Originally posted by Roxtarr For many supposedly 'hardcore vets' hard = an insane amount of time. Also, by 'hard' they actually meant confusing (easy, but not obvious). The only thing that was 'hard' about some of the classic mmo's was coping with having no friends, job or life outside of the game.
Well, it's true, early MMO's were designed for players with an abundance of the character traits (dare I call them skills?) of patience, perseverence and persistence, which of course, not really that many players are wired for.
I actually think modern MMO's deliver exactly the quick in and out experience that the majority of the player base favors, it's only the players who wished for a longer term experience in their MMORPGs that really are getting shortchanged.
What you call a timesink, I call gameplay mechanics and we just differ on what they should be and what makes a game "fun" ( a truly over used and misunderstood term if there ever was one)
True, so I do stand partially corrected in that regard.
The reason I play MMO's is because of the long-term reward of knowing that I've invested in a character and have something to show for it that I am proud of. Time is required, no doubt. I think you are right that patience and endurance are qualities that should be rewarded and can add difficulty to the mix. Sadly, these are not proving to be profitable skills to reward if you talk to most of today's developers. I'm not saying I like it, I'm simply making an observation.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
The problem is most modern mmo players actually HATE what mmorpgs used to stand for.
I will not defend wether it was worse or better but the point is those games were our type of games and now they have been shifted into something else for a whole different kind of customer, as opposed to making diff games for both groups.
The more challenging something is, the more people will try. Goals feel like victories instead of a checklist thats readily getting marked off. I remember playin the EQ way back in the day, whenever someone would level up they would shout "DING" and everyone in the zone would send them a congrats, because it was a big deal. Developers after that created new "ding" affects with lights and sound, then with leveling made easier it happens constantly.
The leveling example I put is just a small part of it. and developers still took that away. Another part is what WoW did with end game. Why not make the entire game with dungeons, places to explore, and "epic" mobs to defeat rather than waiting until after you've maxed your character so people don't feel that it's a must to be maxed out. Anyone remember LFG to kill crush? heck, that was waaay in the beginning and you didn't see people just leveling up and soloing that part did you? So much fun back then, too bad.
Wizardry Online my friend. Not the best looking mmo coming out, but definitely one of the "hardest". If your old school be sure to check it out.
Perma-death is not hard, it is stupid in an Internet game where you can have disconnections and lag not to mention just crashes. I would prefer the middle ground where dying stings but dont wipe your character.
The problem is most modern mmo players actually HATE what mmorpgs used to stand for.
I will not defend wether it was worse or better but the point is those games were our type of games and now they have been shifted into something else for a whole different kind of customer, as opposed to making diff games for both groups.
Originally posted by Rimmersman Originally posted by nate1980 Originally posted by xDayx Mmo's of old had more "depth" in my opinion, thus what seemed like being 'harder' wasn't harder. It just required more knowledge in the depth of the game than what today's mmo's do.let me give you an example...Lets say I'm a level 50 Bard in EQ1 and I wanted to go into the openworld dungeon Howling Stones. Aside from knowing your class and the fact that you needed certain instruments already (that weren't given to you from doing a quest that got put in front of you), and you know that your brass instrument skill is maxed(because you stayed logged all day in Firiona Vie playing your clarinet just to get your skill up). You are at the entrance and you know from trial and error that you have to wait for the named to circle around so you can twist levitate and invisibility and run just at the right time through one of the 3 holes in the ground and float down to a non-lethal spot so you can start picking off the mobs one at a time just to get to the outer chambers. Today's mmo developers would never create something that detailed again because they assume people don't want to focus on all that and want to teleport people right into instances now. Heck bards don't even use instruments or percussion skill ratings any longer. Developers also think people dont like death penalties or corpse runs any longer.Of course the people who started with WoW or after will disagree and the people who started with UO, EQ1, or AC will know what I'm talking about. So no they werent harder because of some difiiculty setting. The were harder because they assumed you needed a lot of depth of knowledge of many aspects,, your class, the area, the mob types, immunities, safe areas, zone lines, ex. Nowadays you are teleported in and if you have your spells on your hot bar or roll fast enuf your good to go. And even if you die today it's no big deal, a couple silver and your back to where you died.Death stung back then. So you didn't die much. You communicated together. You had a plan before the pull, if it started to go south you had a plan B. A group would stay or 'camp' a room if they felt comfortable there rather than pushing it further because further they almost lost it. You studied maps of dungeons and mobs and drops, and trap door locations(yes death pits) before you even went into a little 4-5 person dungeon because you had to. Harder= no More knowledge required= yes
I totally forgot about resistances. In daoc you had different kinds of dmg, such as slashing, thrusting, and crushing, then different kinds of elemental dmg. Mobs were resistant to certain kinds of dmg, which made them harder to take down depending on what weapons you used. The game required you to assign points to a certain type of weapon, such as slashing weapons, so you were specialized, unlike jack of all trade games of today. Even the armor players wore affected the damage they received, and not in the way people are used to now. The armor you wore was resistant to 1 of the dmg types, neutral to 1, and vulnerable to one.
This was the case with EQ but guess what EQ is still here and just had an expansion, no one is stopping the OP from playing or anyone else for that matter.
New EQ1 been changed to EZmode as well. No more corpse retrievals and you can get companions, kind of like swtor. Lol.
Ah well, lucky for me i play Vanguard where their is xp lost and tomb runs and no companions. I play Vanguard where it does take months to level just adventuring let alone crafting and dilomacy. To level all three will take you a year and then you have the vast non instanced world that is vast.
On top of that you have 19 races and 15 classes plus so much content that playing for 5 years i still have not done or seen every area or every dungeon.
The more challenging something is, the more people will try. Goals feel like victories instead of a checklist thats readily getting marked off. I remember playin the EQ way back in the day, whenever someone would level up they would shout "DING" and everyone in the zone would send them a congrats, because it was a big deal. Developers after that created new "ding" affects with lights and sound, then with leveling made easier it happens constantly.
The leveling example I put is just a small part of it. and developers still took that away. Another part is what WoW did with end game. Why not make the entire game with dungeons, places to explore, and "epic" mobs to defeat rather than waiting until after you've maxed your character so people don't feel that it's a must to be maxed out. Anyone remember LFG to kill crush? heck, that was waaay in the beginning and you didn't see people just leveling up and soloing that part did you? So much fun back then, too bad.
I miss dinging a lvl and shouting it out it felt like you acualy achived something. As for crush that guy was amazing get a thron room group to kill crush then suddenly ambassador dvinn (think that was his name) would spawn and kick ur but cause he was like a lvl 27 mob in a lvl 15 area. Good old times right there, i think i miss is higher lvl mobs in the lower lvl zones it made you fear somthing and feel immersive. Remember those hill/sand giant especialy during the night those thing could sneak up on you and you will be running for your life
and a whole generation of gamers has come in and taken over the scene who never played a real MMO and have no idea what one is.
That's funny, pretty much exactly what roleplayers said when the first MMO's opened. LOLRP.
They were talking about the "RPG" part, of course. Dwindling quickly and almost gone?
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.
Thank you, yes. You pass introduction to Hyperbole 110.
It's not strange or surprising that an entire generation of gamers has turned into nonstop whiners though; that's happened several times before. Every time an individual comes to realize he has no personal control over the market.
The arcade kids didn't like the collapse of the arcade industry, either.
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.
Yes it is and all video games are to easy. I have stopped playinhg all video games and just went playing PnP RPGs. Video games today have no entertainment value that they are a waste of time and money and it is what the masses want to play.
Thank you, yes. You pass introduction to Hyperbole 110.
It's not strange or surprising that an entire generation of gamers has turned into nonstop whiners though; that's happened several times before. Every time an individual comes to realize he has no personal control over the market.
too bad you didn't realize i was pointing out how ......... obvious & superflous your comment was. as is your current one.
The problem is developers listening to players. I know, that seems odd. Let me tell you, working with people every day you learn that the general population just isn't very smart. Tell people that they don't have to wear seatbelts or helmets, natural selection plays out.
People take the path of least resistance. Of course people are going to say they don't want Corpse Runs or EXP loss on death. They would probably also gladly take a full set of the best gear in any game as well, and promptly quit the game the next day.
You can't give people everything they want. It takes the risk out of risk v reward. It takes the excitement factor out. It takes away any sense of accomplishment or feeling of danger while playing the game.
This is why older games were so much more successful at retaining players. They drew a physiological response from players in all aspects of the game, rather than just people hoping a certain item drops or they win it.
Yes, people are looking at the "good old days" with nostalgia.
Needless time sinks and badly programmed combat systems do not equate to difficulty.
I would disagree. Today's MMOs only have maybe 10% of the content and features of old MMOs. They only focus on combat and graphics. Not to meantion it is all instanced. All MMOs are grinds and today's MMOs are more mindless grinding than old school MMOs. Because they don't have any content. MMOs are suppose to be like playing PnP RPGs not single player action adventures that are not MMOs.
too bad you didn't realize i was pointing out how ......... obvious & superflous your comment was. as is your current one.
Or you, how easily reduced your original premise up there was.
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.
The arcade kids didn't like the collapse of the arcade industry, either.
you're talking to completely the wrong person, about the wrong things.
the past entire 15 years of MMOs has been the Dark Ages off MMOs, with mainly one good aspect.
i WANT the past 15 years to be largely erased.
but NOT the one (mainly) good aspect. the MMO part. which until recently was the main thing getting cut from a lot of modern MMOs.
i'm GLAD to see now people are starting to get the right idea and moving away from all the socially destructive aspects of RPG mechanics. i have a lot of hope for the future of MMOs and see 2012 as just the beginning of a much brighter future.
Originally posted by Xiaoki MMOs were never hard. Yes, people are looking at the "good old days" with nostalgia. Needless time sinks and badly programmed combat systems do not equate to difficulty.
I would disagree. Today's MMOs only have maybe 10% of the content and features of old MMOs. They only focus on combat and graphics. Not to meantion it is all instanced. All MMOs are grinds and today's MMOs are more mindless grinding than old school MMOs. Because they don't have any content. MMOs are suppose to be like playing PnP RPGs not single player action adventures that are not MMOs.
Can you give a time scale of todays mmos are you talking GW2 or Rift or AOC or further back.
The arcade kids didn't like the collapse of the arcade industry, either.
you're talking to completely the wrong person, about the wrong things.
the past entire 15 years of MMOs has been the Dark Ages off MMOs, with mainly one good aspect.
i WANT the past 15 years to be largely erased.
but NOT the one (mainly) good aspect. the MMO part. which until recently was the main thing getting cut from a lot of modern MMOs.
i'm GLAD to see now people are starting to get the right idea and moving away from all the socially destructive aspects of RPG mechanics. i have a lot of hope for the future of MMOs and see 2012 as just the beginning of a much brighter future.
put that in your assumptive pipe and smoke it.
May I ask what you see that brings you this view? The MMO industry for the last few years has been a huge let down for me. I would like to hear your thoughts on why you see a much brighter future.
Originally posted by ozmono I wonder if people look at MMOs at a time when they enjoyed them better and start attributing the inevitable decline of interest with them on things like difficulty. Or in other words are people just wearing nostalgia glasses or is game difficulty really so much worse nowdays and as detrimental to current MMOs as some would have you believe?
Its realy sad how most mmo's are so easy including the mmo i play now GW2, its way to easy dungeons included:(
Let me ask you other question: Do you look up info on game like wiki guides maps for resources walkthroughs?
I go 100% blanco into game and find out 95% myself other 5% is from what i learn ingame sometimes when im with group.
Am i only one who play game pure without and HINTS & TIPS?
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
There used to be an elite mob in the WoW starting area. Once you got to a level 20 or 30 zone you would find elite mobs in the open world for zone final quests. In the olden days these missions and mobs where doable because there were random people in the area to pug with. Now a days puging is looked on with distaste and some zones are just empty. Plus more and more players just want to be able to solo.
Then WoW did away with most open world elites, and shortened the leveling time. If WoW does it, then the industry does it and most mmorpgs were dumbed down. True under the old rules it was always possible to avoid doing the elite mob until you had outleveled them. Most posts of “I soloed this hard quest” were done by twinks that simply out leveled it.
All games have exploits that can make leveling quicker and or easier, even back in the good old days. In the case of AC they are considered game features.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Last Word War, combined with Condescending Tennis? No, but thanks.
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.
Comments
True, so I do stand partially corrected in that regard.
The reason I play MMO's is because of the long-term reward of knowing that I've invested in a character and have something to show for it that I am proud of. Time is required, no doubt. I think you are right that patience and endurance are qualities that should be rewarded and can add difficulty to the mix. Sadly, these are not proving to be profitable skills to reward if you talk to most of today's developers. I'm not saying I like it, I'm simply making an observation.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
The problem is most modern mmo players actually HATE what mmorpgs used to stand for.
I will not defend wether it was worse or better but the point is those games were our type of games and now they have been shifted into something else for a whole different kind of customer, as opposed to making diff games for both groups.
Wizardry Online my friend. Not the best looking mmo coming out, but definitely one of the "hardest". If your old school be sure to check it out.
BigCountry | Head Hunters | www.wefarmpeople.com
The more challenging something is, the more people will try. Goals feel like victories instead of a checklist thats readily getting marked off. I remember playin the EQ way back in the day, whenever someone would level up they would shout "DING" and everyone in the zone would send them a congrats, because it was a big deal. Developers after that created new "ding" affects with lights and sound, then with leveling made easier it happens constantly.
The leveling example I put is just a small part of it. and developers still took that away. Another part is what WoW did with end game. Why not make the entire game with dungeons, places to explore, and "epic" mobs to defeat rather than waiting until after you've maxed your character so people don't feel that it's a must to be maxed out. Anyone remember LFG to kill crush? heck, that was waaay in the beginning and you didn't see people just leveling up and soloing that part did you? So much fun back then, too bad.
Perma-death is not hard, it is stupid in an Internet game where you can have disconnections and lag not to mention just crashes. I would prefer the middle ground where dying stings but dont wipe your character.
My gaming blog
no. the problem is that they aren't MMOs anymore.
and a whole generation of gamers has come in and taken over the scene who never played a real MMO and have no idea what one is.
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
yah
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
the controls in this game are what keep me from coming back, they just havent put any thought into that at all.
I totally forgot about resistances. In daoc you had different kinds of dmg, such as slashing, thrusting, and crushing, then different kinds of elemental dmg. Mobs were resistant to certain kinds of dmg, which made them harder to take down depending on what weapons you used. The game required you to assign points to a certain type of weapon, such as slashing weapons, so you were specialized, unlike jack of all trade games of today. Even the armor players wore affected the damage they received, and not in the way people are used to now. The armor you wore was resistant to 1 of the dmg types, neutral to 1, and vulnerable to one.
This was the case with EQ but guess what EQ is still here and just had an expansion, no one is stopping the OP from playing or anyone else for that matter.
New EQ1 been changed to EZmode as well. No more corpse retrievals and you can get companions, kind of like swtor. Lol.
Ah well, lucky for me i play Vanguard where their is xp lost and tomb runs and no companions. I play Vanguard where it does take months to level just adventuring let alone crafting and dilomacy. To level all three will take you a year and then you have the vast non instanced world that is vast.On top of that you have 19 races and 15 classes plus so much content that playing for 5 years i still have not done or seen every area or every dungeon.
I miss dinging a lvl and shouting it out it felt like you acualy achived something. As for crush that guy was amazing get a thron room group to kill crush then suddenly ambassador dvinn (think that was his name) would spawn and kick ur but cause he was like a lvl 27 mob in a lvl 15 area. Good old times right there, i think i miss is higher lvl mobs in the lower lvl zones it made you fear somthing and feel immersive. Remember those hill/sand giant especialy during the night those thing could sneak up on you and you will be running for your life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKDkvy9sKuY
^ Good times, the text at the intro holds alot of meaning when it comes to making a world.
That's funny, pretty much exactly what roleplayers said when the first MMO's opened. LOLRP.
They were talking about the "RPG" part, of course. Dwindling quickly and almost gone?
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.
this is what everybody says about everything.
i'm not at all moaning the loss of RPGs.
whether that be sp, mp, online or p&p. notice, i said nothing about RPGs in my post.
just the online open world (MMO) part, is all i was addressing.
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
Thank you, yes. You pass introduction to Hyperbole 110.
It's not strange or surprising that an entire generation of gamers has turned into nonstop whiners though; that's happened several times before. Every time an individual comes to realize he has no personal control over the market.
The arcade kids didn't like the collapse of the arcade industry, either.
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.
too bad you didn't realize i was pointing out how ......... obvious & superflous your comment was. as is your current one.
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
The problem is developers listening to players. I know, that seems odd. Let me tell you, working with people every day you learn that the general population just isn't very smart. Tell people that they don't have to wear seatbelts or helmets, natural selection plays out.
People take the path of least resistance. Of course people are going to say they don't want Corpse Runs or EXP loss on death. They would probably also gladly take a full set of the best gear in any game as well, and promptly quit the game the next day.
You can't give people everything they want. It takes the risk out of risk v reward. It takes the excitement factor out. It takes away any sense of accomplishment or feeling of danger while playing the game.
This is why older games were so much more successful at retaining players. They drew a physiological response from players in all aspects of the game, rather than just people hoping a certain item drops or they win it.
I would disagree. Today's MMOs only have maybe 10% of the content and features of old MMOs. They only focus on combat and graphics. Not to meantion it is all instanced. All MMOs are grinds and today's MMOs are more mindless grinding than old school MMOs. Because they don't have any content. MMOs are suppose to be like playing PnP RPGs not single player action adventures that are not MMOs.
Or you, how easily reduced your original premise up there was.
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.
you're talking to completely the wrong person, about the wrong things.
the past entire 15 years of MMOs has been the Dark Ages off MMOs, with mainly one good aspect.
i WANT the past 15 years to be largely erased.
but NOT the one (mainly) good aspect. the MMO part. which until recently was the main thing getting cut from a lot of modern MMOs.
i'm GLAD to see now people are starting to get the right idea and moving away from all the socially destructive aspects of RPG mechanics. i have a lot of hope for the future of MMOs and see 2012 as just the beginning of a much brighter future.
put that in your assumptive pipe and smoke it.
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
how easily misconstrued and fit into your cliched assumptions is more like it. see above.
---------------------------
Corpus Callosum
---------------------------
I would disagree. Today's MMOs only have maybe 10% of the content and features of old MMOs. They only focus on combat and graphics. Not to meantion it is all instanced. All MMOs are grinds and today's MMOs are more mindless grinding than old school MMOs. Because they don't have any content. MMOs are suppose to be like playing PnP RPGs not single player action adventures that are not MMOs.
Can you give a time scale of todays mmos are you talking GW2 or Rift or AOC or further back.May I ask what you see that brings you this view? The MMO industry for the last few years has been a huge let down for me. I would like to hear your thoughts on why you see a much brighter future.
Its realy sad how most mmo's are so easy including the mmo i play now GW2, its way to easy dungeons included:(
Let me ask you other question: Do you look up info on game like wiki guides maps for resources walkthroughs?
I go 100% blanco into game and find out 95% myself other 5% is from what i learn ingame sometimes when im with group.
Am i only one who play game pure without and HINTS & TIPS?
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
There used to be an elite mob in the WoW starting area. Once you got to a level 20 or 30 zone you would find elite mobs in the open world for zone final quests. In the olden days these missions and mobs where doable because there were random people in the area to pug with. Now a days puging is looked on with distaste and some zones are just empty. Plus more and more players just want to be able to solo.
Then WoW did away with most open world elites, and shortened the leveling time. If WoW does it, then the industry does it and most mmorpgs were dumbed down. True under the old rules it was always possible to avoid doing the elite mob until you had outleveled them. Most posts of “I soloed this hard quest” were done by twinks that simply out leveled it.
All games have exploits that can make leveling quicker and or easier, even back in the good old days. In the case of AC they are considered game features.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Last Word War, combined with Condescending Tennis? No, but thanks.
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.