op:gw2 is a hard mmo!pphi brain puzzle hunting alone will keep you entertained for month(if they stay like they are(level 15 ish)since this is arenanet we re talking about here ,highly unlikly the phi brain puzzle area will stay static .and eve wwhen they do hope that your area is empty because if you are doing a phi brain puzzle area and it is close enough from the ground not to die you can be sure respawn rate is ballistic at minimum.i know i died a feww time in surprise because i had killed an ice golem and suddenly everything spawn at an insane pace ,i am like wtf.and when i die at bottom i see the group coming to my zone (10 player)aahhh that why respawn quickenend soo much lol!in my view gw2 is a true mmo!
MMORPGs these days are like footraces where all of your opponents are drooling savages. It's depressing just to do. The stupidly easy content, completely unenjoyable and formulated, why would anyone think this is a good idea? It seems like you're working towards something but what? If a game isn't fun you put it down. Classic WoW was fun, classic EQ was fun. Both were built on the idea that players were playing to enjoy and experience the world. Building an MMORPG like a tiered pyramid with the early game here and the end game there is designing by numbers not by thought. Developers these days don't seem to understand the history of MUDs and MMOS. The 'end game' was just an indulgence for a very worldly playerbase. Never has a good MMORPG been designed with the end game in mind, not EQ, EQ2, FF XI, or WoW.
I agree about the hard RPG. In fact, with spoiler sites these days, MMORPGs need to be harder than ever, employing randomization in addition to the old tricks. That they aren't is a lack of good developers.
This is beyond wishful thinking, though. There will never be another good MMORPG. It's been, what, 7 years since WoW and EQ2? The failure of Vanguard was the nail in the coffin. If you've played Diablo III you will get a pretty good idea of the state of RPGs today. Games like that make modern WoW look good. These are dark, dark times indeed. The glory days of MMORPGs were far too short for most of us. I would have been playing non-stop back then had I known how things would turn out. 5 dozen RPGs today and every one of them is the damn same. Compare that to AC, UO, EQ, DAOC.
Originally posted by Salahudin I would pay a premium to buy and per month to get what the OP is describing... and that may be what developpers should look into. The current variety of mmos are geared for people living in their parents basement, or kids having their parents pay their subscriptions... If it costs a little more, then you better really want it... I for one, would be willing to pay more for something like what the OP is describing. I DO want difficulty, I don`t care how frustrating it is to the "average" player, charge me extra to make up for the loss...
I agree. For a very long time I had three paid SWG accounts, because the game had only one slot per account. $45 per month and I didn't even blink.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Meh, After i quit SWG pre-cu i was never really happy with any mmo's. I played WoW for a while but it was pretty boring. DarkFall released and i fell in love, but it had WAy too many underlying problems so i left it. Kinda as if i was dating Andriana Lima and after all the foreplay i pull off her panties and shes rockin a solid slong, Kind of a bummer.
Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now.
A short story of what was :
My first mmo was World of Warcraft. I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game. In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime. I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues. I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.
Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW. I was amazed that other real people were on my screen. I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar. It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.
Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream. This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell . Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks. Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day. I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.
World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features. None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.
Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people. Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok. Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue. We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice. It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!. Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new. We chatted, and they explained how to play. No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group. THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group. I knew my place as a Rogue. At the end I had four new friends. They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.
Now the point of all this :
Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true. But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.
1) easy, no dependence
2) auto group features
3) chain quest and cinematic
4) personal stories
5) cross realm crap
6) Kick-a-buddy feature
How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!
Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true. But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.
1) easy, no dependence
2) auto group features
3) chain quest and cinematic
4) personal stories
5) cross realm crap
6) Kick-a-buddy feature
How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!
What happened depends who you ask, but can take wow since thats your first game.
#1. People foreign to mmorpg have a hard time getting started in the game.
Blizz: Make the first levels a lot easier.
#2. People started to talk about how the game started at cap:
Blizz: Let's make levelling a lot quicker
#3. People complain that its hard to get groups for quests..
Blizz: Let's remove group quests
#4. People complain that it takes too much time to find people for dungeons.
Blizz: let's create a dungeon finder.
#5. People wants to see raid content but don't want to be part of a raid group
Blizz: Let's create a raid finder.
The effect is what you see in dungeon finders, people that cares about quick loot and there is little to no socializing in dungeons. If someone makes a mistake you kick them, and the game finds you a replacement. All the tools and current gameplay has removed the need for social interactions, and online games needs the social aspect to be interesting for more than three months
Although most people would disagree I feel a true MMO should'nt a themepark but a sandbox with PvP. I just feel that themeparks are glorified multiplayer games rather than true virtual worlds - which is something I feel MMOs should be. However the domination of themeparks shows that I am in a minority.
Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now.
A short story of what was :
My first mmo was World of Warcraft. I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game. In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime. I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues. I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.
Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW. I was amazed that other real people were on my screen. I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar. It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.
Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream. This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell . Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks. Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day. I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.
World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features. None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.
Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people. Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok. Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue. We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice. It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!. Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new. We chatted, and they explained how to play. No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group. THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group. I knew my place as a Rogue. At the end I had four new friends. They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.
Now the point of all this :
Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true. But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.
1) easy, no dependence
2) auto group features
3) chain quest and cinematic
4) personal stories
5) cross realm crap
6) Kick-a-buddy feature
How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!
I know exactly how you feel, even Vanilla WOW was a huge improvement over the communities I find in more modern MMO's.
I've given up pugging anymore, not worth the anxiety of screaming arses and getting kicked for making a mistake because you didn't learn the fights back in beta.
People call it nostaligia, but the communities back prior to 2006 were more forgiving, more helpful and more friendly. Things have definitely changed for the worse and your only real survival technique is to find a good group of guild mates to hang with to insulate you from the rest of the mostly broken community.
People don't believe me in this, but right now EVE has one of the best communities out there, once you learn the ground rules and how to integrate yourself into it. (I've had better conversations with pirates who killed me than those in recent MMO's)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now.
A short story of what was :
My first mmo was World of Warcraft. I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game. In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime. I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues. I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.
Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW. I was amazed that other real people were on my screen. I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar. It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.
Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream. This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell . Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks. Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day. I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.
World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features. None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.
Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people. Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok. Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue. We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice. It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!. Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new. We chatted, and they explained how to play. No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group. THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group. I knew my place as a Rogue. At the end I had four new friends. They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.
Now the point of all this :
Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true. But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.
1) easy, no dependence
2) auto group features
3) chain quest and cinematic
4) personal stories
5) cross realm crap
6) Kick-a-buddy feature
How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!
I know exactly how you feel, even Vanilla WOW was a huge improvement over the communities I find in more modern MMO's.
I've given up pugging anymore, not worth the anxiety of screaming arses and getting kicked for making a mistake because you didn't learn the fights back in beta.
People call it nostaligia, but the communities back prior to 2006 were more forgiving, more helpful and more friendly. Things have definitely changed for the worse and your only real survival technique is to find a good group of guild mates to hang with to insulate you from the rest of the mostly broken community.
People don't believe me in this, but right now EVE has one of the best communities out there, once you learn the ground rules and how to integrate yourself into it. (I've had better conversations with pirates who killed me than those in recent MMO's)
Next week I have to go to Germany for a month, when I come home I may give EVE another try. I know the learning curve is hard, and never gave in much of a chance with the trial.
So its a toss up between EVE and trying one a World of Warcraft free realm sites or both
Sorry but the idea that todays locust gameplayers go back to MMO's they have played is making me laugh. How many players here go back to a MMO they have not played for a few months? Todays players are locusts, they land at launch, eat all the content and are gone in two to three months. This behaviour is a result of design changes but feeds back on itself to ensure the "polished for launch but little end game" MMO model remains the only game in town.
And remember there are a lot of old school types on here and I still recon very few will say they do. How many of the Facebook generation do you think are playing games their mates moved on from two months back?
As for the OP, I tend to agree. I've been let down by every MMO I've played for the past few years, sadly culminating in my resubbing to World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot. But, even WoW has become a completely different game from when I really enjoyed it. The game is too easy.
I'd be, at least temporarily, happy with a Vanilla or Burning Crusade official server in WoW. (I don't like playing on EMU servers) It really grinds my gears that Blizzard is too greedy to even consider this. I feel like I supported a game, that they changed beyond recognition. It doesn't seem fair, but that's life.
It was basically Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying in a chat room, with a dungeon master guiding "players" (read: roleplayers) through an "adventure" (read: chat room about orcs, goblins, traps, etc.).
It was basically Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying in a chat room, with a dungeon master guiding "players" (read: roleplayers) through an "adventure" (read: chat room about orcs, goblins, traps, etc.).
MMO's evolved largely from MUD's.
MUDs were an entire genre of many games, yes.
The next sentence...well, lots of sloppy phrasing.
By 'chat room', I assume you mean 'text-based interface'. By 'dungeon master', I assume you mean 'an online staff of varying size, from one to dozens of 'game masters', either paid or volunteer'. "Roleplayers" means the same as "players", of course, though MUDs were the (last) genre in which a very high percentage of players still roleplayed. "Guiding...through an adventure" implies more hand-holding than ever (to my knowledge) took place in any MUD.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Although most people would disagree I feel a true MMO should'nt a themepark but a sandbox with PvP. I just feel that themeparks are glorified multiplayer games rather than true virtual worlds - which is something I feel MMOs should be. However the domination of themeparks shows that I am in a minority.
Both Themepark and Sandboxes are MMOs in their own right. It is just themeparks are the bigger titles, and easier to monetize, so we see them featured a lot more than sandbox MMOs.
While I agree with the OP and would love to have an 'old school' MMO, the gaming community has changed so much that it's just not as viable anymore from a business standpoint.
Honestly, disregarding the current attempts, I think the only way any "innovative", "oldschool", or whatever buzzword gets thrown around nowadays MMOs will be created is when it isn't so damn expensive to make one in the first place.
Seriously, these things are monstrous money munchers compared to other genres; it's no bloody surprise that big devs tend to play safe, excluding things like incompetence, corporate meddling, and other stuff people "discuss" about.
Yeah, sure, I'm with you, more of a virtual world, more of a challenge, more socialization mechanics etc etc.
Along with you and me and perhaps 500K of our friends it still isn't enough of an audience to encourage a AAA developer to sink 100M plus into such a design, so don't get your hopes up.
What we really need is for a large size indie title to hit the big time, much like CCP did with EVE.
Which as crazy as it may seem is why I'm going to support DF:UW, despite my misgivings with some of the game mechanics.
I think part of what the OP is asking for is that we don't need all thse bells and whistles that these companies are spending the millions on.....We just want a nice looking world where we work together to overcome......I see some people mentioned Vanguard and in some ways it does fit the bill, but it also is a technological piece of crap that still infuriates many......
I wonder, for how many people, Hard = grinding in the same spot, with a group, nearly risk free, for 4 hours to get a level.
Hard for me, is, sure you can level up to max level in a day (an extreme example), but say, in group content, if everyone doesnt do their job near perfect, you wipe, and no ammount of banging your head against the wall will help you complete it if everyone isnt on their A game.
Originally posted by smh_alot People like to forget that a lot of new mechanics and features were introduced as a solution for old problems and annoyances.
- Old school MMO gamers started to detest mob grinding for leveling. That's why MMO's like EQ2 and WoW introduced quest based leveling and advertised it.
- Old school MMO gamers started to get fed up with enforced grouping and sometimes hour(s) long waits to do anything fun, so solo based leveling got expanded upon.
- Harsh death penalties, long travel times, even if they helped give that vibe of a dangerous, vast world, there was a reason that they were gotten rid of in follow-up MMO's, and that's because a lot of the old school MMO gamers disliked them.
- Old school MMO gamers weren't happy with spot camping especially in dungeons, so instanced dungeons were introduced, all to yourself and your group.
You can get rid of those features, from quests to instanced dungeons etc, but they were introduced as solutions to problems that people had in the first place, and they were received with relief and satisfaction by old school MMO gamers when these features first got introduced.
If the issues with the old mechanics weren't regarded as annoyances and problems in the first place, those new features would never have been introduced and happily welcomed by (a very large part of) that first generation of MMO gamers in the first place.
So I wonder how an MMO that got rid of all those features again and is made like an oldschool MMO will truly do, and if the first generation MMO gamers that are now pining for such an MMO would be happy or if they'd realize how much they disliked those issues and annoyances for which a lot of later features were one possible solution for. AFter all, MMO games like Vanguard or the EQ classic servers that take you back to that oldschool MMO gaming were minimally successful as well.
I'm an old school gamer and all the things you mentioned getting rid of I loved, and that's why I don't even bother playing MMO's anymore. MMO's imo should be something you look at playing for the next 2+ years of your life. It isn't a genre made for casuals, but somehow casuals started getting into it. Now we have nothing but trash year after year, and all the casuals are living in paradise talking down to old school gamers like we don't know what we really want. I'll tell you what I want. A game that doesn't cater to 12 year old snot nosed brats by giving them everything they demand and no consquences for their actions. I want a game that I hate as much as I love because that is what it takes to create worthwhile memories.
Think about all the experiences in your life. You remember the good ones and the bad ones. Why bother remembering all the meh moments. Games today are so gd mundane and boring because there is nothing that illicits and emotional response wether it be good or bad. Because suffering through shitty days with your friends is a memory that is just as good as beating that final boss.
good luck finding a 'hard' mmo. devs these days are only about maximizing their investment and that means catering to as wide of an audience as possible.. despite their 'teen' or 'mature' ratings.. they know damn well that they are reaching for the 12 year olds as well.
good luck finding a social interaction dependent game too. others on here have asked for the exact opposite mmo.. a solo-able one. i agree that crossing servers detracts from social worth of a game and it also invites more hacks imo.
the truth is that we don't even seem to know what we want.. for every thread supporting one view, there are other opposing it. i guess in the end, we just want something to be fun again, like when all this mmo thing was new to us... hard to find in a clonewar mmo economy. funny thing is that when a dev company does make a different type of game, ev1 craps all over it and starts threads asking for things that are clone-like ( don't believe me? just look at any recent mmo's forums first couple months of threads that request wow-like changes) .. seems people actually want things to stay exactly the same.
good luck finding a 'hard' mmo. devs these days are only about maximizing their investment and that means catering to as wide of an audience as possible.. despite their 'teen' or 'mature' ratings.. they know damn well that they are reaching for the 12 year olds as well.
Just put in a difficulty setting. There are plenty of hard games .. like Diablo 3 (even has a PD mode). There is no reason why MMO cannot be hard (like hard mode raids).
good luck finding a social interaction dependent game too. others on here have asked for the exact opposite mmo.. a solo-able one. i agree that crossing servers detracts from social worth of a game and it also invites more hacks imo.
If people don't want to social, why force them? Socializiation is not the ONLY multiplayer interaction out there, you know.
the truth is that we don't even seem to know what we want.. for every thread supporting one view, there are other opposing it. i guess in the end, we just want something to be fun again, like when all this mmo thing was new to us... hard to find in a clonewar mmo economy. funny thing is that when a dev company does make a different type of game, ev1 craps all over it and starts threads asking for things that are clone-like ( don't believe me? just look at any recent mmo's forums first couple months of threads that request wow-like changes) .. seems people actually want things to stay exactly the same.
There is no "we". Different people like different games. That is why there are genres and sub-genres.
Comments
MMORPGs these days are like footraces where all of your opponents are drooling savages. It's depressing just to do. The stupidly easy content, completely unenjoyable and formulated, why would anyone think this is a good idea? It seems like you're working towards something but what? If a game isn't fun you put it down. Classic WoW was fun, classic EQ was fun. Both were built on the idea that players were playing to enjoy and experience the world. Building an MMORPG like a tiered pyramid with the early game here and the end game there is designing by numbers not by thought. Developers these days don't seem to understand the history of MUDs and MMOS. The 'end game' was just an indulgence for a very worldly playerbase. Never has a good MMORPG been designed with the end game in mind, not EQ, EQ2, FF XI, or WoW.
I agree about the hard RPG. In fact, with spoiler sites these days, MMORPGs need to be harder than ever, employing randomization in addition to the old tricks. That they aren't is a lack of good developers.
This is beyond wishful thinking, though. There will never be another good MMORPG. It's been, what, 7 years since WoW and EQ2? The failure of Vanguard was the nail in the coffin. If you've played Diablo III you will get a pretty good idea of the state of RPGs today. Games like that make modern WoW look good. These are dark, dark times indeed. The glory days of MMORPGs were far too short for most of us. I would have been playing non-stop back then had I known how things would turn out. 5 dozen RPGs today and every one of them is the damn same. Compare that to AC, UO, EQ, DAOC.
I agree. For a very long time I had three paid SWG accounts, because the game had only one slot per account. $45 per month and I didn't even blink.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Meh, After i quit SWG pre-cu i was never really happy with any mmo's. I played WoW for a while but it was pretty boring. DarkFall released and i fell in love, but it had WAy too many underlying problems so i left it. Kinda as if i was dating Andriana Lima and after all the foreplay i pull off her panties and shes rockin a solid slong, Kind of a bummer.
...Annyyywhooo I'm looking forward to
Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now.
A short story of what was :
My first mmo was World of Warcraft. I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game. In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime. I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues. I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.
Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW. I was amazed that other real people were on my screen. I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar. It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.
Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream. This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell
. Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks. Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day. I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.
World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features. None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.
Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people. Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok. Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue. We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice. It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!. Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new. We chatted, and they explained how to play. No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group. THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group. I knew my place as a Rogue. At the end I had four new friends. They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.
Now the point of all this :
Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true. But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.
1) easy, no dependence
2) auto group features
3) chain quest and cinematic
4) personal stories
5) cross realm crap
6) Kick-a-buddy feature
How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!
What happened depends who you ask, but can take wow since thats your first game.
#1. People foreign to mmorpg have a hard time getting started in the game.
Blizz: Make the first levels a lot easier.
#2. People started to talk about how the game started at cap:
Blizz: Let's make levelling a lot quicker
#3. People complain that its hard to get groups for quests..
Blizz: Let's remove group quests
#4. People complain that it takes too much time to find people for dungeons.
Blizz: let's create a dungeon finder.
#5. People wants to see raid content but don't want to be part of a raid group
Blizz: Let's create a raid finder.
The effect is what you see in dungeon finders, people that cares about quick loot and there is little to no socializing in dungeons. If someone makes a mistake you kick them, and the game finds you a replacement. All the tools and current gameplay has removed the need for social interactions, and online games needs the social aspect to be interesting for more than three months
Although most people would disagree I feel a true MMO should'nt a themepark but a sandbox with PvP. I just feel that themeparks are glorified multiplayer games rather than true virtual worlds - which is something I feel MMOs should be. However the domination of themeparks shows that I am in a minority.
I know exactly how you feel, even Vanilla WOW was a huge improvement over the communities I find in more modern MMO's.
I've given up pugging anymore, not worth the anxiety of screaming arses and getting kicked for making a mistake because you didn't learn the fights back in beta.
People call it nostaligia, but the communities back prior to 2006 were more forgiving, more helpful and more friendly. Things have definitely changed for the worse and your only real survival technique is to find a good group of guild mates to hang with to insulate you from the rest of the mostly broken community.
People don't believe me in this, but right now EVE has one of the best communities out there, once you learn the ground rules and how to integrate yourself into it. (I've had better conversations with pirates who killed me than those in recent MMO's)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Next week I have to go to Germany for a month, when I come home I may give EVE another try. I know the learning curve is hard, and never gave in much of a chance with the trial.
So its a toss up between EVE and trying one a World of Warcraft free realm sites or both
Sorry but the idea that todays locust gameplayers go back to MMO's they have played is making me laugh. How many players here go back to a MMO they have not played for a few months? Todays players are locusts, they land at launch, eat all the content and are gone in two to three months. This behaviour is a result of design changes but feeds back on itself to ensure the "polished for launch but little end game" MMO model remains the only game in town.
And remember there are a lot of old school types on here and I still recon very few will say they do. How many of the Facebook generation do you think are playing games their mates moved on from two months back?
Ive been reading this forum and im glad we see this topic risen. Very good questions and points.
I have played UO (Im a Ultima Online fan myself), Shadowbane, WOW and Iam playing GW2 (thou im not THAT excited)
Someone mentioned Shadowbane etc, if there would be a sequel etc. Look what I just found:
http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/35170/changyou-ressuscite-shadowbane (translate from french to read) and check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane ( i didnt knew the MUD creator have design this game, MUD was a great game...)
Anyone remember MUD? Lol, that was a HARDCORE GAME!
ps: I really wish UO was back with better graphics, I dearly wish that. I miss this game so much...
Chears
Thanks a lot for this.
I registered for the BETA.
As for the OP, I tend to agree. I've been let down by every MMO I've played for the past few years, sadly culminating in my resubbing to World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot. But, even WoW has become a completely different game from when I really enjoyed it. The game is too easy.
I'd be, at least temporarily, happy with a Vanilla or Burning Crusade official server in WoW. (I don't like playing on EMU servers) It really grinds my gears that Blizzard is too greedy to even consider this. I feel like I supported a game, that they changed beyond recognition. It doesn't seem fair, but that's life.
MUD was a genre. It was not a game.
It was basically Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying in a chat room, with a dungeon master guiding "players" (read: roleplayers) through an "adventure" (read: chat room about orcs, goblins, traps, etc.).
MMO's evolved largely from MUD's.
MUDs were an entire genre of many games, yes.
The next sentence...well, lots of sloppy phrasing.
By 'chat room', I assume you mean 'text-based interface'. By 'dungeon master', I assume you mean 'an online staff of varying size, from one to dozens of 'game masters', either paid or volunteer'. "Roleplayers" means the same as "players", of course, though MUDs were the (last) genre in which a very high percentage of players still roleplayed. "Guiding...through an adventure" implies more hand-holding than ever (to my knowledge) took place in any MUD.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Both Themepark and Sandboxes are MMOs in their own right. It is just themeparks are the bigger titles, and easier to monetize, so we see them featured a lot more than sandbox MMOs.
Thanks,
Mike
Working on Social Strategy MMORTS (now Launched!) http://www.worldalpha.com
Honestly, disregarding the current attempts, I think the only way any "innovative", "oldschool", or whatever buzzword gets thrown around nowadays MMOs will be created is when it isn't so damn expensive to make one in the first place.
Seriously, these things are monstrous money munchers compared to other genres; it's no bloody surprise that big devs tend to play safe, excluding things like incompetence, corporate meddling, and other stuff people "discuss" about.
I think part of what the OP is asking for is that we don't need all thse bells and whistles that these companies are spending the millions on.....We just want a nice looking world where we work together to overcome......I see some people mentioned Vanguard and in some ways it does fit the bill, but it also is a technological piece of crap that still infuriates many......
I wonder, for how many people, Hard = grinding in the same spot, with a group, nearly risk free, for 4 hours to get a level.
Hard for me, is, sure you can level up to max level in a day (an extreme example), but say, in group content, if everyone doesnt do their job near perfect, you wipe, and no ammount of banging your head against the wall will help you complete it if everyone isnt on their A game.
I'm an old school gamer and all the things you mentioned getting rid of I loved, and that's why I don't even bother playing MMO's anymore. MMO's imo should be something you look at playing for the next 2+ years of your life. It isn't a genre made for casuals, but somehow casuals started getting into it. Now we have nothing but trash year after year, and all the casuals are living in paradise talking down to old school gamers like we don't know what we really want. I'll tell you what I want. A game that doesn't cater to 12 year old snot nosed brats by giving them everything they demand and no consquences for their actions. I want a game that I hate as much as I love because that is what it takes to create worthwhile memories.
Think about all the experiences in your life. You remember the good ones and the bad ones. Why bother remembering all the meh moments. Games today are so gd mundane and boring because there is nothing that illicits and emotional response wether it be good or bad. Because suffering through shitty days with your friends is a memory that is just as good as beating that final boss.
good luck finding a 'hard' mmo. devs these days are only about maximizing their investment and that means catering to as wide of an audience as possible.. despite their 'teen' or 'mature' ratings.. they know damn well that they are reaching for the 12 year olds as well.
good luck finding a social interaction dependent game too. others on here have asked for the exact opposite mmo.. a solo-able one. i agree that crossing servers detracts from social worth of a game and it also invites more hacks imo.
the truth is that we don't even seem to know what we want.. for every thread supporting one view, there are other opposing it. i guess in the end, we just want something to be fun again, like when all this mmo thing was new to us... hard to find in a clonewar mmo economy. funny thing is that when a dev company does make a different type of game, ev1 craps all over it and starts threads asking for things that are clone-like ( don't believe me? just look at any recent mmo's forums first couple months of threads that request wow-like changes) .. seems people actually want things to stay exactly the same.