so my opinion is naturally biased(I'm not talking DAoC post TOA in this little rant). I played WoW off and on over the years(have never level capped WoW, just can't bring myself to play that long), played a lot of EvE, and a few other titles for a couple months here and there. But my MMO love will always be DAoC.
It was a different time in MMO gaming then. Community mattered, guilds mattered, and your guild leader was someone who wanted to lead, not just someone who thought they made up a cool sounding name. All that 'end game' crap everyone complains about non-stop? Yeah, your guild/alliance leaders provided that. Loot was something to be shared, not something to be horded and bickered over. And we played in groups, not because the content required it, but because it was fun to get to know other people between pulls. Yes, you had the occasional asshat, but they were blacklisted instead of celebrated.
In short, we played to have fun, to hang with our friends, and kill crap. If you got a cool glowy sword out of the deal: Bonus!
(I remember going on a dragon raid once with my alliance. I had a serise of really bad rolls and won no loot at all. I wasn't upset by it, didn't say a word about it, but the raid leader sent me a whisper and asked if I had gotten anything. I told him I hadn't, but it wasn't a big deal. He said, "Everyone gets something on my raids" and traded me some piece of crap drop that no one would have wanted for anything other than vendor fodder. It was glowy and pretty, but the sword I had was "better". Even though the sword was worth nothing as far as stats or usability, I still remember it years later.)
I'm not saying it was a utopian society or anything. We fought and bickered. Guilds hated each other, guild mates hated each other. You had elitist pricks and nubs like me who wanted to be elitist pricks someday. But, a vast majority of the people you ran into would at least talk to you. Yes, the game itself was buggy and poorly balanced and we bitched and whined about it as well. And if you didn't have a buff bot(a second account used solely for giving yourself buffs), you'd better give your guild cleric/shaman/druid a weekly reach-round.
As much as I miss the social aspects that I find lacking in today's games, I miss not winning the most. Maybe I'm one of those rare video game masochists, but I didn't mind that it took me forever to get my first level 50. I didn't mind having to sit and wait for my mana/heath/endurance to regen after a fight or 2. It gave me time to talk to my guild, to plan events, to buff or heal or (heaven forbid) help that guy next to me having a bitch of a time with a bad pull. I didn't mind that, if I messed up and died, that there was a consequence for it. To me, these things added a sense of realism to a world of swords and magic in which resurrection miracles were a common occurrence.
I mean, If I just swung that giant sword 30 times to kill a Mystical Bunny of Doom, I'd want to sit down before attacking the next one too.
(Oh and speaking of giant swords... For the love of all things holy, give me a sword that is proportionate to my charcater again.)
And I want PvP again, not what passes for PvP. I want a persistent, on going, never ending struggle. I don't want a timed match, or to slaughter my enemies by gaining more points. I want to slaughter my enemies by slaughtering my damned enemies. I don't care if its just me and Bob against 30,000 rampaging trolls. Bob and I will die; horribly, repeatedly, and with great prejudice. But that's ok. Next time I'll bring more friends( and Bob is useless anyway). Until then Bob and I will laugh and boast that it took every last one of those 30,000 tolls to take us down.
Darkfall: Unholy Wars.
It's brutal high skill PvP, very team work oriented mass PvP, and tons o fun. Some farming will be required and there will be much raging and epic fights. The consequences are the ultimate, you lost everything you had on you. It stays on your tombstone until someone(or you) come and pick it off the stone.
I come from your same background, and hated post-ToA. Darkfall was a lot of fun on release and only died because the population did. If they do Unholy Wars half as well as the original Darkfall release you will not waste your time on the game.
So much about an MMO depends on who you are playing it with. I have had some really good times in WOW and that was mostly due to playing it and raiding with some really cool pepole. The leveling up to max level, we just kinda chatted with each other in guild chat. Then we got to play the game together and run dungeons and raids together and I got a little bit of that old feeling. I met some great people that I still keep in touch with, but it still doesn't hold a candle to the fun I had in EQ and DAOC back in those days.
The "black" lists are kinda like the "black" market. There's no real list, just word of mouth. There were people that my guild in EQ1 on Emarr knew and actually whole guilds that we would avoid and knew about. If you were in lower guk on Emarr back in the day and someone came down there with the Ebonlore guild tag, you knew that they would try to train you out of your camp. I still remember their guild leaders name all these years later.
Maybe one day a game like that will come again. Maybe it will be EQN. I don't know, I'm not holding my breath. I know it's fun to start out fresh in a new huge world. It's fun to be lost in this world and not be able to crush most all the enemies around you. The feeling of danger is ... euphoric at times. Then once you find people to help you thru these challenges and experience the game with, from go, the feeling of comradery is amazing.
Fingers crossed that we get something like that again one day.
Comments
Like it or not, genre changes. With more and more online games available, and people are divided into even more entertainment, it is hard to see many players would want to stick to just ONE game, and engage in the social aspect of just ONE game.
And yes, i do consider WOW, D3, and BL2 the same type of entertainment experience, whether they are "officially" in the same genre. The play styles are close enough.
But "fear" is a strong word. I never "fear" anything concerning entertainment. So genre changes and go away (for example, i love lock room mysteries, and they are no longer written in the US), but so what? It is not like there is a lack of entertainment.
In fact, if there is a "fear" for me, it is the lack of leisure time (it is not like i don't have a career and a family too) to enjoy all the entertainment that i like.
Case in point, just in the last week, there are TWO new games (BL2 and TL2) to play, a new novel (David Weber new Safehold novel) to read, and I am STILL playing Diablo 3. Something have to drop off .. my guess is that i am NOT playing MOP yet, and probably focus on BL2 and leave TL2 until i have time.
It wasn't like that at all. It was about knowing your OWN blacklist so when a group formed for something, or you're in a group looking for that last member, you can tell your friends/guild/group about that guy that ninja'd your class-specific item when they were the wrong class so they could vendor it for a couple gold (or "for my alt when he's higher"). I love blacklists so I don't have to personally remember or write down the people I've had issues with ingame.
Everything that makes life easier reduces the importance of community. You only have to look at the evolution of cities to see that. Since you are talking goods we have gone from barter to shopping to using the internet. Now days you don't even have to see someone to buy something, let alone talk to them. We see the same thing in MMO's.
So it is all down to what type of MMO you want. Streamlined, so you reach end level and can move on to the next MMO or designed for players to have to interact, which makes it slower. But also gives the idea of multiplayer some meaning.
See we played from different perspectives. You were in a guild, I lead a guild. And an alliance. You interacted with a few people every day, I interacted with hundreds. If someone was an asshat, I was the one people came to to resove the issue. And, guild leaders talked to each other. If someone joined my guild, and had done something that got them kicked out of their last guild, their old guild leader would tell me about it. But this was also a time where a guild might ask for references from other people, require an application, or at least an interview to join. I didn't, but I knew a lot of guilds that did.
And guilds did things together, alliances did things together. We encouraged it. I'd have 4-5+ groups of people all focused on one task. Some silly, like our level 1 raid on Hib. Some serious like taking back all and repairing all of our keeps after a bad night of PvP. In my experience, hundreds of people did know who you were, because we encouraged hundreds of people to work together.
A black list wasn't necessarily an actual piece of paper I had sitting at my desk, there weren't ever enough people on it to have to keep an actual list.
And that is the way i like it.
When i am going shopping for a computer, i do NOT want to make friends with anyone working at the store. It is progress when i can search and find the item i want, and buy it with less fuzz, and no interaction with people.
It is the same thing in MMO. When i want to buy a sword, i do not want to spend time socialization with whoever selling the sword.
The MEANING of a AH is that you can interact with a LOT of sellers (or buyers) and find the best deals. That is why a AH is preferably to me. Other form of interaction, like chatting, provides me nothing in terms of meaning of interaction.
I, however, do my shopping in stores. I talk to the sales person. I joke and laugh and have a conversation with the sales person. I enjoy the interaction. When I come back to the store at a later date, the sales person remembers me and we interact again.
It's the same thing in MMO's. When I want to buy a sword, I want to spend time socializing with whoever is selling the sword.
The AH removed the need and the process that allowed/required you to interact with others. Those forms of interaction provided me with a contact to buy future swords from, or someone who might need to buy something I made some day. They might even have ended up as someone I would group up with later and go do stuff with. Those other forms of interaction, like chatting, provided me a lot in terms of meaning of interaction.
It's all a matter of taste. You like the automated process, I like the personal touch. Neither is better, I just miss having it. Even my favorite games added those things. A lot of people liked the convenience, but later wondered where the sense of community went.
Example: DAoC in the early days, the cities were filled with crafters selling their items by announcing they were online and taking orders. Price was kept in check because they weren't the only weapon crafter making Uber Sword of Bunnyslaughterness. You'd talk to a couple crafters, compare prices, negotiate a deal based on quality, and then talk to that guy while they tried to make your item.
Jump forward a few years and the automated system was put into play. Nearly overnight the cities emptied of anyone not training. People sat alone in their house and put finished products on their merchants. Buyers searched the merchants and bought what they wanted. No one said a word to each other about it.
I too don’t want to talk to someone when doing internet shopping. But when I am playing in a MMO I am not internet shopping. I am playing a online game with other players, I expect more interaction than you get from a NPC’s shop in a solo game.
Not having a AH does cause some problematic issues, but every form of gameplay you see in a MMO causes issues. A player driven economy makes the game more about the players, which makes them more involved in the MMO. If you have no auction house though I would argue for crafting being not so important on a day to day basis. So no degrading items etc. With no AH you want to stick to crafting making items people want but not so often that other gameplay is held up on a regular basis while you search for a player vendor. I know some would say degrading items is the key, for me restricting the quality of loot drops should be enough. It is a fine balance but then it always is with gameplay.
I miss the old crafting community in DAOC myself, back in those days I never really crafted until WoW. But they were great guys to chat to and on an alternative progression path that had its own intrinsic value.
I hated actually crafting in DAoC. Loved the guys who did.
I'm a t a toss up with degrading items. On one hand I liked it. It made sense that my sword would wear out and I'd have to buy a new one every so often. On the other, it was a royal pain in the ass at times to get that new one. I think I'd still take the old DAoC concept of hard crafting, degrading items, AND restricted quality of loot. It made me plan ahead a bit, or be forced to use something inferior until I could get my Uber Sword of Bunnyslaughtering made again.
Hmm .. when i am on the AH, i *am* doing internet shopping (not unlike ebay) for a virtual item. It is exactly that. You are buying something (abate using an in-game currency) from another person on the Internet. That is the DEFINITION of internet shopping.
And i don't want to talk to the person i buy something via the AH anymore than a Amazon representative.
Why should i?
Plus, there are so many items & players on the AH, there is no time to talk anyway. The point is to find a good deal of a virtual sword (or whatever item fancies you), NOT chat.
Darkfall: Unholy Wars.
It's brutal high skill PvP, very team work oriented mass PvP, and tons o fun. Some farming will be required and there will be much raging and epic fights. The consequences are the ultimate, you lost everything you had on you. It stays on your tombstone until someone(or you) come and pick it off the stone.
I come from your same background, and hated post-ToA. Darkfall was a lot of fun on release and only died because the population did. If they do Unholy Wars half as well as the original Darkfall release you will not waste your time on the game.
Sennheiser
Assist
Thage
I couldn't have typed it better myself OP.
So much about an MMO depends on who you are playing it with. I have had some really good times in WOW and that was mostly due to playing it and raiding with some really cool pepole. The leveling up to max level, we just kinda chatted with each other in guild chat. Then we got to play the game together and run dungeons and raids together and I got a little bit of that old feeling. I met some great people that I still keep in touch with, but it still doesn't hold a candle to the fun I had in EQ and DAOC back in those days.
The "black" lists are kinda like the "black" market. There's no real list, just word of mouth. There were people that my guild in EQ1 on Emarr knew and actually whole guilds that we would avoid and knew about. If you were in lower guk on Emarr back in the day and someone came down there with the Ebonlore guild tag, you knew that they would try to train you out of your camp. I still remember their guild leaders name all these years later.
Maybe one day a game like that will come again. Maybe it will be EQN. I don't know, I'm not holding my breath. I know it's fun to start out fresh in a new huge world. It's fun to be lost in this world and not be able to crush most all the enemies around you. The feeling of danger is ... euphoric at times. Then once you find people to help you thru these challenges and experience the game with, from go, the feeling of comradery is amazing.
Fingers crossed that we get something like that again one day.